ANAÏS NIN

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I knew I could not separate myself from the world’s death, even though I was not one of those who brought it about. I had to make clear the relation of our individual dramas to the larger one, and our responsibility. I was never one with the world, yet I was to be destroyed with it. I always lived seeing beyond it. I was not in harmony with its explosions and collapse. I had, as an artist, another rhythm, another death, another renewal. 

That was it. I was not at one with the world, I was seeking to create one by other rules. And therefore how could I die in tune with it? I could only die in my own time, by my own evolutions. I did not belong to any epoch, for I had made my home in man’s most active cells, the cells of his dreams. Through love, compassion, desire, you get entangled and confused. But the artist is not there to be at one with the world, she is there to transform it. (S)he cannot belong to it, for then (s)he would not achieve his/her task, which is to change. The struggle against destruction which I lived out in my intimate relationships had to be transposed and become of use to the whole world.