The basic disposition of the other beginning is shock [Er-schrecken]. It is both the shock of the abandonment by being (d. The resonating) and also the restraint that is grounded in such shock insofar as it is a creative shock.
Plight as that which propels around and first compels the decision and the separation of the human being, as a being, from beings and in the midst of beings and back again to beings. This plight belongs to the truth of beyng itself. In its most original sense, it is plight in the compelling toward the necessity of the highest possibilities, on whose paths human beings, in a creative and grounding way, go beyond themselves and back into the ground of beings. Where this plight reaches its highest level, it compels Da-sein and the grounding of Da-sein (d. now [jetzt] w. s. 37-38, p. 18ff.9)
The plight, that which propels and essentially occurs-what if it were the truth of beyng itself? What if, with the more original grounding of truth, at the same time beyng essentially occurred in a more eminent way—as the event? And what if, in this manner, the plight were more compelling, more propelling, but such vehement propelling were only that strife which had its self-withholding ground in the excess of the intimacy belonging to beings and beyng?
18. The powerlessness of thinking
seems to be obvious, especially if what counts as power is the force of immediate effectiveness and achievement. Yet what if "power" means grounding and securing in the essence, out of the "capacity" for change? Even then, nothing would be decided regarding the power or powerlessness of thinking.
There are various reasons for the fact that thinking is ordinarily taken to be without power:
1. At the present time no essential thinking is carried out or even can be carried out.
2. Machination and lived experience claim to be all that is efficacious and thus "powerful," and they leave no room for genuine power.
3. Even if an essential thinking did succeed, we would still lack the force to be open to its truth, because that requires a particular level of Dasein.
9. Lecture course, Grundfragen der Philosophie: Ausgewählte "Probleme" der "Logik," winter semester 1937-38 (GA45), p. 67ff.