Anyone who demands to know exactly what he really thinks of a thing, whether he is making a laughing or a serious face, must be given up for lost; for he knows how to encompass both in a single facial expression; he likewise knows how, and even wants to be in the right and the wrong at the same time, to knot together profundity and farce. His digressions are at the same time continuations of the same story, his aphorisms and expression of an attitude of irony towards all sententiousness; his antipathy to seriousness is united with a tendency to be unable to regard anything with mere superficiality.
In short, the idea of quizzing is to bring together things that one sees, hears, reads about as life flashes by and to try to understand them, connect them. It is a way of making sense of the world around oneself and above all, figuring out life itself. But, all of this is ultimately in the service of the prenominated expression of how knowing is ultimately, not really knowing. But at least one can take solace in knowing that she/he doesn't know and there is transcendence to be achieved in “wanting” to know.
|