Steppenwolf

Julio Bittencourt

What keeps humanity back and tortures the unique individual; meaning humanity’s greatest hope. The individual who is solidly convinced that suffers endlessly; individuals who believe themselves to be the most unlucky of all they ever met. The one that thinks is cursed by God, or any other superior forces.

Ø  A lie; a lie designed by God, the only God, to trick the believers.

The household budget became even smaller; so now the maid was dismissed; an enormous, thick-boned charwoman with white hair that flapped around her head came every morning and evening to do the heaviest work; everything else was looked after by Gregor’s mother on top of the large amount of sewing work she did. Gregor even learned, listening to the evening conversation about what price they had hoped for, that several items of jewellery belonging to the family had been sold, even though both mother and sister had been very fond of wearing them at functions and celebrations. But the loudest complaint was that although the flat was much too big for their present circumstances, they could not move out of it, there was no imaginable way of transferring Gregor to the new address. He could see quite well, though, that there were more reasons than consideration for him that made it difficult for them to move, it would have been quite easy to transport him in any suitable crate with a few air holes in it; the main thing holding the family back from their decision to move was much more to do with their total despair, and the thought that they had been struck with a misfortune unlike anything experienced by anyone else they knew or were related to.

Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis, 1914.