>> I did not ask, how a great man can be. From birth, so it is not important. I asked what a great life is, and how one can lead it.
This is, as such, of course, too clever. It is almost philosophy. Cast aside all its solemnity, and even my defence against the semblance of cleverness and philosophy.
They say that a great man is special and rare. He is the genius. The exception. That is, the cripple, the fool. Finally, he is the madman. In this interpretation, I fancy to see the revenge of those who degrade the great man and declare him to be an exception, so that they can fend off from themselves the compulsion of the great man, which applies even to them.
The great man's secret is not being a madman. On the contrary, it is being sane. Not being an exception but being universal and normal. Exceptions are the others. A madman is one who is not like him. Great life is the normal human life, and the life of the crowd is the madhouse and the circus. The great man's secret is being the only one who doesn't have any secrets. He is the universal, general, natural, simple and real human.
The rest is all secrets, enigmae, confusion, exceptions, riddles, sensation, peculiarity, contortion, foolishness, circus, madness. Only by the great man can you recognise the real human.
As long as I thought the great man an exception, my situation was as hopeless as anybody else's. I was to realise that one has to be born a great man. There is no other way to become one. In the interpretation saying that he is not only normal but the sane and real human, I reached the real question. I could easily say, the essential is not how a great man can exist, but how a great life can be led. And this question is simply and solely, how a real, normal, sane life can be lived. This is the first among all the questions.
There isn't an answer to the former question as it is a question of exception. There is one to the latter, for it is a question of everyone. One either is or isn't born as a great man. Normal life can be achieved by anyone. It can be achieved by learning how to turn a fallible and frail, wasted and abnormal, foolish and sick, contorted and exceptional, peculiar and confused life into a normal and complete, sane and meaningful, universal and clear, inctact and real one. <<
Compiled text by Béla Hamvas's "Unicornis"- from Kriegsfall-U.
On the pictures: José Antonio Primo de Rivera, István Kaszap SJ
