Roger Bourland
writes about music and life

“I want to enthrall the world by my creative work, by its wondrous beauty. I want to be the brightest imaginable light, the largest sun. I want to illumine the universe by my light. I want to engulf everything and absorb everything in my individuality. I want to give delight to the world. I want to take the world as one takes a woman. I need the world. I am what my senses feel. And I create the world by these senses. I create the infinite past, the growth of my consciousness, the desire to be myself. I create the infinite future, the repose in me, the sorrow and joy in me. I am God. I am nothing. I want to be all. I have generated my antithesis–time, space, and plurality. This antithesis is myself; for I am only what I engender. I want to be God. I want to return to myself. The world seeks God. I seek myself. The world is a yearning for God. I am a yearning for myself. I am the world. I am the search for God, for I am only what I seek. The history of human consciousness begins with my search and with my return.”

[Boris De Schloezer, Scriabin: Artist and Mystic, trans. Nicholas Slonimsky (Berkeley: University of Californina Press, 1987), p. 69.]

PS: Scriabin died of complications due to an abcess on his lip. This photo shows an assymetry and apparent discomfort in his mouth as seen by his askewed moustache.