Ernst Jünger, DIE SCHERE # 48: Text Die Organe dienen uns anonym. Gewöhnlich nehmen wir sie nicht wahr; noch seltener denken wir an sie. Selbst das Herz als Motor der Kreisläufe >>klopft<< nur bei ungewöhnlichen Leistungen. Das gilt für die vollkommene Gesundheit und ändert sich, sobald sie angegriffen wird. Dann wird jeder Schritt gezählt und jeder Herzschlag registriert. Die Schere beginnt zu schneiden; das Herz tritt in seine physische Bedeutung ein. Es gibt Organe, deren Namen wir erst erfahren, wenn wir an ihnen krank werden. So könnte auch die Vorschau das Symptom einer sehr seltenen Erkrankung sein. Ein Organ, das jeder besitzt, beginnt sich zu regen in einem seltsamen Einzelfall. Vielleicht war es im Altertum stärker entwickelt und ist es noch heute unter gewissen Bedingungen. Es könnte wie bei der Seefahrt zu jenem Teil der Ausrüstung gehören, der erst nach einem Unfall, doch dann rettend, sich anbietet. Ernst Jünger, DIE SCHERE # 48: English translation by Gary Kern and Günter Rebing The organs serve us anonymously. Usually we take no notice of them; more rarely do we think of them. Even the heart as the engine of circulation "knocks" only during extraordinary exertions. This pertains to perfect health and changes as soon as it is affected. Then every step is counted and every heartbeat registered. The shears begin to cut; the heart enters into its physical meaning. There are organs whose names we learn only when we have something wrong with them. So foresight might be the symptom of a rare affliction. An organ that everybody possesses begins to make itself known in a rare instance. Perhaps it was more developed in antiquity and exists today under certain circumstances. It might, as on a sea journey, belong to a part of the equipment that only after an accident, but then as a lifesaver, offers its services. DIE SCHERE #48: Notes by Günter Rebing An idea is put forward here as a surmise ["könnte", "vielleicht"]. Perhaps Vorschau is the work of an organ common to all of us, usually dormant and imperceptible, but sometimes activated by a rare disease. Does this imply that Vorschau is something morbid? The last sentence with the simile of the life-boat or life-saver emphasizes the salutary effect of that disease. But an aura of ambiguity remains with this tentative idea about the origin of Vorschau. This idea seems analogous to one Thomas Mann was particularly fascinated by. His great novel DOKTOR FAUSTUS is, among many other things, an illustration of the liberating role a disease can play when a genius feels that his creativity is blocked. Thomas Mann was convinced that in real life Hugo Wolf and Friedrich Nietzsche, like Adrian Leverkühn in his novel, both infected by syphilis in early youth and both ending in insanity, owed their flights of genius to the trigger effect of the disease on their minds. However, be it works of genius or Vorschau that disease unfetters, in both instances an aura of eeriness remains.
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