One Does What One Is; One Becomes

An Impractical Man--which He Not Only Seems To Be, But Really Is--will Always Be Unreliable And Unpredictable In His Dealings With Others. He Will Engage In Actions That Mean Something Else To Him Than To Others, But He Is At Peace With Himself About Everything As Long As He Can Make It All Come Together In A Fine Idea.

What Is Perceptible To One’s Mistrust Is The Cut-and-dried Way That Life Is Divided Up And The Ready-made Form It Assumes, The Ever-recurring Sameness Of It, The Pre-formations Passed Down By Generation After Generation, The Ready-made Language Not Only Of The Tongue But Also Of The Sensations And The Feelings.

And While Faith Based On Theological Reasoning Is Today Universally Engaged In A Bitter Struggle With Doubt And Resistance From The Prevailing Brand Of Rationalism, It Does Seem That The Naked Fundamental Experience Itself, That Primal Seizure Of Mystic Insight, Stripped Of Religious Concepts, Perhaps No Longer To Be Regarded As A Religious Experience At All, Has Undergone An Immense Expansion And Now Forms The Soul Of That Complex Irrationalism That Haunts Our Era Like A Night Bird Lost In The Dawn.

You Proclaim That One Should Die For The Highest Virtues, Because You Take It For Granted That Nobody's Been Living For Them, Not Even For A Single Hour.

I Also Believe That Few People Remain Completely Untouched By The Thought That Instead Of The Life They Lead There Might Also Be Another, Where All Actions Proceed From A Very Personal State Of Excitement. Where Actions Have Meanings, Not Just Causes. And Where A Person, To Use A Trivial Word, Is Happy, And Not Just Nervously Tormenting Himself.