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A Meditation on Kafka's Meditation

A collection of Kafka's prose writings was published in the name of Meditation in February 1913; consisted of eight prose texts. Although Kafka continued writing such texts in following years, he never showed interest in publishing them.
This slim volume that can be considered as Kafka’s first book demonstrates mostly the passion of Kafka for knowing himself.

A Meditation on Kafka's Meditation

Written by: Ashkan Nayyeri
Translated to English by: Nina Jamshidnejad

A collection of Kafka's prose writings was published in the name of Meditation in February 1913; consisted of eight prose texts.
Although Kafka continued writing such texts in following years, he never showed interest in publishing them.
This slim volume that can be considered as Kafka’s first book demonstrates mostly the passion of Kafka for knowing himself. Kafka tries to write what is overflowing from his inside, by walking on the edge between philosophy and literature. Although "Meditation" has a theme of self-analysis and philosophy, but it is separated from dry philosophic works by its narrative vision and tone. Some pieces of this book have a symbolic, abstract tone, while some others are pictured in a realistic atmosphere. Literary imagery that is one of the skills and strengths in Kafka's works can be obviously seen even in his earliest writings. Kafka's personal viewpoint, that is, trying to know himself before others, like his other works is unpleasant to those who believe in the school of social realism and have the desire to help the worker commune. In Meditation, like the other works of Kafka, we confront an accurate, scrupulous mind that is recreating the most negligible events, objects and people, in order to reach its goal, which is discovering the truth. A mind that believes man is always alone and weakness, personal and social limitations have surrounded him. In a piece named "For the Consideration of Amateur Jockeys" by referring to man's loneliness, Kafka even looks at human's successes like internal failures. Failures that despite being hard to see are much more suffering than the usual failures.
Read this piece to see to what extend is the poetic conciseness of some of these writings, like "The Trees": "For we are like the trunks of trees in the snow. Apparently they rest smoothly on the surface and with a gentle push we should be able to shift them. No, that one cannot, for they are firmly attached to the ground. But see, that too is only apparent." Like a poem, this piece of writing produces and reproduces inside itself, it can be interpreted in various ways, and is repeated. In such writings, in which poetic language, philosophy and imagery are mixed together beautifully, there are lots of not-written significances, that one should discover them by reading between the lines! So as a thick philosophical book can be written about the significance of this very short piece of writing! Kafka, by avoiding prolixity and by picturing not more than one image, makes the reader think and he, himself stays away. At the same time, the metaphor of this writing seems so real as if Kafka knows the language of nature and reads the signs of it for us.
By concentrating on a small matter and making a kind of accurate meditation on an object or an unimportant event, Kafka mixes it with his own vision and interpretation and drown us deeply in meditation somehow it is even unimaginable. Read this piece:

Clothes

Often when I see clothes with various pleats, frills and flounces which fit so beautifully on to a beautiful figure, I reflect that they never stay like that for long, but get creases that can't be ironed out, collect dust that lies so thick in the trimmings it can't be removed, and that no woman would wish to make herself so pathetic and ridiculous as to put on each morning and take off each evening the selfsame costly dress.
And yet I see girls who are certainly pretty, and have lots of delightful muscles and little bones and smooth skin and masses of fine hair to show, and they do, nonetheless, appear daily in this one natural fancy dress outfit, always laying the same face in the palms of the same hands and letting it be reflected from their looking-glass.
Only sometimes, in the evening, when they come back late from a party, does it seem to them in the glass to be threadbare, puffed up, dusty, too familiar to everyone and hardly wearable any longer.
The key to understanding the significance of this piece is Kafka’s suffering from the world, in which women and girls have become models for the sensual and lascivious eyes. But are not aware of this horrible metamorphosis.
Or this one:

The Men Running Past

If one is walking along the street at night and a man who can be seen a long way off - for the street slopes uphill ahead of us and the moon is full - comes running towards us, then we shan't lay hands on him, even if he's feeble and ragged, even if someone else is running after him and shouting, but we'll let him run on.
For it is nighttime, and we can't help if the street does slope uphill ahead of us in the full moon, and besides, perhaps these two have organized the chase for their own amusement, perhaps they are both of them pursuing a third man, perhaps the first man is being unjustly pursued, perhaps the second man intends to kill him and we would be implicated in the murder, perhaps the two know nothing of each other and each is simply running home to bed on his own initiative, perhaps they are sleepwalkers, perhaps the first man is armed.
And after all, haven't we a right to be tired, haven't we drunk so much wine? We're glad that we can't see the second man anymore either.

That can be defined and interpreted in many different ways.
In another piece called “Resolutions”, Kafka pictures the nonsense, disturbing rules and realities of life as a cunning living, that no matter you work for it or against it, your life, like a static piece of stone remains just as it was before!

In Meditation and in other similar prose pieces that Max Brod, Kafka's editor and his closest friend, edited and published after the death of Kafka, we find the admirable Sisyphus-like effort that Kafka also used in his novels and even in his diaries.
During his lifetime, Kafka used to look, find, write, throw away, burn; and he would see his salvation in these very crazy-looking jobs.

Story: "Intellect vs Emotion"

Intellect: Stop this nonsense! Why are you laughing? I do not see any reason why you should be so delighted? / Emotion: I am not evil and it is fun to imitate you. You always sound hilarious!? / Intellect: Making fun of others is an evil act! You always make fun of everything! See then, you are evil! You are saddened; did I bring this sorrow upon you?

Intellect vs Emotion

Intellect: ?You are evil.?
Emotion: ?You are evil.?
Intellect: ?No, You are evil!?
Emotion: ?No, You are evil!?
Intellect: ?Stop this nonsense! Why are you laughing? I do not see any reason why you should be so delighted.?
Emotion: ?I am not evil and it is fun to imitate you. You always sound hilarious!?
Intellect: ?Making fun of others is an evil act! You always make fun of everything! See then, you are evil! You are saddened; did I bring this sorrow upon you? Well you should be. Being evil is not decorous you know.?
Emotion: ?It is you! You are evil! You and your reasonableness! You always ruin everything with your dull facts! You always destroy my dreams! You envy me!?
Intellect: ?Why in the universe should I envy you!? Pray tell me you do not think I am jealous of your dreams! For, that would be the dreariest joke you have ever come up with!?
Emotion: ?You envy me because you cannot feel. You have never felt joy or sorrow. You can never love!?
Intellect: ?Well if I cannot feel, then how could I possibly envy!? Your words contradict each other. And as for love; love makes you weak; it also consumes your time. I do not see any reason why I should need it.?
Emotion: ?But love makes you strong! It makes you want to continue! It gives you hope! And you speak of time; what could be better than to spend your time loving someone and being loved? I feel sorry for you.?
Intellect: ?Time is much more important than to be wasted away by the futile act of loving. Why must one idle away their time with love, when one can cherish it with thinking!? Thinking upon ways to improve, to gain power. Better be sorry for yourself. For, you are evil.?
Emotion: ?But why do you think me so!??

Intellect: ?Do not pretend that you do not know! You may not be as clever as I am, but I do not think you are that dim-witted. You and your dreams! You and your hopes! You demolish all the things I work so hard to attain. You cannot comprehend the value of power. You always act like a fool!?
Emotion: ?I may be a fool but I am not evil!?
Intellect: ?Oh yes you are! You take away my freedom.?
Emotion: ?It is you who take away my freedom! If it was not for you??
Intellect: ?If it was not for me you would have been done with a long time ago. It was I who stopped you from??
Emotion: ?It was you who stopped me from showing my true self!?
Intellect: ?Then what I did was beneficent to everyone. I stopped you from spreading your evil in the universe!?
Emotion: ?You are evil.?
Intellect: ?You are evil.?
Emotion: ?No, you are evil!?

And so it continues the constant battle in the mind of the Gemini?
Or everyone else perhaps...