The search for meaning gives birth to heroes. People who weep with emotion in the face of a cause greater than themselves, which they have discovered, which has awakened them from their suffering in separation. A war for freedom, for peace, for redemption. The sacrifice of her life for something greater than her own life itself. For something greater than that which one usually faces, by which one is usually guided. Bigger than greed. Bigger than fear. Greater than all the separation that otherwise fills life. Heroic courage comes from something of such magnitude that it appears to the hero as the infinitely longed-for unity. So comprehensive does it appear to the individual who willingly and joyfully enters into his sacrifice for this cause, this „Greater Good,“ because there he believes he will finally see redemption from separation. That is why heroism is men’s business. Their excess of material power makes them suffer from separation more than women. The true meaning is more distant to them and their means with which they try to find it are more uncompromising and consistent – and paradoxically also more material.
Only these heroes are subject to a deception. Be the thing still so big, so immeasurable for the small one man: The thing is of earthly origin and so the result and at the same time the cause of separation. It is never the unity, because then it would not need a hero. Because the hero must act. If he must act, then the thing is not eternal and infinite. Then the thing is not the sense. For the sense encompasses everything. The hero of true sense has nothing on which to try his heroism, since he himself in sense encompasses everything. He is opponentless and there is nothing for which and nothing to which he could sacrifice himself.
But the poor, lonely man seeks meaning and becomes a hero. And he cries with emotion in his aching heart when he hears the drums beating and the joyful whistles sounding, leading him in step with the other heroes to the battlefield. The battlefield where he fights for the nation, freedom, family, his master. And he weeps with happiness at finally being united with so many in what looks like meaning, because it seems so immeasurably great. And he is deceived, because by separation the meaning will never be known. Through strike and counter-strike, true unity will never be achieved.
The hero of true meaning rests and is opponentless.