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DUST TO DUST

Arcadia to Academia,
an autobiography

Arcadia

Boyhood
Tyche
Literature
Deborah
Academia
Philology
Research
Teaching
Coming to Judgment


The poet Wolfgang Goethe apologized for his famous autobiography:

The individual is lost to us, our memory of him fades, yet it is important to him and to others that it be retained.  

None of us is more than an individual nor can one take interest in anything other than the individual.  The generality takes care of itself, insists on itself, maintains and expands itself.  We use it, but love it not.
We love only the individual, and that accounts for our joy in presentations, confessions, memoirs, letters and anecdotes about departed, even insignificant people.
The question as to whether one dare to write one's own biography is a gaucherie.  I call him who does so the most courteous of all people.
If one just conveys oneself, one's motive for doing it makes no difference.
It is not at all necessary that one be blameless or that one's accomplishments be excellent and unimpeachable--only that it be something in which others take profit or delight.
 --
Biographische Einzelheiten


                                                                                                
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