The Magician And The Politician Have Much

This Is What You Must Be Like. Grow Wherever Life Puts You Down.

To Poison A Nation, Poison Its Stories. A Demoralised Nation Tells Demoralised Stories To Itself. Beware Of The Storytellers Who Are Not Fully Conscious Of The Importance Of Their Gifts, And Who Are Irresponsible In The Application Of Their Art: They

We Disliked The Rigours Of Existence, The Unfulfilled Longings, The Enshrined Injustices Of The World, The Labyrinths Of Love, The Ignorance Of Parents, The Fact Of Dying, And The Amazing Indifference Of The Living In The Midst Of The Simple Beauties Of The Universe. We Feared The Heartlessness Of Human Beings, All Of Whom Are Born Blind, Few Of Whom Ever Learn To See.

Reading, Therefore, Is A Co-production Between Writer And Reader. The Simplicity Of This Tool Is Astounding. So Little, Yet Out Of It Whole Worlds, Eras, Characters, Continents, People Never Encountered Before, People You Wouldn’t Care To Sit Next To In A Train, People That Don’t Exist, Places You’ve Never Visited, Enigmatic Fates, All Come To Life In The Mind, Painted Into Existence By The Reader’s Creative Powers. In This Way The Creativity Of The Writer Calls Up The Creativity Of The Reader. Reading Is Never Passive.

It May Be That What You Could Be Haunts You. It Is Real. It Is A Weight You Have To Carry Around. Each Failure To Become, To Be, Is A Weight. Each State You Could Inhabit Is A Burden As Heavy As Any Physical Weight, But More So, Because It Weighs On Your Soul. It Is The Ghost Of Your Possibilities Hanging Around Your Neck, An Invisible Albatros, Potentials Unknowingly Murdered.