Quotes of the Week 93 - Carlos Castaneda

It’s possible to insist, to properly insist, even though we know that what we’re doing is useless. But we must know first that our acts are useless and yet we must proceed as if we didn’t know it. That’s a sorcerer’s controlled folly.
I am happy that you finally asked me about my controlled folly after so many years, and yet it wouldn’t have mattered to me in the least if you had never asked. Yet I have chosen to feel happy, as if I cared that you asked, as if it would matter that I care. That is controlled folly!
Certain things in your life matter to you because they’re important; your acts are certainly important to you, but for me, not a single thing is important any longer, neither my acts nor the acts of any of my fellow men. I go on living, though, because I have my will. Because I have tempered my will throughout my life until it’s neat and wholesome and now it doesn’t matter to me that nothing matters. My will controls the folly of my life.
Our eyes look so we may laugh, or cry, or rejoice, or be sad, or be happy. I personally don’t like to be sad, so whenever I witness something that would ordinarily make me sad, I simply shift my eyes and see it instead of looking at it. But when I encounter something funny I look and I laugh.
Our lot as men is to learn.
Only as a warrior can one survive the path of knowledge, because the art of a warrior is to balance the terror of being a man with the wonder of being a man.
The idea of death is the only thing that tempers our spirit.

-- The words of Don Juan Matus from the works of Carlos Castaneda