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Man is the kind of animal who cannot merely live. If he lives at all, he is bound to seek the realization of his true nature; and to his true nature belongs his fulfilment in the lives of others. The will to live is thus transmuted into the will to self-realization; and self-realization involves self-giving in relation to others. When this desire for self-realization is fully explored, it becomes apparent that it is subject to the paradox that the highest form of self-realization is the consequence of self-giving, but that it cannot be the intended consequence without being prematurely limited. Thus the will to live is finally transmuted into its opposite in the sense that only in self-giving can the self be fulfilled, for: “he that findeth his life shall lose it and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." Reinhold Niebuhr The Children of Light and The Children of Darkness 1945 p. 20-21 (en) |
