appendix 40 on sleep theory

It has been a philosophic cliché since Herkalitos that human beings in general are sleepwalkers. That is, he says, most people spend their lives asleep. And only the special man, i.e. a certain kind of philosopher, i.e. Heraklitos, is properly awake and alert. But this is not the distinction Proust wants to draw. He woke swept aside by something that had passed. On the wrong shore and his heart broke. He lay puzzled by this, then got up to write a letter. Dear Heraklitos, he wrote, theory is good but it doesn’t prevent things from existing.

Anne Carson, The Albertine Workout