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Dear Steve,

     Thank you for your encouragement. Some years ago I read
Camus' book about the plague. I don't recollect having read _The
Revolting Man_, so perhaps I should put it on my already very
long reading list again.

     I am not sure how I should reply to your question about how
to survive in this world as a sensitive human being.  I was not
made to be a preacher, and all such advice is reminiscent of
Polonius'.  It helps, I think not to be judgmental. To accept the
world as it is without deceiving oneself about it; and to accept
oneself as one is without becoming deceived about oneself,
either.

     One of the stories in the Old Testament that has meant most
to me is the account of Moses fashioning the brazen serpent in
the wilderness and holding it up before the tormented Children of
Israel, making explicit for them that which threatens to destroy
them, so that they can contemplate it in its truth (unhiddenness,
aletheia) . The gazing upon, the contemplation of that truth
becomes our salvation as it became theirs; or so it seems to me.

     The fashioning of the brazen serpent, so obviously in
violation of the commandment, was, as I interpret it, the
discovery of the transcendental meaning of art: think of the
horror of Shakespeares tragedies that we can accept as they are
acted out before us. After I have spoken or written as truthfully
as I am able about what oppresses me, I feel as if I had, in some
measure, overcome it.  "The worst is not, when we can say: this
is the worst."  The line is from King Lear, I don't remember who
said it.

     Beyond that, having some one whom one loves is a great
solace; provided one abandons all demands, and even all
expectations of being loved in return.

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