and at this point i felt the truth burning within me like a sharp flame, that there was some role for everybody but it was not one which he himself could choose, re-cast and regulate to his own liking. one had no right to want new gods, no right at all to want to give the world anything of that sort! there was but one duty for a grown man; it was to seek the way to himself, to become resolute within, to grope his way forward wherever that might lead him. the discovery shook me profoundly; it was the fruit of this experience. i had often toyed with pictures of the future, dreamed of roles which might be assigned to me - as a poet, maybe, or prophet or painter or kindred vocation. all that was futile. i was not there to write poetry, to preach or paint; neither i nor any other man was there for that purpose. they were only incidental things. there was only one true vocation for everybody - to find the way to himself. he might end as poet, lunatic, prophet or criminal - that was not his affair; ultimately it was of no account. his affair was to discover his own destiny, not something of his own choosing, and live it out wholly and resolutely within himself. anything else was merely a half life, an attempt at evasion, an escape into the ideals of the masses, complacency and fear of his inner soul. the new picture rose before me, sacred and awe-inspiring, a hundred times glimpsed, possibly often expressed and now experienced for the first time. i was an experiment on the part of nature, a 'throw' into the unknown, perhaps for some new purpose, perhaps for nothing and my only vocation was to allow this 'throw' to work itself out in my innermost being, feel its will within me and make it wholly mine. that or nothing!