Reflections
Dear Reader!
I don’t know about you, but I am exhausted!
This time of year, the holidays, the deadlines… I hope you had a joyful Thanksgiving with friends and loved ones, and now Hanukkah! Chag Hanukkah Sameach!! (So early this year!)
This week I have two short poems for you from 1951. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Hannah Arendt’s distinction in The Human Condition between eternity and immortality. She argues that we’ve forsaken the pursuit of immortal fame for the pursuit of everlasting life on earth.
But for Arendt life in itself was not the highest good. As she put it in an early essay from 1941, “We who are alive have to learn that you can’t live on your knees, that you don’t become immortal by chasing after life, and that if you are no longer willing to die for anything, you will die for having done nothing.”
I often return to these lines in Arendt, because I think in a way they represent her at her most political. It is a call to courageous action in dark times. And so, perhaps you too can take nourishment from them during these longer, darker days.
Yours,
Sam
Reflections
#1
"Was wir sind und scheinen,
Ach wen geht es an.
Was wir tun und meinen,
Niemand stoss’ sich dran.
Himmel steht in Flammen,
Hell das Firmament
Über dem Beisammen,
Das den Weg nicht kennt.“
#2
"Die Gedanken kommen zu mir,
ich bin ihnen nicht mehr fremd.
Ich wachse ihnen als Stätte zu
wie ein gepflügtes Feld.“
Auszug aus: Arendt, Hannah. „Ich selbst, auch ich tanze ·
Thanks for your thought-provoking reflections. The following appended story, told by Hannah Arendt, always touches me quite strangely - and I don't really know why. Perhaps there will be your transmission in an upcoming episode. Wish a good day & recovery from exhaustion 🌷
#
"Dann werd’ ich laufen, wie ich einstens lief
Durch Gras und Wald und Feld;
Dann wirst Du stehen, wie Du einmal standst,
Der innigste Gruss von der Welt.
Dann werden die Schritte gezählt sein
Durch die Ferne und durch die Näh;
Dann wird dieses Leben erzählt sein
Als der Traum von eh und je.“
I've shared this episode with my class, which is reading Men in Dark Times now. It fits so nicely with our discussions.