| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: is thought of as a cause, that there is an 'ego,' and finally,
that it is already determined what is to be designated by
thinking--that I KNOW what thinking is. For if I had not already
decided within myself what it is, by what standard could I
determine whether that which is just happening is not perhaps
'willing' or 'feeling'? In short, the assertion 'I think,'
assumes that I COMPARE my state at the present moment with other
states of myself which I know, in order to determine what it is;
on account of this retrospective connection with further
'knowledge,' it has, at any rate, no immediate certainty for
me."--In place of the "immediate certainty" in which the people
Beyond Good and Evil |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane: dead.
Too, he felt a pity for the guns, standing, six
good comrades, in a bold row.
He saw a brigade going to the relief of its pes-
tered fellows. He scrambled upon a wee hill and
watched it sweeping finely, keeping formation in
difficult places. The blue of the line was crusted
with steel color, and the brilliant flags projected.
Officers were shouting.
This sight also filled him with wonder. The
brigade was hurrying briskly to be gulped into
The Red Badge of Courage |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: One or Being were to an ancient Eleatic. 'If God is, what follows? If God
is not, what follows?' Or again: If God is or is not the world; or if God
is or is not many, or has or has not parts, or is or is not in the world,
or in time; or is or is not finite or infinite. Or if the world is or is
not; or has or has not a beginning or end; or is or is not infinite, or
infinitely divisible. Or again: if God is or is not identical with his
laws; or if man is or is not identical with the laws of nature. We can
easily see that here are many subjects for thought, and that from these and
similar hypotheses questions of great interest might arise. And we also
remark, that the conclusions derived from either of the two alternative
propositions might be equally impossible and contradictory.
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