Citadelle

Citadelle
Antoine de Saint-Exupеry said in what I consider his great work Citadelle:
“Form cannot be invented; it can only be discovered by feeling one’s way toward it, by resisting life, which seeks to smooth everything over.
Only thus are great masterpieces and kingdoms born.”
What does this mean?
Let me explain:
Ninety percent of people are the crowd. They act according to patterns, drift with the current — that is, they do not resist life. They act alike, and therefore create nothing: neither masterpieces nor strong states.
To give birth to something that rises out of the river of life, one must swim against the current — that is, against the crowd. Tulip mania — and stock market players know this well — gives rise to mass phobias.
It is impossible to arrive at this truth by an easy path — without inner work, without searching, without labor, without real suffering and mistakes. This unimagined reality is not composed in books; it is earned through real sweat and lived experience.
Reality itself seeks to reduce everything to a single standard. On the path of building a kingdom, on the path of creating a masterpiece, reality itself will resist and interfere with the artist and the statesman.
— G.