Philosophy

We evolve from the unconscious to total awareness

and spiral once back to our dark source through many paths

to what we knew in the beginning.

From there we get expelled without mercy

into the prison of doubt: philosophy.

And slowly make our first steps

in the maze of irony.

What follows is intense contemplation,

through many polished mirrors.

We are caught in the cold darkness

of the mind's iron grid

mired in the icy split,

the frozen pit of world contempt.

But then we are guided back

through the narrow gate of conscious wisdom

to the bittersweet bliss of the elder peace

grounded on well-earned self-contempt.

By: Hermann Hesse