Out of the frying pan and into the fire...

"Be not the slave of your past. Plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep and swim for you shall come back with self-respect, with new power, with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's never a straight forward matter of doing precisely as one would like; first of all one must experience human dilemma and then plunge forwards, falling flat on hands and knees- forced to admit that all prior knowledge and understanding must be re-evaluated. It isn't difficult to have one's sentiments in the right place, but it is all the more so to know how get expression and groundwork for those ideas. Like a farmer who has thrown his seeds to the winds in the hope that because they are of a good kind they will prevail, I must educate myself thoroughly on ways of cultivation, strengthening my position and so forth.

It is as Alexandre Dumas says in The Count of Monte Cristo: without philosophy, knowledge is of no avail. Well, that may be so, but I have plenty of philosophy and scarce in the way of knowing and understanding. I put it down to a lack of open-mindedness and a restrictive school curriculum. There are countless ways to improve understanding and knowledge, however, and it will just take a lot more attention and self-improvement than I had first perceived.

It's difficult to explain why it happens so quick; why a man becomes interested in making life better for his fellow man in a new way which would seem to most as inexplicable. Something must have snapped, or this isn't quite right; this man is cracked. It's not even near the truth to call the interest in man in assisting his neighbour indecipherable, especially if the man in question has just returned to the beaten track after several years of philosophical speculation at the world and how the world behaves.

I wrote in my journal last night that I had to choose the path I walk from now on. Either I would accept social limitations and perceive the flaws of my fellow species as irredeemable... or I would choose a paternal path, a path which circles around the last from a reflective point of view, learning what I could from history, current politics, philosophers, sociologists; writers of all walks. The other path seems far more interesting; it can lead in a thousand different interlinking directions and make life more wholesome and rich. The study of a species not simply in relation to itself, but also in relation to its habitat seems in very many respects wonderful.

I had this expectation that I would suddenly have something very profound to say following my reading of Proust. Well, the truth is that it only led me to the brink of a precipice, from which I might see all paths open to me. Social indulgence, the beauty of seclusion, the vanity of artistic reflection; I was steered away from them in a mammoth stroke of social codemnation. I can see why many have said that reading Proust can change one's life. So I know what I want to do, but it will take a very long time to do it. I want to bring about social change and a shift in political climate. First I will have to admit: I am only human, but I am a willing student.

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