LETTERS 

The writer knew many people in the city. They occupied boxes and niches throughout the town limits. Usually they were surrounded by books and ugly pets. The writer always ignored the ugly, smelly pets and would sit on a flea market couch preparing to listen to the jabbering of one of these city creatures. They always had a great problem weighing them down and preventing them from becoming who they wanted to become. They hated science. Science was a deal made with the devil to conquer the world. The writer listened with passing interest. Science meant nothing to him one way or the other. There was nothing he could do about science. However, he could observe what science did and what the people thought about it.

The friend was in the kitchen speaking loudly as he looked for some decent wine. 'They go forward so far that they return to the beginning.' He poked his head around the door. 'You know, a person can project their thought so far into the future they end up like a Neanderthal on a cliff, with a club, with some awful feeling of power as he counts the stars...So, there he is. He understands the earth and all physical phenomena. Now, will this creature make the same mistakes or will he discover a more fruitful avenue? You don't think these scientific idealists wouldn't transform everything and begin again? They would have all the mistakes made in history fastened into their minds. New cities, new relations, new humanity, new responsibilities, new burdens....that would be their constant chant.'

The writer was standing and smiling. 'Oh? Is that what we are in now?'

'Listen, you're a writer. You should know these things. They will develop a first principle. A destructive first principle since they'll have to get rid of the old traveled road. How could you have a Bible when it's led to so many mistakes? How could you have the Greeks when they had slaves and were imperialists? How could you have beliefs, faiths, passions that have led to so many mistakes? So, no more beliefs, faiths, history, passion...no more mistakes. And what do you think is on the otherside of this type of thinking? Glorification of athletes, actors, performers, machines.'

The writer was about to interject his opinion but the friend became emotional.

'Listen writer, there are more Xerxes, Nebuchadezzrs, and Nimrods walking around today than there are Socrates', Christ's, Augustus', Augustines. What does that tell you?'

'I think you are a pleasant sort of nut.'

'Well, writer, I say this. It's far worse to turn fact into mystery than to look into the unnamable and imageless and break the hypnotism of fact. The more men and societies are hypnotized by fact the closer they come to mass annihilation.'

'Let us now drink our hearty wine!'

David Eide
August 25, 1999
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