Rodin's "Thinker"

The real version in Berlin is much smaller than I expected.

The real figure is nothing more than a surging flow of dread, or at least constipation. He doesn't know which leg to put his hand on. I kept asking myself whether Rodin's piece was really thinking or whether he was contemplating suicide. The way his body is twisted into such an unnatural knot, with all his muscles pulling themselves apart, nostrils distended and lips compressed, fist clenched and toes gripping at nothing--considering this--it seems impossible that he has the ability to think naturally, logically. He is rather on the verge of making some sort of life-threatening decision. Perhaps the first and most immediate philosophical question, as Camus said: whether to continue living or to discontinue living from this point on.