FINAL WORDS

FINAL WORDS A fter finishing this writing, one day I was talking to a friend about it when these words slipped from my lips: “When I think that this writing will someday be published and seen by people, I feel ashamed. It seems to me as if I am exposing myself.” These words, which I said to my dear friend, are my apology for this lengthy writing. Over a long period, the moments of my days and nights—known surely to God—stand as witness that writing something like this has brought me no joy. This is not a “pleasant tale” that I have chosen to narrate at length. Rather, it is the pain of the heart that, unable to remain contained, has poured out. The truth is that if I were given a choice between two things—either to go on living in order to express the thoughts surging within me, or to be taken away from this world, where a person is bound to present whatever he sees as truth without holding anything back—I would, without hesitation, choose the latter. For me, death would be better than a life in which I must carry out this bitter duty: to speak about the intellectual and practical shortcomings of those with