Certainly he was a most inconvenient and indigestible component in a community whose idea was harmony and orderliness. He cared nothing for peace, had no regard for the hierarchy, hardly minded reproof and isolation. He loved nothing but his freedom, his perpetual student status, and preferred spending his whole life as the unpredictable and obstinate loner, the gifted fool and nihilist, to following the path of subordination to the hierarchy and thus attaining peace. But basically he was incurable, for he did not want to be cured he cared nothing for co-ordination and a place in the scheme of things. When highly stimulated he could be entrancing his mordant wit sparkled and he overwhelmed everyone with the audacity and richness of his sometimes somber inspirations. Every so often he would display the liveliness of his intellect. “Tegularius was a willful, moody person who refused to fit into his society. Be prepared for conflicts, Joseph Knecht - I can see that they already have begun.” The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Rather, you should long for the perfection of yourself. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend. But the doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. He walked on in silence for a little, then said: “There is truth, my boy. The master had never heard him speak so fervently. Isn’t there any truth? Is there no real and valid doctrine?” The whole of world history can be explained as development and progress and can also be seen as nothing but decadence and meaninglessness.

Everything can be interpreted one way and then again interpreted in the opposite sense.

Everything is contradictory, everything tangential there are no certainties anywhere. “If only there were a dogma to believe in. “Oh, if only it were possible to find understanding,” Joseph exclaimed.

The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse