Intolerable: reading about other men's despair makes my despair more tolerable.
Great men's great despair against my measly little one.
A "loneliness that is experienced together" (Blanchot). And the observation, still by Blanchot, that whoever uses the phrase "I am alone" is necessarily comical.
I have no idea who first "used" the line "this loneliness won't leave me alone", but at least Otis Redding used it, before many others, such as the band Portishead.
Depressive realism plus narcissism: I don't deserve myself.
A moment later, taking up Kafka's diaries, I come across these two subsequent notes ("Das dritte Oktavheft", Nov. 21, 1917):
Das Böse weiß vom Guten, aber das Gute vom Bösen nicht.
Selbsterkenntnis hat nur das Böse.
After another moment, this one (Jan. 14, 1918):
Es gibt nur zweierlei: Wahrheit und Lüge.
Wahrheit ist unteilbar, kann sich also selbst nicht erkennen; wer sie erkennen will, muß Lüge sein.
