Fast forward to the past

I know that my reflections on the uncertainties of life are not particularly unique, but even so it was serendipitous to read tonight about Heinrich von Kleist: "A typical intelectual product of the late eighteenth century, Kleist had started from certain unquestioned assumptions: that life can be planned, that its random element can be eliminated, that happiness can be achieved and assured if we go about it the right way, that man is educable and society perfectible, that the world is rationally ordered and that all things in principle can, and in due course will, be completely understood and explained." America was founded on Enlightenment principles (remember that "Pursuit of happiness" clause, among others), and seems yet to retain many of those beliefs, as in many ways my family did, and perhaps still does. But Kleist must have been rocked to his core at some stage, for the text continues: "His creative writing expressed the state of mind that follows upon the loss of every article of this faith." (From David Luke and Nigel Reeves' introduction to their translation of some of his short stories. )