Friendly Sunday Protesting

"Yes: man is in fact nailed down - like Christ on the cross - to a grid of paradoxes: stretched betweem the horizontal world and the vertical of Being; dragged down by the hopelessness of existing-in-the-world on the one hand, and the unattainability of the absolute on the other, he balances between the torment of not knowing his mission and the joy of carrying it out, between nothingness and meaningfulness. And like Christ, he is in fact victorious, by virtue of his defeats; through perceiving absurdity, he once again finds meaning; through personal failure, he once more discovers responsibility; through the defeat of several prison sentences, he gains a victory-at the very least-over himself (as an object of worldly temptations); and through death - his last and greatest defeat - he finally triumphs over his fragmentation..." - Vaclav Havel (Letters, p 375)

I'm not quite sure about the prison sentences, but apart from that, I've never thought of Christ as a victor over himself, over fragmentation. Is the fragmentation the human-God split? is it the division of good and bad desires and denials in his body/mind?

I wonder how much of a humanist Havel considers himself to be... despite his commitment to human rights and good government, his desire to live in the truth and to have others live in the truth puts the pursuit of Being over all other things.

But I don't think his Being is God. I think his Being is the zeitgeist of the True man - an ever coming next man, the man who takes responsibility for all he does, the man who does not delude himself about his existence, the man who won't allow himself to be forgiven and who in turn forgives not either. The next man is everyone and No-one. He rides a sweeping current up to his maker. And there he says: "hello."