Recently, I have been experiencing this increasingly strong sensation: a hint of eternity sneaks into my daily, even the most trivial activities and feelings. I am not the only one who is tired, sick, sad, or anxious: I am so in tune with millions of other people over the past centuries. All of this encompasses life. Life is beautiful and full of meaning even in its absurdity, as long as we learn to find the right place for everything in it and carry it in its completeness. After all, it then creates a perfect whole, regardless of how it unfolds. When we reject some of its elements and try to eliminate them, when we focus only on a certain pleasure or dimension, when we acknowledge only some aspect of life and reject another, life ultimately becomes absurd. When the whole is lost to us, everything is just a coincidence, it lacks meaning.
(Etty Hillesum /1914–1943/, diary entry)
