29 apr

The most gripping event of the day was that I fainted during the morning service (laudes). It was very strange. The guests of the monastery were invited to the altar. It was as beautiful as ever. I particularly liked a song in which everything between heaven and earth was praised. I must have listened to it before, but now I also heard it. Suddenly towards the end of the service I got very hot and light-headed. It was towards the end of the last psalm after which we normally sit down. This time we had to keep standing for the ‘Our Father’. I should have sat down of course, but I am unexperienced when it comes to fainting. I drifted a little to my neighbour who thought I was falling asleep and pushed me a little. Seconds later i must have tumbled to the floor. It was a gracious fall, luckily, while they were saying there last sentence. I do not remember it. I remember a lot of people around me, obviously concerned.
This is getting really serious, one of the young monks, and one of the only ones who speaks english, told me afterwards. It was a little joke. Yesterday we had chatted a little after one service and I had told him that, even though I can hardly follow the latin texts, and am pretty clueless with the spanish ones, I find it so moving to listen to the singing. ‘Oh, it’s getting serious’ he said then. Fainting meant it was really getting serious.
The obvious reason is not having had breakfast, but I might have a slight fever. Did things very calmly today. That is, I did exactly the same thing as the other days. Stroll to the different services; stroll to the hotel at the other side of the square for an internet connection; stroll through the garden. They’ve only planted some peas, some onions (or garlic) and some lettuce. The potatoes aren’t even planted yet. And read. Civil War, about Vanity, about journalists, in Marcus Aurelius.
Vanity and pride are the two sins that are most common in human beings and definitely in business. It’s difficult not to think of yourself as being great when everybody else says so.
You’re so vain, Carly Simon sang, adding that ‘you’ probably think this song is about ‘you’. Wonderful lines, even more so, because she never made clear who she had in mind when she wrote it.
It could have been everybody. Vanity and Pride are the more subtle sins, that blur ones view of reality in probably the most destructive way. I would like to apply Smits’ alcohol test to vanity and to pride. If one could have a bonus system for achieving desirable results for a company and a malus system if it is achieved because of vanity or pride, i think the payments in the world would be much more evenly spread. Nurses would make more and bankers less, which is desirable, I would say. But then, who comes up with a reliable test like this. Sometimes one can smell vanity and pride. Maybe the chemical industry could come up with something.