Simone Weil, eternally 34

And he is quite provocative at the end of his essay “The Sand in the Hourglass”:

If in our moments of happiness, mastery, ecstasy, we say Yes to heaven and to earth, and all we need is misfortune, sickness, the decline of physical powers to start screaming No, this means that all our judgments can be refuted tomorrow and that it is easy to mistake our life for the world. It is not obvious, however, why weakness—whether of a particular person or of an entire historical era—should be privileged and why the old nihilist from Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape should be closer to the truth than he himself was when he was twenty years old. 

 Miłosz closes his essay with an astonishing and succinct remark of Simone Weil’s: “‘I am suffering.’ It is better to say this than to say, ‘This landscape is ugly.’”

We make our reality.  This is true whether God is dead, or not.

Externals have influence.  The landscape can help or hurt.  But I choose my response.

Simone Weil also wrote, "I can, therefore I am."

I am not ready for nihilist wisdom.  Since I am choosing, I choose life and love and beauty.

Even as I decline, I would prefer to sing than scream.