Category: Heraclitus
-
Wer schreibt, der bleibt
I fondly recall my late German neighbor, Günter Scheer, from whom I learned this expression. "He who writes, remains." But for how long? Any mark you make will in the end be unmade by time, in time, for all time. We do not write in indelible ink. Old Will said it well: We are such…
-
Sadness at the Transience of the World
"I am grieved by the transitoriness of things," wrote Friedrich Nietzsche in a letter to Franz Overbeck, dated 24 March 1887. (Quoted in R. Hayman, Nietzsche: A Critical Life, Penguin, 1982, p. 304) What is the appropriate measure of grief at impermanence? While we are saddened by the transience of things, that they are transient…
-
John Anderson, Heraclitus the Obscure, and the Depth of Change
A. J. Baker on John Anderson: ". . . there are no ultimates in Anderson's view and in line with Heraclitus he maintains that things are constantly changing, and also infinitely complex . . . ." (Australian Realism, Cambridge UP, 1986, p. 29, emphasis added) Change is a given. From the earliest times sensitive souls…