Abyss

I'm grateful to Bill Vallicella for translating some fragments of Hermann Hesse, whose works (especially Beneath the Wheel and Narcissus and Goldmund) were constant companions of my own Sturm und Drang. This haunting epigram is amongst my favorites:

Es bleibt zwischen Menschen, sie seien noch so eng verbunden, immer ein Abgrund offen, den nur die Liebe, und auch die nur mit einem Notsteg, überbrücken kann.

"No matter how tight the ties that bind one human being to another, an abyss looms that love alone can bridge, but even then only narrowly and precariously." (Bill's translation)

Hesse's sense of life still resonates with me, as does Nietzsche's; for a taste of what the former took from the latter, see the second aphorism in Bill's list.

It's a commonplace that, to varying degrees, the writings of both men apotheosize the turbulence of adolescence. Approaching to mid-life, I see that my enduring affinity for them both might well be a sign of enduring immaturity - or youthfulness.