a traveler in history is an internal journeyer into our human being (our 'human having been'), with such study and insight leading also to a kind of self-knowledge, of the history of which we are a part.
education (leading out) rather than entertainment, distraction or escape, I doubt there is much I could have done in Moscow -- since it prides itself now on being a normal city (if with greater variety and choices than more staid London and NY?) -- and certainly nothing I did, that would have been as exciting and "insight-yielding" as reading in the recently-received Early Anthropology in the 16th and 17th Centuries (1964) by Margaret Hogden -- which admittedly addresses directly the history of the understanding of man by man, which is clearly also in the direction of gnothi seauton (which most -- it is important to know, prefer to ignore, though some few not).
50+. "Ach, es ist schwer, diese Gottesspur zu finden inmitten dieses Lebens, das wir fuhren, inmitten dieser so sehr zufriedenen, so sehr bürgerlichen, so sehr geistlosen Zeit, im Anblick dieser Architekturen, dieser Geschäfte, dieser Politik, dieser Menschen. Wie sollte ich nicht ein Steppenwolf und ruppiger Eremit sein inmitten einer Welt, von deren Zielen ich keines teile, von deren Freude keine zu mir spricht?" -- from Hesse's Steppenwolf
No comments:
Post a Comment