That or Nothing! A Tale of Demian

Background: X dares. Y dares.
Conclusion: I should as well.

Herman Hesse, Demian, gave me blind hope. It re-introduced me to fate. The contention is simple. That is: “I am here to find the path to myself”.

Here goes. From Herman Hesse to you:

“At this point a sharp realization burned within me: each man has his “function” but none which he can choose himself, define or perform as he pleases. It was wrong to desire new gods, completely wrong to want to provide the world with something. An enlightened man had but one duty – to seek the way to himself, to reach inner certainty, to grope his way forward, no matter where it led. The realization shook me profoundly, it was the fruit of this experience. I had often speculated with images of the future, dreamed of roles that I might be assigned, perhaps as poet or prophet or painter, or something similar.

All that was futile. I did not exist to write poems, to preach or to paint, neither I nor anyone else. All of that was incidental. Each man had only one genuine vocation – to find the way to himself. He might end up as poet or madman, as prophet or criminal – that was not his affair, ultimately it was of no concern. His task was to discover his own destiny – not an arbitrary one – and live it out wholly and resolutely within himself. Everything else was only a would-be existence, an attempt of evasion, a flight back to the ideals of the masses, conformity and fear of one’s own inwardness. The new vision roles up before me, glimpsed a hundred times, possibly even expressed before but now experienced for the first time by me. I was an experiment on the part of Nature, a gamble within the unknown, perhaps for a new purpose, perhaps for nothing, and my only task was to allow this game on the part of primeval depths to take its course, to feel its will within me and make it wholly mine. That or nothing!”

"Finding the path to myself", in all, has been what I felt I came here to do. I understand it now. It is not an excuse but rather the greatest challenge: Find the meaning of Abraxas.

That or nothing. Yes.