[we are] transferred and delivered over [übereignet und überantwortet] to being, which is at stake insofar as we [are], and as long as we are beings [Seiende sind]. And because exposedness and transportedness into being, precisely also [the being] of the beings that we are not, belongs to our being, the delivery over [Überantwortung] to being means as much as the transferal [Übereignung] to the being of beings as a whole.
This delivery over [Überantwortung] turns the historical Dasein of the human being into that being that in its determination must answer [antworten] to being every time in this way or that way, must answer for [verantworten] it. Exposedness in the manifest beings, transportedness into the worked on and worked for [bearbeitete und erarbeitete] being of the work and fate in mandate and mission-all of this in unity means at the same time and more originally: delivery over to being. From it and in it every event [Geschehnis] of Dasein happens [geschieht]. This fundamental essence of being human, exposedness into beings and delivery over to being, I caJied and I call also henceforth "care."
This interpretation of the essence of the human Dasein as care has been misinterpreted in all possible directions. The finger-snapping placidity of the philistine believed that the human Dasein should not be exclusively declared to be as gloomy as care, for love also belongs to human living. In order to prove that, the unavoidable Goethe was promptly referred to in the publication of the Prussian Academy of the Sciences, in the Deutschen Literaturzeitung. Others find that the conception of Dasein as care is an expression of an irksome and intimidated "Weltanschauung," especially since elsewhere Angst is also spoken about; they recommend the "heroic" bearing. Again others, conversely, take offence at the too strong emphasis on that which is after-the-manner-of-practical-engagement and miss the sufficient estimation of the reflective and contemplative human being.
However, all are on the wrong track with their mutually opposing concerns; better, they are not yet at all on the track to understand what is said distinctly enough: that with the characterization of human being as care an accidental affect ofthe human subject should not be exaggerated and turned forth opposite others, but that care means here exposedness in being, and that means the blasting of all subjectivity. Care is the fundamental constitution of being-human as temporality, from which any mood first becomes first of all possible. Because the human being is exposed in beings, transported into beings and extended as historical