Re: ER as weltanschauung?
George Sherwood (steppen@lightspeed.net)
Fri, 6 Jun 1997 01:48:54 -0700 (PDT)
At 06:17 PM 6/5/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Hen Sholar wrote:
>>
>>I wonder -George, Leonardo- what is the sway of the
>>modern concept of "worldview" that we must (following
>>Nietzsche?) recognize such a distant stance to our realities,
>>make of the world a "Christian view" to be overcome, or
>>to live in the excess thereof?
>>
>>In an authentic time such an epoch-defining self-
>>consciousness, such a decadence, would not be so
>>obvious and perhaps would not be.
>
>In line with the "painting" metaphor that spurred off this and other
>offshoots, I thought the following tidbit from _Human, All Too Human_,
>"Assorted Opinions and Maxims," #19, might be of interest:
>
>"_The picture of life._ -- The task of painting _the_ picture of life,
>however often poets and philosophers may pose it, is nonetheless senseless:
>even under the hands of the greatest of painter-thinkers all that has ever
>eventuated is pictures and miniatures _out of one_ life, namely their own --
>and nothing else is even possible. Something in course of becoming cannot be
>reflected as a firm and lasting image, as a 'the', in something else in
>course of becoming."
>
>Steve C.
Undoubtedly, _the_ picture can never be painted. There can never be an end
to the process of life unless life itself ends. This can be compared to N's
idea of the study of the ancients, where if we learned all there was to
know, then that would be the end of it; but since we are constantly
interpreting the ancients based on our own experiences, our knowledge of
the ancients can never be exhausted. In our study of the ancients we may
come to an epiphany, which can be compared to the moment of a finished work
of art. Once we reach an epiphany, or once we finish a work of art, that is
not the end of it, but only the beginning. In both cases, we have "gone
under," below the surface of tradition and deeper than we thought reality
could go, and we want more. More importantly, we now know there is more. We
"go under" to deeper depths of life that hide below "mere appearance." In
other words, we start a new painting, only in this one we have "a yes, a
no, a straight line, a goal."
George
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A man's maturity--consists in having found again the seriousness one had as
a child, at play" ~ Nietzsche.
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