Ben’s Reviews > Autobiography > Status Update

Independence! That is the secret of philosophy. To be independent of the opinions of your neighbors, of your relations, of your friends, to be independent of this ridiculous itch for being heard of, to take the neck of your desire to compete and ring it, and then, when it becomes a question of pride, to let your pride tower up like a wavering, fluctuating, gigantic genie from the smoke bottle of your own magical soul

Drinking cup after cup of coffee...I had that delicious sensation that I am always struggling to feel, of being a real stranger to the whole of our planet—a stranger from Saturn, say!—wandering up and down the earth, and observing without hatred, without curiosity, without envy, without love, without disgust, the customs of the tribes of men as if they were the ways of fish in an aquarium.

"I remember perfectly well thinking to myself as I trod this path through Waringore, that, whatever was happening to me in life, just to be able to stare at this green moss, at these fallen twigs, at these blood-stained funguses, was sufficient reward for having been born upon this cruelty-blasted planet!"

I been fascinated by the legendary mythology of the stars, their astrological influences. I accept them, in fact, at their face value as the imperishable companions and fatal accomplices of our tragic human drama.

How crafty and subtle are the impulses of one’s own mind in this matter of the getting of wisdom! Yes, the acquisition, little by little, of what subsequently we come to regard as the conjuring trick by which life can be adequately handled, does not arrive by any steady or rational development. It comes by airy, evasive, indirect, intermittent approaches, and then by occasional violent earthquake shocks!

We have to live a long time to know what are the important moments. We think, at the time, they are the days when we change continents, or hemispheres, or nationalities, or religions, or infatuations, but they do not as a rule turn out to be these great lumbering events. They turn out to be some little, tiny, infinitesimal sensation that reveals to us the clue to our life.

“There ought to be a “Fairy Sprightly” whose chief purpose in life is to guard from neglect and destruction the inanimate things into which human souls have been flung!”