-----Original Message----- From: Gary Kern [SMTP:gkern@ucr.campus.mci.net] Sent: Friday, February 20, 1998 12:08 AM To: ernst-juenger-l@maillist.ox.ac.uk Subject: Die Schere #3 Here is my rendition of #3. Natives please correct me. German: Jedermann ist auch der Autor seines eigenen Lebenslaufes, sein Autobiograph. Er ist sein Romancier und ist sich dieser Aufgabe bewußt. Daraus erklärt sich, daß fast jeder einen Roman zu schreiben zum mindesten einmal begonnen hat. Die Frage bleibt, wie dem Einzelnen diese Darstellung gelingt. Das hat nichts mit seinen äußeren Umständen zu tun, und auch nicht damit, ob sein Roman zu einem glücklichen Ende führt. Zu fragen ist vielmehr, wie er mit seinem Pfund gewuchert hat-und dieses Pfund ist vorgegeben, schon ehe er das Licht der Welt erblickt. English: Everyone is also the author of his own life's course, its autobio- grapher. He is its novelist and is conscious of this task. Hence it is clear that almost everyone has at least begun to write a novel. It remains to be seen how well this portrayal works with each individual. It has nothing to do with his external circumstances and also nothing to do with whether his novel will have a happy ending. An even bigger question is how he has profitted by his pound--and this pound was given already before he saw the light of day. Comments: The thought reminds me particularly of Karl Gustav Jung, who also saw individuals as the sole observers of their own "myth." For Jung, however, the thought was not altogether despairing, for one could grow, achieve self-realization and link his life's course with the larger development of mankind. Jünger seems to reflect on the futility of watching yourself through a lifetime, writing your own story for yourself, but not being entirely responsible for it. The two preceding reflections, however, keep this one from being entirely negative. The urge to art, to be an autobiographer, is presented as a life-force, a positive and mysterious thing. We have to see what the next reflections will bring. I take the "pound" in this one to refer to those New Testament parables in which the landowner gives seed or money to each of three sons or vassals, and two do poorly with it, but the third does well. Something like that. Maybe someone knows the specific parable. Junger's reflections are not entirely at all negative in my reading. The human suffering in a tragedy is real but the form, the beautiful story that we lay over it, raises it out of hopelessness, whatever the circumstantial outcome. We write our own tragedies, more or less successfully, with whatever our life destinies may be. We are not responsible at all responsible for our fates but entirely responsible for our stories. With regard to this, can anyone provide a formal distinction between fate and destiny? The parable is in Matthew 25, verses 14 - 30. I interpret the parable (and Junger) thus: in each of our respective fates we given a limited complement of life experiences which we may work profitably with and multiply the accounts (and so write a more profound autobiography) or hoard fearfully and gain nothing.
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