It could occur to someone looking back over the debris of history that many of the calamities
befalling peoples and nations originated in persons who had the traits of a destructive character.
He would stumble on this fact one day, perhaps by chance, and the heavier the shock dealt
to him, the better his chances of representing the destructive character of his own time.
The destructive character knows only one watchword, make room, and only one activity, clearing
away.
His delight in tearing down is stronger than any hatred of what others have built up.
Destroying rejuvenates because it clears away the traces of age.
It cheers because everything cleared away means to the destroyer a complete reduction, indeed
a rooting out of his own condition.
What contributes most of all to the destroyer's Apollonian image is the realization of how
the world is simplified when tested for its worthiness of destruction.
The clarity that comes from demolition is the great bond embracing and unifying all that
exists.
It is a sight that affords the destructive character a spectacle of deepest harmony.
From that spectacle comes his love of the stage and the exuberant leap of his musketeer.
The destructive character is always blithely at work.
It is nature that dictates his tempo, indirectly at least, for he must forestall her.
Otherwise, she will take over the destruction herself.
No vision inspires the destructive character.
He has few needs, and the least of them is to know what will replace what has been destroyed.
First of all, for a moment at least, empty space where the offices of the rest publica
stood or the victim lived.
One is sure to be found who needs this space without its being filled.
Just as the creator seeks solitude, the destroyer must be constantly surrounded by people,
witnesses to his efficacy.
The destructive character is a signal.
As a trigonometric sign is exposed on all sides to the wind, so he is exposed to rumour.
To protect him from it is pointless.
The destructive character has no interest in being understood, attempts in this direction
he regards as superficial.
Being misunderstood cannot harm him.
On the contrary, he provokes it, just as oracles, those destructive institutions of the
state provoked it.
His understanding and chaos are his native element when others flail, he thrives.
The destructive character is the enemy of the Itwee Man.
The Itwee Man looks for comfort, and the ornamental case is its quintessence.
The inside of the case is the velvet line trace that he has imprinted on the world.
The destructive character obliterates even the traces of destruction.
Not Athena, but Maga Cersei is his goddess.
She of the magic potions who reduces her offenders to animals and psycho fans.
The destructive character stands in the front line of the traditional lists.
Some people pass things down to posterity by making them untouchable and thus conserving
them.
Others pass on situations by making them bracketable and thus liquidating them.
The destructive character loaths the world for the fact that he is a late comer to it.
Since its story unfolded without him, only in its unmaking does it become great again.
The destructive character has the consciousness of historical man, whose deepest emotion
is an insufferable mistrust of the course of things, and a readiness at all times to recognize
that everything can go wrong.
Therefore the destructive character is reliability itself.
The destructive character sees nothing permanent.
But for this very reason, he sees ways everywhere.
Where others encounter walls or mountains, there too, he sees away.
But because he sees away everywhere, he has to clear things from it everywhere.
Not always by brute force, sometimes by the most refined.
Because he sees ways everywhere, he always stands at a crossroads.
No moment can know what the next will bring, what exists, he reduces to rubble.
Not for the sake of rubble, but for the way leading through it.
The destructive character lives from the feeling, not that life is worth living, but that
suicide is not worth the trouble.
The destructive man is essentially incredulous.
He cannot believe his good fortune.
When he cannot understand, and the question he takes with him to the grave is why God
seems to love him.