University of Colorado - Coloradan Yearbook (Boulder, CO)

Page 16 text:

But isn't knowledge a private thing? Emerson says that wisdom means simply living the greatest number of good hours. He also says, A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking. So true. Take me away from these clowns who scream for my attention with their side-show politics or carnival philosophy. What do l--or we— need? Revolution? A starting salary of $250 a week? A giant in our washers? the impossible cigarette? Victory in Vietnam? The big, bright green pleasure machine? An all-out assault on our sense of humanity? I'll work to eat. All I ask is a few hours to return to the inner sanctum of my mind and chart the first and last great uncharted frontier—myself. Don't ask me to be like you. Just know what you are. Don't seek after it. Ah, but wouldn't I be wise if it were a one-man world, and I was it? It's thoughts of other people that brought me here, and it's that world that I'll go back to. I can't make it simpler—I can only try to understand where I fit in. That is, if fit in is the right way to say it. I'm not yet convinced that the world is right, and I am wrong. In fact, maybe the opposite. I'll confess. But confessing it is all that would set me apart from most people. I imagine they all see themselves as right, or taken ad- vantage of—never worse than that. Once upon a time, there were three and one-half billion people, each one more correct than the other. That might sell—I'll write it down sometime. I guess I'm pretentious, but what the hell—if I don't believe me, who will? Egocentric little warts that we all are, we each see the world as a set of concentric circles, with the guy behind our eyes at the center, and our skull as the first circle. If that's true, that should pose some interesting questions about how each of us sees the world around us: what we see, what we all agree to see, and what is really there. What is really there?

Page 15 text:

All of us are prisoners of the present moment. None of us has effect beyond right now. Our plans, our mistakes—what are they? It's what we do and think as it happens that matters. Yeah, I think I know what they're looking for with all that noise. But they aren't doing too well. It's like the old philosopher said: Thy lot or portion of life is in seeking after thee. So be at rest from seeking after it. But, I'm not so smart. I play the games. That's why I have to get away and think about it. Maybe I can play without getting trapped in the day-by-day hassles. But it's a risky game I play. Because they want my body. The ma- chinery of life beckons. The cogs of society are there: waiting, whirling, humming, watching. That's what worries us college types, may- be. They want us to seek after it. But there's so much yet to know about our individual selves. The world is impatient for us. As always. That's the way to get ahead. Right? Maybe.

Page 17 text:

Are we One in some Cosmic (or is that Comic) Con- sciousness? Or in some collective subconscious? Are we autonomous little cells of awareness? Are we each a dab of cytoplasm in a hugh societal amoeba? Are we savage evolutionary competitors? Are we the nightmare of some restless diety who ate too much hot sauce, and will we burst like a bubble when he awakens? Perhaps . perhaps we are each one poems writ by nature on the wings of minds, ancient sons and daughters of the earth and sky. Or icicles melting in a soundless void, supported by nothing. Or maybe we're just random spots of gravy on the tie of some snoozing joker in a space-time continuum. Christ, I don't even know if I'm passing anthro! I may be dandruff on the collar of life. Whatever we are— whatever I am—I guess we're stuck with each other. I only know what I wish was true—that's all anyone knows. That's reality, maybe. Kind of weird, I guess, walking along here wondering what I am, what is real. Maybe truth is beauty, and beauty truth. I learned that in English 271. Hopefully, we still have time to wonder while we're here. Creighton Abrams and the 7:25 from Scarsdale can wait a bit. Forever, for all I care. As I pursue my secret self, as we pass one another with knowing eyes and unsure minds, as we select our goals with pleasure or outrage, there is time to wonder about morality and reality. There should be. Too soon many of us will be machines. That's why we always vow to do more personal reading then we ever do. That's why we're disappointed in ourselves during the summer when after work we neb- bish in front of the tube instead of doing something worth doing. Like reading; like books. There may be an alternative to papers, work and deoderant ads. What would be on your list of must read if locked away in a library for a month ? Portnoy's Complaint? Valley of the Dolls? Ulysses? Little Women? The collected poems of John Scott Trotter? The Teamster's Union Manifesto? The Social life of the North American Culex Mosquito?