Die Schere #3: Notes EJ returns to his starting point in #1 where he said that everyone is in some way an artist. (It is obvious from what follows that this idea has nothing to do with the basic tenet of Pop Art that everybody can be an artist and everything can be declared art). Now he looks at another facet of this statement: everyone is an artist because everyone is an author. At least he is the author of his life story. EJ does not seem to mean here that everyone, looking back on his life so far, will want to give its vagaries a meaning, tends to interpret it as a development with meaningful stages toward a discernible fulfilment (even if that might take the form of failure). What EJ seems to say with these terse phrases is rather this: everyone senses a form within himself which he must live up to, and life consists in realizing this form. When trying to write a novel you tackle a task which is analogous to that of realizing your form by living. This form is created by the situation you are born into, your genetic heritage, and, if you will, some inscrutable decision of a power we do not know. If this is correct, then the last sentence of #3, "es ist zu fragen", can only mean "you have to ask yourself". Only you yourself can really know what your "Pfund" is like, only you (some might add, and your Creator) are the judge capable of reaching a verdict whether your life is a success, i.e. whether you fully realized the potential handed to (or thrust upon) you at birth.
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