How
many people will immediately recognize this familiar phrase, attributing it to
some modern-day guru or motivational speaker! How few will know that its
original author was Heraclitus, and here is Fragment 7, to which it
belongs: “If you do not expect the unexpected, you
will not find it, for it is hard to be sought out, and difficult.”
The
very next Fragment 8 clarifies this point by positing a virtual riddle: “Those who seek for gold, dig up much earth and find a
little.” The secret of this rather enigmatic proposition is in
Heraclitus’ glorification of intuition over rationalization. Nietzsche was
quite right about him. Not only is Heraclitus a man of “intuitive
conception,” but he wears his intuition like a badge of honor. Thus, here
is my key to Fragments 8 & 7 (in that order):
Those
who try to reach into the depth of things by rational means will dig up much
earth, but find little. It is only through intuition (“illumination by a divine
flash of lightning” as Nietzsche calls it) that much can be found. Intuition is
“the unexpected “and being ready
for the unexpected, in other words, expecting the
unexpected, is the most productive way for those who seek to tread a
new path toward the goal of superior knowledge and discernment.
Although
this entry is the last one among the entries on Heraclitus proper, the next one
stays with Heraclitus through the most significant pupil of his: Cratylus.
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