Melancholy dialectics

"Our truly essential experiences are encapsulated and invisible in our lives, as seeds. That which is fruitful in the fullest sense lies enclosed within the hard shell of the incommunicable, of immediacy. Nothing distinguishes genuine productivity from its failed or inauthentic forms more clearly than the question: has the man experienced at the right time - between fiftenn and twenty-five - what seals his mouth, what silences him, makes him knowing and reflective, what gives him an experience to which he will always testify, never betray, never rashly reveal?"
- Walter Benjamin, "Theologische Kritik, Zu Willy Hass"