IN-DER-WELT-SEIN

Thinking about proverbes, fairytales & childrens’ books . . . Remembering the story . .

Clue: phonetic variant of clew (q.v.) “a ball of thread or yarn,” with reference to the one Theseus used as a guide out of the Labyrinth. The purely figurative sense of “that which points the way” is from 1628. Clueless is from 1862.

Sleuth: c.1200, “track or trail of a person,” from O.N. sloð “trail,” of uncertain origin. Meaning “detective” is 1872, shortening of sleuthhound “keen investigator” (1849), a figurative use of a word for a kind of bloodhound that dates back to 1375. The verb (intrans.) meaning “to act as a detective, investigate” is recorded from 1912.

When the early morning light quietly

grows above the mountains . . .

The world’s darkening never reaches

to the light of being.

We are too late for gods and too

early for being. Being’s poem,

just begun, is man.

To head toward a star – this only.

To think is to confine yourself to a

single thought that one day stands

still like a star in the world’s sky.

- Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens (Pfullingen: Neske, 1954) trans. A. Hofstadter.