2 4                                      Otto Ra7ik

When did I really live my own life? Perhaps in times of severe
illness, where the ego appears unmasked. But besides? I always
lived only as the others wanted and expected. If they expected
studying, I was a diligent student: if they expected professional
work, I was a tireless worker; if they expected love, I was the
lover; no role was too difficult for me, I nowhere refused except
at real life itself.

Love! The individual's protection against being overpowered
by the sex dri\'e, this mixture of sentiment and sensuality, of com¬
fort and passion, of stupidity and self-effacement has never satis¬
fied me. Whether you love the hair or the foot, gait or dress, voice
or eyes, soul or body, the whole or a part, it still always remains
piece-work. And chief is the loveable role: as child, as father, as
brother, as childhood friend, as surrogate for the first love or the
last, for everything you are not but want to be, most by parents,
then by the sweetheart, and finally by the wife. So why pretend?
Ultimately mustn't one play the role which has been so successful?

The original text copyright © 1984 by the estate of Dr. Rank and used bv
permission of the author's representative, Gunther Stuhlmann.