Sail Past the Flat Earth Into the Unknown

“One must, like Christopher Columbus or Henry the Navigator, venture into the unknown. Back then, the Earth was still considered flat. There was only coastal shipping. Yet a person, even though aware of the flat Earth, dares to venture further and further out to sea. He sees no land, nothing at all. He simply continues sailing in the trust that he will make progress. Through this “crossing over the thresholds,” as the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte put it, one gains insights that allow one to shape life more creatively, productively, energetically, and insightfully in the future. In this way, many wonderful things have happened to me that I never expected—simply because I did not try to calculate them in advance.”

“Because in everything we do: What is important about it? The future! And not the prolongation of what has already been experienced. Only a bureaucrat acts from the past. The entrepreneurially disposed person always starts anew. He acts on the basis of today and what he anticipates from the future—strengthened by the skills he has developed in the past. With empiricism one grasps the past, with evidence one copes with the future. We move through the world, have our experiences, and derive some insight from them. One tries to ensure this insight, then feels secure and moves on. The path leads to a new encounter, one discovers an interest in the matter and then has an intuition. This intuition tells you: Now you must continue here! That is not an empirical experience; that is an experience of evidence. The evidence gives me insight. One does not act from experience, but from insight. Perhaps you are not in love yet, but you meet the other person and say: This has something to do with me. From the evidence comes insight. Everyone says it can’t be done, but you feel that maybe it could. It is an inner conviction of doing the right thing.”