Good child has bad signs - Born with talent

Author: Zhang Yesong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-08-01
Features:
1. Goethe: "The moon delayed my birth" Great German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe described his own birth in the opening passage of his famous autobiography Poetry and Truth: On the morning of August 28, 1794, just as the clock struck twelve, I was born in Frankfurt on the Main River. The stars were in a favorable position at my birth: the sun was within Virgo, rising to the zenith; Jupiter and Venus looked kindly upon the sun, Mercury was not hostile, Saturn and Mars maintained an indifferent attitude, but the newly reunited moon, because of its opposition to the stars at that time, showed a particularly strong disruptive force. Therefore, the moon delayed my birth, and only after this time passed was I able to be born. As a poet of the era, Goethe's greatness is beyond doubt, and Engels once said that he was "Zeus of the true Olympus." Such a man revered as a god indeed discovered something of divine nature in himself when he began to reflect on his life at the age of fifty-nine. To better reveal this divinity, he chose the grand style mentioned above to describe his birth, setting the tone for his autobiography. In Goethe's view, his coming into the world was clearly a significant event, primarily and mainly related to the grand universe and the few planets closely related to the tiny human beings within it, rather than to his parents and family. It is meaningless to investigate whether the details of Goethe's self-description are true or not; what is interesting is the personal psychological state and true motives hidden behind this account. As a great poet who pursued human liberation and profoundly revealed the greatness of the human spirit, Goethe indeed had his humble side. He believed in astrology, often spoke of how dreams and premonitions were accurate, and once attributed the appearance of great figures like Napoleon and Byron, as well as some of his own actions and achievements, to the influence of some supernatural, elusive, and inexplicable "genius." In this regard, Goethe's intellect was no more superior than that of ordinary beggars and ruffians. It is said that he was in a "false death" state at birth, crying and screaming for a long time, and was only saved after much effort. Goethe's parents had six children in total, with the eldest son Wolfgang (the poet Goethe) and the second daughter Cornelia being the only ones who survived. The other four siblings died young. The repeated deaths of his younger siblings, though perhaps not leaving a deep impression on the young Goethe, could not fail to evoke a profound sense of relief and wonder when the poet, in the joy of his achievements, sat down to write his autobiography and recalled his near-death experience at the beginning of his life. Comparing his own fortune with the misfortune of his deceased younger siblings, and with a strong interest in the "magic," Goethe could not help but search for and pursue the "magic" that had brought him good fortune. After the passage quoted above, Poetry and Truth continues: "These auspicious signs—later astrologers believed they were very beneficial to me—may have been the reason why I survived." But the matter did not end there. In Poetry and Truth, we see a typical example of how the birth of great figures is "dramatized" and given extraordinary significance. Usually, such things are done by those who try to achieve a specific purpose by telling the stories of great figures, or by biographers deeply awed by the immense charm of great men. But here, the great man Goethe himself took the task upon himself to embellish his own story. Goethe said that his "false death" caused great trouble for his family, "but the result was beneficial to the residents of the city." How was it beneficial? It turned out that his maternal grandfather was the mayor of Frankfurt. Seeing the danger of his grandson's birth, the mayor hired an obstetrician, "to impart knowledge of midwifery or to revisit this knowledge," which greatly benefited the children born in the city afterward. Whether the facts themselves are true or not, after reading these self-descriptions, we cannot help but be given the impression, whether intentionally or unintentionally by the author himself, that the greatness of the great Goethe, though not increased by such a trivial matter, had already manifested itself at the moment of his birth into the world. This is clearly an illusion. Deliberately creating such an illusion, for Goethe himself, was merely an further confirmation of Engels' famous remark about him: "Goethe was sometimes very great, and sometimes extremely small; sometimes a rebellious, mocking genius who despised society, and sometimes a timid, contented, narrow-minded mortal." However, for adolescents growing up, such illusions could have a disastrous impact as they gradually establish their worldview. On one hand, they may reinforce the mistaken notion that great men are absolutely different from ordinary people, made of "special material," leading to blind reverence and adoration for great figures. On the other hand, they may easily cause confusion in thought, dampen the motivation of young people, make them feel a profound sense of inferiority, and even completely give up efforts to improve themselves.