## New highlights added ==2023-12-28 at 1:03 AM== - Quite possibly, what I call happiness may coincide with what others call the moment of imminent danger. For that world into which I blended without the medium of words, filling myself thereby with a sense of happiness, was none other than the tragic world. The tragedy, of course, was at that moment still unfulfilled; yet all the seeds of tragedy were within it; ruin was implicit in it; it lacked entirely any "future." Obviously, the basis of my happiness was the joy of having completely acquired the qualifications necessary to dwell therein. The basis of my pride was the feeling that I had acquired this precious passport, not through words, but through the cultivation of the body and that alone. This world that was the only place where I could breathe freely, that was so utterly remote from the commonplace and lacking in future—this world I had pursued unceasingly, ever since the war had ended, with a burning sense of frustration. But words had played no part in giving it to me; on the contrary, they had spurred me on ever farther and farther from it : for even the most destructive verbal expression was but an integral part of the artist's daily task. [(Location 632)](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BQF4B7FV&location=632) - Running, too, was a mystery. It immediately placed a non-routine burden on the heart, washing away the emotions of the daily round. Before long, my blood would not permit a halt of even a day or two. Something ceaselessly set me to work; my body could no longer tolerate indolence, but began instantly to thirst for violent action, forever urging me on. Thus for many a day I led a life that others might well dismiss as frenzied obsession. From the gymnasium to the fencing school, from the school to the gymnasium. . . . My solace lay more than anywhere—indeed lay solely—in the small rebirths that occurred immediately after exercise. Ceaseless motion, ceaseless violent deaths, ceaseless escape from cold objectivity—by now, I could no longer live without such mysteries. And—needless to say—within each mystery there lay a small imitation of death. [(Location 789)](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BQF4B7FV&location=789)