Secular society, in its purity, ignores ritual ceremonies. But ridding itself of them is not easy. To achieve this, squads of protestants had to clear the way, leaving as a legacy, among other things, the religious wars, a model for every civil war, and a certain way of behaving, a model for that chimera that was later to be called “secular morality.” Rituals survive in secular society for certain legal necessities: the swearing of oaths in trials, the preset pattern of words in marriages. All the rest are ingrained customs, such as birthdays. The same with military processions or New Year speeches by heads of state. Customs that come and go, practices that we can—if we wish—ignore. Strictly speaking, with a little care and planning, we could avoid being involved in any kind of ritual, from the cradle to the grave. For death there are no rites. Not even at funerals. At such moments even established customs seem particularly feeble.
Waking up each morning, rain or shine, and knowing there are no duties to follow. Making coffee, looking out the window. A feeling of blankness. Indifference. To reach this state, various millennia had passed. But nothing remained of it, apart from an opaque curtain, on all sides. No one celebrated this fact as an achievement. It was normality, reached at last. A characterless state, prior to desires. A mute foundation to existence. There would be no shortage of time for whims, plans, survival strategies. And this was the central point: time was not taken up, measured, assailed by obligatory gestures, without which there was a fear that all might fall apart. This might well have produced a feeling of exhilaration. But it was not to be. Indeed, the first sensation was of emptiness. And with it, a certain tedium. The metaphysical animal looked around, not knowing what to grasp hold of.
Roberto Calasso
Ardor
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