Comment by konart

Awareness. He learned it when he was (as he thought) about to be executed.

As he wrote to his brother the same day:

"When I look back into the past and think how much time has been wasted, how much of it wasted in delusions, mistakes, idleness, in the inability to live; how little I cherished it, how many times I sinned against my heart and my soul — my heart bleeds. Life is a gift, life is happiness, every minute could have been a century of happiness. Si jeunesse savait!"