I’m spending the evening of my birthday watching a film.

Sometimes the dark silence of the night weighs upon me.
Peace makes me afraid; perhaps I distrust it above all.
I feel it’s only a facade concealing the abyss.
I think of the world my children will know.
It’s supposed to be marvellous but a phone call by a madman can mean the end of everything.
We must get beyond passions, like a great work of art.
In such miraculous harmony.
We should love each other outside of time…detached.

Steiner talking to his sleeping children in La Dolce Vita.