Shadow on the Wall

 

 

If I ever had one great mentor it would’ve been Henry Miller, a writer I internalized so well, who became a part of my mental makeup, that I hardly even reference him anymore. Strange how various authors who have influenced one so mightily just vanish into the very substance of what one is as a human.

 

‘It is not enough to overthrow governments or masters, total revolution of thought is needed. ” – Henry Miller

 

If there has been one slogan I’d love on a plaque that would be it. My whole life as a… (I could say almost anything…) human is summed up in that statement. I still believe it. Until we change our minds, till we revolt against the mind-set of our current world and its self-deceptions, we will never… never create a future worth living in. For that a true “revolution in thought” is needed. Even now as I ponder our current trends in speculative thought one gets a feeling that we’re on the edge of that revolution; and, yet, not one single thinker among my contemporaries is ready to step out and light the fire, think the new.

 

Being a creature of contradiction, and multiple; knowing that behind the fleshly smile is this multitude rather than some singular individual. I realized I’ve never been singular or individual; always a daemonic legion… demonically driven in the most contradictory of ways.

 

As that wise man of the New England strangeness once said:

 

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall.”

 

– Ralph Waldo Emerson