Chapter 1 

Fantasia of a Young Man: "I go to Australia and get involved in sheep farming and live on or near the beach. And tell everyone I'm involved in shark hunting."

"I'd left and returned home after five years with no word from me to friends or family. I come into a party where they are all there and then start to tell them of my travels. "I snuck into Russia," says I, "a stowaway on the frieghter in Murmansk. I got off and travelled down into Moscow with a Russian I had met. I went down the Nile River where there was difficulty with the boat and we were dumped into the River. When I got to shore I went into the jungle, found a tribe and run with this tribe for a time. Went through Tibet, walking, until I came to the Chinese border, found a Chinese commune and worked on it until the officials found me out at which time I was taken to the capital city.

There are what used to be called splendid days. Splendid days! A crux day or on e that can be bitten into and hole to the future seen. I could see myself writing for a new age group or a group therapy group and getting yelled out, stripped down and out by maniacs or true believers and me thinking all the time how I could manipuate them and at the end tell them exactly what is what and leave with a smile. I laughed them off and thought about the lingering influence of the esoterica of pyschological ideas, of one who so intently observes himself that when I am reading it is a reflection of some deep turning of the mind. It's what I want to escape the most.

But isn't it true that sometimes one escape dead into oneself? And in doing background reading for this job I read an article by Herman Hesse about psychoanalysis and the artist. "whenever the artist views himself analyitically it does not remain hidden from him that among the weaknesses for which he suffers is a mistrust of his calling; a doubt of phantasy, or his voice within him which gives assent to the bourgois attitude and education which wants to evaluate all his activity as "only" a petty fiction...." And so one lives with this. And then it is real! It out among the cars and buildings with a life of its own. This is why the first victim is conscience and how the artist verges on a dangerous break with everything. So, one knows his feelings.

David Eide
January 24, 2014