I’m like an imbecile with a can opener in my hand!

I stood before a mirror and said dreadfully: - 'I want to see how I look in the mirror with my eyes closed.' No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore to us the belief in our own guidance.

And yet---yet despite all the outward evidence of being close-knit, interrelated, neighborly, good-humored, helpful, sympathetic, almost brotherly, we are a lonely people, a morbid, crazed herd thrashing about in zealous frenzy, trying to forget that we are not what we think we are, not really united, not really devoted to one another, not really listening, not really anything, just digits shuffled about by some unseen hand in a calculation which doesn't concern us.

We are not equals; we are mostly inferior, vastly inferior, inferior particularly to those who are quiet and contained, who are simple in their ways, and unshakable in their beliefs. We resent what is steady and anchored, what is impervious to our blandishments, our logic, our collectivized cud of principles, our antiquated forms of allegiance.

I guess the trouble with us is that we can not swallow the fact that we are another nobody. The sensation which we long to possess, in order to establish the good, the true and the beautiful.

Drama always affected me strangely, always aroused the sense of ridiculous, especially when motivated by love. Perhaps that was why, in moments of desperation, I could always laugh at myself. The moment I made the decision to act I became another person---the actor. And of course I always overplayed the part.

How we hate to admit that we would like nothing better than to be the slave! Slave and master at the same time! For even in love the slave is always the master in disguise. The man who must conquer the woman, subjugate her, bend her to his will, form her according to his desires---is he not the slave of his slave?

Two solid bodies colliding in space at the wrong time, rubbing surfaces together, exchanging souvenirs, plugging in wrong numbers, promising and repromising, forgetting, parting, remembering again...hurried, mechanical, meaningless, and what the hell does all add up to?

The Buddha went so far as to say: - "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.

Nothing would be bad or ugly or evil---if we really let ourselves go. But it's hard to make people understand that. Anyway, that's the difference between the world of imagination and the world of common sense, which isn't common sense at all but sheer buggery and insanity. If you stop till and look at things....I say look, not think, and not criticize...the world looks absolutely crazy to you. And it is crazy, by God! It's just as crazy when things are normal and peaceful as in times of war and revolution. The evils are insane evils, and the panaceas are insane panaceas. Because we're all driven like dogs. We're running away. From what? We don't know. From a million nameless things.

I feel something as though I'm going to burst. I really don't give a dam about the misery of the world. I take it for granted. What I want is to open up. I'm like an imbecile with a can opener in his hand, wondering where to begin---to open up the earth. I know that underneath the mess everything is marvelous. I'm sure of it. I know it because I feel so marvelous myself most of the time."

Yours in fear,
The man who sold the world