In Search of the Miraculous

are too weak to struggle with and conquer life, dream of the ways, or what they

consider are ways, because they think it will be easier for them than life and because

this, so to speak. Justifies their weakness and their inadaptability. A man who can be a

good obyvatel is much more helpful from the point of view of the way than a 'tramp'

who thinks himself much higher than an obyvatel. I call 'tramps' all the so-called

'intelligentsia'— artists, poets, any kind of 'bohemian' in general, who despises the

obyvatel and who at the same time would be unable to exist without him. Ability to orientate oneself in life is a very useful quality from the point of view of work. A good obyvatel should be able to support at least twenty persons by his own labor. What is a man worth who is unable to do this?"

"What does obyvatel actually mean?" asked somebody. "Can it be said that an obyvatel is a good citizen?"

"Ought an obyvatel to be patriotic?" someone else asked. "Let us suppose there is war. What attitude should an obyvatel have towards war?"

"There can be different wars and there can be different patriots," said G. "You all still believe in words. An obyvatel, if he is a good obyvatel, does not believe in words.

He realizes how much idle talk is hidden behind them. People who shout about their

patriotism are psychopaths for him and he looks upon them as such."

"And how would an obyvatel look upon pacifists or upon people who refuse to go to the war?"

"Equally as lunatics! They are probably still worse."

On another occasion in connection with the same question G. said:

"A good deal is incomprehensible to you because you do not take into account the

meaning of some of the most simple words, for instance,

' you have never thought what to be serious means. Try to give yourselves an answer to the question what being serious means."

"To have a serious attitude towards things," someone said.

"That is exactly what everybody thinks, actually it is exactly the reverse," said G.

"To have a serious attitude towards things does not at all mean being serious because the principal question is, towards what things? Very many people have a serious

attitude towards trivial things. Can they be called serious? Of course not.

"The mistake is that the concept 'serious' is taken conditionally. One thing is serious for one man and another thing for another man. In reality seriousness is one of the

concepts which can never and under no circumstances be taken conditionally. Only

one thing is serious for all people at all times. A man may be more aware of it or less

aware of it but the seriousness of things will not alter on this account.

"If a man could understand all the horror of the lives of ordinary people who are

turning round in a circle of insignificant interests and insignificant aims, if he could

understand what they are losing, he would understand that there can be only one thing

that is serious for him—to escape from the general law, to be free. What can be

serious for a man in prison who is condemned to death? Only one thing: How to save

himself, how to escape: nothing else is serious.

"When I say that an obyvatel is more serious than a 'tramp' or a 'lunatic,' I mean by this that, accustomed to deal with real values, an obyvatel values the possibilities of the 'ways' and the possibilities of 'liberation' or 'salvation' better and quicker than a man who is accustomed all his life to a circle of imaginary values, imaginary interests,

and imaginary possibilities.

"People who are not serious for the obyvatel are people who live by fantasies, chiefly by the fantasy that they are able to do something. The obyvatel knows that they only deceive people, promise them God knows what, and that actually they are

simply arranging affairs for themselves—or they are lunatics, which is still worse, in

other words they believe everything that people say."

"To what category do politicians belong who speak contemptuously about

'obyvatel,' 'obyvatels' opinions,' 'obyvatels' interests'?" someone asked.

"They are the worst kind of obyvatels," said G., "that is, obyvatels without any positive redeeming features, or they are charlatans, lunatics, or knaves."

"But may there not be honest and decent people among politicians?" someone

asked.

"Certainly there may be," said G., "but in this case they are not prac-

tical people, they are dreamers, and they will be used by other people as screens to

cover their own obscure affairs.

"The obyvatel perhaps may not know it in a philosophical way, that is to say, he is not able to formulate it, but he knows that things 'do themselves' simply through his

own practical shrewdness, therefore, in his heart, he laughs at people who think, or

who want to assure him, that they signify anything, that anything depends on their