20                                  Esther Menaker

mary struggles, fears and conflicts in life revolve around the striv¬
ing to achic\'e selfhood, only to become aware of its loss in the
end through its mortal nature. Thus, the human creature tries to
invent ways to insure some sort of immortality, to perpetuate the
self, either through procreation, through identification with an
ideology which will outlast the individual self, or through some
creative product. Rank began his journey to immortality in the
creative work of the diaries. They are an introduction to the pro¬
found insights into human psychology which follow in all his
subsequent works; it is fitting that we should remember their be¬
ginnings on the one hundredth anniversary of Rank's birth.