CONTENTS
FOREWORD
I. THE SPIRIT OF PLACE
II. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
III. HECTOR ST. JOHN DE CRÈVECŒUR
IV. FENIMORE COOPER'S WHITE NOVELS
V. FENIMORE COOPER'S LEATHERSTOCKING NOVELS
VI. EDGAR ALLAN POE
VII. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE AND "THE SCARLET LETTER"
VIII. HAWTHORNE'S "BLITHEDALE ROMANCE"
IX. DANA'S "TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST"
X. HERMAN MELVILLE'S "TYPEE" AND "OMOO"
XI. HERMAN MELVILLE'S "MOBY DICK"
XII. WHITMAN

Listen to the States declaring: "The time has come! Americans will be Americans. The U.S.A. has now matured artistically. It’s time we stop clinging to Europe or acting like kids released from European teachers—"

All right, Americans, let's see you get to work. Go ahead, let the secret out. If you’re sure he’s there.

And everyone was like:
"Where's that Toad-in-the-Hole?"
And everyone said:
"He can't be found!"

Is he or isn't he invented?

If he is, of course, he has to be somewhere within you, Oh American. It's pointless to search for him across all the old continents. But it's also not enough to just claim his existence. Where is this new figure known as the true American? Show us the embodiment of the new era. Go ahead, show us him. Because all that is visible to the naked European eye, in America, is a kind of cowardly European. We want to see this missing link of the next era.

Well, we still don’t get him. So the only thing to do is to look for him under the American bushes. The old American literature, to begin with.

"The old American literature! Franklin, Cooper, Hawthorne & Co.? All that jumble of words! All so fake!" exclaims the lively American.

Heaven knows what we mean by reality. Phones, canned meat, Charlie Chaplin, faucets, and saving the world, I guess. Some focus on plumbing, and others on saving the world: those being the two major American specialties. Why not? But what about the young person of the new era, in the meantime? You can't save yourself before you're born.

Look at me trying to help deliver the unborn homunculus!

Two types of modern literature seem to have reached a real turning point: Russian and American. Let’s put aside the more fragile elements of French, Marinetti, or Irish works, which are perhaps already beyond that point. Russian and American. And by American, I don’t mean Sherwood Anderson, who is quite Russian in style. I’m talking about the classics, the slim volumes of Hawthorne, Poe, Dana, Melville, and Whitman. They seem to have reached a point, just as the more extensive works of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, and Artzibashev have crossed a threshold on the other side. The extreme expressions of French modernism or futurism haven’t yet reached the level of deep awareness that Poe, Melville, Hawthorne, and Whitman achieved. The European moderns are all trying to be extreme. The great American writers I mentioned just naturally embodied it. Which is why the world has ignored them, and continues to overlook them today.

The major difference between the extreme Russians and the extreme Americans is that the Russians are straightforward and dislike eloquence and symbols, viewing them as mere deception. In contrast, the Americans reject everything straightforward and often convey a kind of double meaning. They thrive on deception. They like their truth securely wrapped up, hidden away until some friendly princess comes along to save it.

Well, it's about time someone came to uncover the truth that America gave birth to long ago. That child must be looking pretty weak from neglect.

We like to think of the old American classics as kids' books. That's just being childish on our part.

The old American art-speech has a unique quality that is tied to the American continent and nowhere else. But, of course, as long as we keep reading the books like they’re just children's stories, we miss all of that.

One wonders what the proper elite Romans of the third and fourth centuries or later thought of the strange words of Lucretius, Apuleius, Tertullian, Augustine, or Athanasius. The eerie voice from Iberian Spain, the oddities of ancient Carthage, the passion from Libya and North Africa; you can bet the proper old Romans never encountered these at all. They interpreted it through old Latin meanings, just as we interpret the old European meanings behind Poe or Hawthorne.

It’s difficult to recognize a new voice, just like it’s tough to understand an unfamiliar language. We simply don’t pay attention. There’s a new voice emerging in the traditional American classics. The world has chosen to ignore it and has only talked about children’s stories.

Why?—Out of fear. The world fears a new experience more than anything else. Because a new experience replaces so many old experiences. It’s like trying to use muscles that may have never been used or have been stiff for a long time. It hurts a lot.

The world doesn't fear a new idea. It can categorize any idea. But it can't categorize a truly new experience. It can only avoid it. The world is a master at avoiding, and Americans are the best at it. Because they avoid their own true selves.

There’s a fresh emotion in the classic American books, much more than in the contemporary American books, which are largely void of any real feeling and take pride in that. There’s a “different” vibe in the old American classics. It represents a transition from the old mindset to something new, a displacement. And displacements are painful. This is painful. So we try to bandage it up, like a cut finger. Wrap a cloth around it.

It’s also a cut. A cut from the old emotions and awareness. Don’t ask what’s left.

Artistic expression is the only real truth. An artist is often a deceiver, but their art, if it truly is art, will reveal the truth of their time. And that’s what really counts. Forget about eternal truths. Truth exists day by day, and the brilliant Plato of yesterday is mostly nonsense today.

The old American artists were terrible liars. But they were artists, despite their flaws. That’s more than you can say about most contemporary practitioners.

And you can decide for yourself, when you read The Scarlet Letter, whether you believe what that sweet, blue-eyed guy Hawthorne says about himself, since all sweethearts are deceptive, or if you appreciate the undeniable truth of his artistic expression.

The interesting thing about art speech is that it lies so much, I mean it tells such untruths. I guess it's because we constantly tell ourselves lies. And from a pattern of lies, art creates the truth. Like Dostoevsky pretending to be something like Jesus but, in reality, showing himself all the while as a little monster.

Truly, art is a kind of deception. But thank God for it; we can see through the deception if we choose. Art has two main functions. First, it offers an emotional experience. Then, if we're brave enough to face our own feelings, it becomes a source of practical truth. We’ve experienced those feelings ad nauseam. But we've never actually dared to uncover the real truth hidden within them, the truth that matters to us, whether it impacts our grandchildren or not.

The artist typically starts off— or used to— to convey a message and embellish a story. However, the story usually conveys the opposite message. There are often two completely opposing morals, one from the artist and one from the story. Don’t trust the artist. Trust the story. The main role of a critic is to protect the story from the artist who created it.

Now we understand our role in these studies: preserving the American story from the American artist.

Let’s take a look at this American artist first. How did he manage to get to America in the first place? Why isn’t he still a European like his father before him?

Now listen to me, don’t listen to him. He’ll tell you the lie you’re expecting. That’s partly your fault for expecting it.

He didn't come looking for freedom of religion. England had more freedom of religion in 1700 than America did. That freedom was fought for by Englishmen who desired it, so they stayed home and battled for it. And they achieved it. Freedom of religion? Check out the history of New England during its first century.

Freedom anyway? This is the land of the free! If I say something they don’t like, the mob will come after me, and that’s my freedom. Free? I’ve never been in a country where a person is so afraid of their own fellow citizens. Because, as I said, they’re free to go after him the moment he shows he’s not one of them.

No, no, if you're so interested in the truth about Queen Victoria, why not consider a little about yourself?

Those Pilgrim Fathers and their successors didn’t come here for the freedom to worship. What did they establish when they arrived? Freedom, would you say?

They didn’t come for freedom. Or if they did, they unfortunately turned back on themselves.

All right then, what were they here for? For many reasons. Maybe least of all in search of any kind of freedom: positive freedom, that is.

They mostly came to get away—the simplest motive of all. To escape. Escape from what? Ultimately, to escape from themselves. Escape from everything. That's why most people have come to America, and still do. To get away from everything they are and everything they've been.

"From now on, be free."

Which is fine and all, but it isn't freedom. It's quite the opposite. A frustrating kind of restriction. You never really have freedom until you discover something you genuinely want to be. And people in America have always been vocal about the things they aren't. Unless, of course, they are millionaires, either already wealthy or on their way to becoming one.

And after all, there is a positive aspect to the movement. All that huge wave of people that has traveled across the Atlantic from Europe to America didn't come solely out of a desire to escape Europe and the limitations of European lifestyles. This urge to leave was, and still is, I believe, the main reason for emigration. But there were also reasons behind that urge to leave.

It seems that sometimes people have a crazy desire to escape from any kind of control. In Europe, traditional Christianity was the true authority. The Church and the genuine aristocracy were accountable for implementing Christian ideals: perhaps a bit inconsistently, but still responsible.

Mastery, kingship, and fatherhood lost their power during the Renaissance.

And it was exactly at this moment that the big drift across the Atlantic began. What were people moving away from? The old power of Europe? Were they breaking free from authority and heading towards a new, completely unrestrained freedom? Maybe. But there was more to it.

Liberty sounds great, but people can't live without someone in charge. There's always a leader. People either accept the authority of the leader they believe in, or they resist the leader they want to challenge. In America, this resistance has been crucial. It's what energizes the American spirit. Only the constant arrival of more submissive Europeans has given America a workforce that's willing to obey. True allegiance rarely extends beyond the first generation.

But there sits the old master, over in Europe. Like a parent. Somewhere deep in every American heart lies a rebellion against the old parenthood of Europe. Yet no American feels they have completely escaped its control. Hence the slow, smoldering patience of American opposition. The slow, smoldering, corrosive obedience to the old master Europe, the unwilling subject, the relentless opposition.

Whatever else you are, don't be a servant to anyone.

"Ca Ca Caliban"
"Get a new boss, become a new you."

Escaped slaves, we might say, populate the republics of Liberia or Haiti. Liberia enough! Are we supposed to view America in the same light? A huge nation of escaped slaves. When you think about the masses from Eastern Europe, you could easily say it: a huge nation of escaped slaves. But one wouldn't dare say this about the Pilgrim Fathers, and the great legacy of idealistic Americans, the modern Americans burdened with thought. A huge nation of escaped slaves. Watch out, America! And a minority of earnest, self-tormented people.

The leaderless.

CaCa Caliban
"Find a new boss, become a new you."

What did the Pilgrim Fathers come for when they made that harsh journey across the dark sea? Oh, it was out of a dark mindset. A deep rejection of Europe, of its old authorities, of kings, bishops, and popes. And there’s more to it. When you dig deeper, there’s even more. They were strong-willed men who wanted something different. No kings, no bishops, perhaps not even God Almighty. But also, they didn’t want this new “humanity” that emerged after the Renaissance. They weren’t interested in the fancy new freedom that was supposed to look appealing in Europe. They sought something more serious, definitely not carefree.

America has never been easy, and it isn't easy today. Americans have always been in a constant state of tension. Their freedom is a matter of pure will, pure tension: a freedom of "YOU SHALL NOT." And it has been this way from the beginning. The land of "YOU SHALL NOT." The first commandment is: "YOU SHALL NOT PRESUME TO BE A MASTER." That's why we have democracy.

"We are the masterless." That’s what the American Eagle screams. It’s a Hen-Eagle.

The Spaniards turned down the post-Renaissance freedom of Europe. And the Spaniards populated much of America. The Yankees also turned it down, rejecting the post-Renaissance humanism of Europe. Above all, they despised authority. But beneath that, they disliked the effortless humor found in Europe. Deep within the American soul was always a sense of dark tension, and within the Spanish-American soul, it was the same. This dark tension resented and continues to resent the old European spontaneity, watching it fall apart with satisfaction.

Every continent has its own unique spirit of place. Each group of people is connected to a specific location that feels like home, their homeland. Different areas of the earth have distinct energies, vibes, chemical characteristics, and connections to various stars—call it whatever you want. But the spirit of place is a powerful truth. The Nile Valley produced not just crops, but the amazing religions of Egypt. China continues to produce its people, and that will remain the case. Over time, the Chinese in San Francisco will lose their distinctiveness, because America is a huge melting pot.

There was a huge divide in Italy, specifically in the city of Rome. And it seems that has faded away. Even places can fade away. The Island of Great Britain had its own amazing magnetism or polarity that shaped the British people. Right now, this polarity seems to be weakening. Can England disappear? And what happens if England does disappear?

Men are less free than they think; oh, much less free. The ones who seem the freest might actually be the least free.

Men are free when they belong to a thriving homeland, not when they're wandering and breaking away. They experience true freedom when they listen to a deep, inner voice of belief. Following that inner guidance. Men are free when they are part of a living, organic, believing community, actively working toward some unfulfilled, perhaps even unrealized, purpose. Not when they’re fleeing to some wild frontier. The ones who feel the least free are the ones who head west and shout about freedom. People are freest when they're least aware of their own freedom. That shout is just a clanking of chains, and it always has been.

Men aren't truly free when they're only doing what they enjoy. As soon as you can do whatever you want, nothing seems worth doing. People are only free when they're pursuing what their innermost self truly desires.

And that’s when you really connect with your true self! It requires some deep exploration.

Because the deepest self is buried deep within, and the conscious self is a stubborn distraction. But one thing is certain. If you want to be free, you have to let go of the illusion of doing whatever you want, and instead seek what it truly wants done.

But before you can do what IT wants, you first need to break the spell of the old mastery, the old IT.

Perhaps during the Renaissance, when the concepts of kingship and fatherhood crumbled, Europe slipped into a risky half-truth: that of freedom and equality. The men who ventured to America might have sensed this and chose to completely reject the old world. They went further than Europe. So far, liberty in America has meant breaking free from all forms of control. True liberty will only start when Americans truly understand IT and begin to realize IT. IT refers to the deepest whole self of a person, the self in its entirety, not an idealistic fragment.

That's why the Pilgrim Fathers came to America, and that's why we come too. Driven by something we can't see. We can't recognize that invisible forces push us forward, just like they push swarms of locusts, or how invisible magnetism guides migrating birds to their unknown destination. But it's true. We're not the amazing choosers and decision-makers we believe we are. An unseen force chooses for us and makes our decisions. Unless, of course, we are just escaped slaves, overly confident about our predetermined fate. But if we are living, aware individuals, that force drives us and determines our paths. We are only free as long as we follow it. When we go against it, thinking we can do whatever we want, we end up wandering aimlessly like Orestes fleeing from the Furies.

And still, when the big day arrives, when Americans finally discover America and their true selves, there will still be the countless escaped slaves to consider, those who don't have confident, predetermined futures.

Which group will prevail in America, the escaped slaves or the new free men?

The true American day hasn't started yet. At least, not until sunrise. So far, it's just been a false dawn. In the evolving American mindset, there has been one main desire: to eliminate the old ways. Remove the masters and elevate the will of the people. But since the will of the people is just an illusion, that elevation doesn't mean much. So, in the name of the will of the people, let's get rid of the masters. Once you've done that, you're left with just the empty phrase of the will of the people. Then you take a moment to reflect and try to regain your own sense of completeness.

So much for the conscious American motive and for democracy here. Democracy in America is just the means by which the old dominance of Europe, the European mindset, is weakened. If Europe is destroyed, American democracy will fade away. America will begin.

American consciousness has been a false start so far. The flawed vision of democracy. But beneath this open ideal, the first signs and insights of IT. IT, the true essence of America.

You need to strip away the democratic and idealistic wrap of American speech and see what you can of the dark reality beneath it.

"From now on, be free."

From now on, be mastered.

The Perfectibility of Man! Ah, what a dull topic! The perfectibility of the Ford car! Which man are we talking about perfecting? I am many people. Which one are you going to improve? I am not a machine.

Education! Which version of me do you plan to educate, and which one do you plan to hold back?

Anyways, I challenge you. I challenge you, oh society, to educate me or to hold me back according to your ridiculous standards.

The perfect man! So who is he, may I ask? Benjamin Franklin or Abraham Lincoln? The perfect man! Roosevelt or Porfirio Diaz?

There are other guys inside me, besides this patient dude who’s sitting here in a tweed jacket. What am I doing, acting like this patient dude in a tweed jacket? Who am I talking to? Who are you, on the other end of this patience?

Who are you? How many versions of yourself do you have? And which one of these versions do you want to be?

Is Yale College going to help you understand the part of yourself that's in the dark, or will Harvard College?

The ideal self! Oh, but I have a strange and elusive self locked away, howling like a wolf or a coyote outside the perfect windows. Can you see his red eyes in the dark? This is the self who is starting to emerge.

The perfectability of humans, dear God! Every person, as long as they're alive, is a mix of many conflicting selves. Which one of them do you decide to improve, at the cost of all the others?

Old Daddy Franklin will take you down. He'll get it all set up for you, the classic American. Oh, Franklin was the first true American. He knew exactly what he was doing, that clever little guy. He created the first fake American.

At the start of his career, this clever little Benjamin created a belief system for himself that would "please the followers of every religion, but offend none."

Now wasn't that a truly American thing to do?

"There is one God who created everything."

(But Benjamin created Him.)

"That He manages the world through His guidance."

(Benjamin knowing everything about Providence.)

"That He should be worshipped with love, prayer, and gratitude."

(Which are free.)

"But—" But no more excuses, Benjamin, says the Lord.

But the best way to serve God is by doing good to others.

(God having no choice in the matter.)

"That the soul is eternal."

(You'll see why in the next clause.)

And God will definitely reward good deeds and punish wrongdoing, either now or later.

Now, if Mr. Andrew Carnegie or any other millionaire wanted to create a God that fit their needs, they couldn't have done better. Benjamin did it for him in the eighteenth century. God is the ultimate servant of people who want to succeed, to produce. Providence. The provider. The heavenly storekeeper. The eternal Wanamaker.

And this is all the God the grandsons of the Pilgrim Fathers had left. Up high on a pillar of money.

"That the soul lives forever."

The cliché way Benjamin puts it!

But a person has a soul, even though you can't find it in their wallet, purse, heart, stomach, or head. The totality of a person is their soul. It’s not just that nice little comfy part that Benjamin points out.

It's a strange thing, a man's soul. It's the entirety of who he is. This means it's both the unknown and the known parts of him. It just strikes me as ridiculous, professors and Benjamins trying to define the functions of the soul. The soul of man is like a vast forest, while all Benjamin wanted was a tidy backyard. And we're all expected to fit into his small garden plan. Hail Columbia!

The soul of man is a dark forest. The Hercynian Wood that terrified the Romans so, and from which emerged the pale-skinned hordes of the next civilization.

Who knows what will emerge from the human soul? The human soul is a dark, expansive forest, filled with wild life. Imagine Benjamin trying to fence it in!

Oh, but Benjamin fenced off a small piece of land that he called the soul of man, and started to cultivate it. Seriously! And they really think that little bit of barbed wire is going to keep us trapped forever? What a joke.

This is Benjamin's barbed wire fence. He made a list of virtues for himself, which he carried around like a tired old horse in a paddock.

1

Self-control

Don't eat until you're stuffed; don't drink until you're buzzed.

2

Quiet

Speak only what can benefit others or yourself; avoid pointless conversation.

3

Order

Let everything have its place; let each part of your work have its time.

4

GOAL

Resolve to do what you should; make sure to do what you decide.

5

THRIFTINESS

Make no expense except to do good for others or yourself—meaning, waste nothing.

6

INDUSTRY

Lose no time; always be engaged in something useful. Eliminate all unnecessary actions.

7

Authenticity

Do not use harmful lies; think honestly and fairly, and if you say something, say it as such.

8

Justice

Wrong no one by causing harm or neglecting the benefits that are your responsibility.

9

MODERATION

Avoid extremes, and try not to hold grudges as much as you think they deserve.

10

Cleanliness

Tolerate no dirtiness in your body, clothes, or living space.

11

Calm

Don't let small things or everyday accidents get to you.

12

Sexual purity

Rarely engage in sexual activities except for health and having children; never do it to the point of causing dullness, weakness, or harming your own or someone else's peace or reputation.

13

Humbleness

Be like Jesus and Socrates.

A Quaker friend told Franklin that he, Benjamin, was usually seen as proud, so Benjamin added a touch of humility as an afterthought. The funny part is the kind of humility it shows. "Copy Jesus and Socrates, but don’t try to outdo either of them. You can just picture Socrates and Alcibiades laughing it up over Benjamin from Philadelphia, and Jesus looking at him a bit confused and saying, 'Aren't you wise in your own arrogance, Ben?'"

"Henceforth be masterless," replies Ben. "Each one of you should be your own master, and don’t let anyone, not even the Lord, interfere. 'Each man his own master' is just a way of inflating the idea of being masterless."

Well, the first Americans followed this appealing list diligently, setting a national example. He had virtues listed out and graded himself on whether his behavior deserved good or bad marks. It's a shame those conduct charts are gone. He only notes that order was his weakness. He couldn't learn to be neat and tidy.

Isn't it great to have nothing more to confess?

He was a small figure, Benjamin. Doctor Franklin. A tiny man with a snuff-colored complexion! Immortal spirit and all!

The idea of the immortal soul was basically a low-cost insurance policy.

Benjamin wasn’t really concerned about the immortal soul. He was too focused on social issues.

1. He cleaned and illuminated the streets of young Philadelphia.

He invented electric appliances.

3. He was the leader of a moralizing group in Philadelphia, and he wrote the clever moral sayings of Poor Richard.

4. He was part of all the key councils in Philadelphia and later in the American colonies.

5. He won support for American Independence at the French Court and was the economic founding father of the United States.

Now what more can you ask of a man? And yet he is infra dig, even in Philadelphia.

I really respect him. I respect his strong courage first, then his wisdom, then his insight into the power of electricity, and finally his down-to-earth sense of humor. He has all the qualities of a great person, and even more so as a great citizen. Doctor Franklin, who's of average height, sturdy build, and often looks a bit grey, is one of the most reliable citizens to ever walk the earth or "enjoy life."

I don't like him.

And, by the way, I always thought books about hunting were just about deer.

There’s a sincere innocence about him. Like a child. And like a little old man. He has become like a little child again, always as wise as his grandfather, or even wiser.

Perhaps, as I mentioned, the most complete citizen who ever engaged in sexual activity.

Printer, philosopher, scientist, author, and patriot, perfect husband and citizen—why isn't he an ideal model?

Pioneer, Oh Pioneers! Benjamin was one of the greatest pioneers of the United States. Yet we just can't do without him.

What's his issue then? Or what's our issue?

I can remember when I was a little kid, my dad used to buy a scrappy yearly almanac with the sun, moon, and stars on the cover. It would predict bloodshed and famine. But it also had little funny stories and jokes tucked in the corners, each with a moral lesson. I would have my little self-righteous laugh at the woman who counted her chickens before they hatched, and I was convinced that honesty was the best policy, feeling a bit superior about it. The author of these pieces was Poor Richard, and Poor Richard was Benjamin Franklin, writing in Philadelphia over a hundred years before.

And I probably still haven't gotten over those Poor Richard tags. They still annoy me. They're like thorns in young skin.

Because even though I still believe that honesty is the best policy, I really dislike policies overall; while it's good not to count your chickens before they hatch, it's even worse to count them with glee once they have hatched. It’s taken me many years and a lot of smarts to escape that tangled moral trap that Poor Richard set up. Here I am now, in tatters and all scratched up, sitting in the middle of Benjamin's America, looking at the barbed wire, and the fat sheep squeezing under the fence to get fat on the outside, while the watchdogs bark at the gate to make sure no one escapes through the right exit. Oh America! Oh Benjamin! And I just let out a long, loud curse against Benjamin and the American corral.

Moral America! Most moral Ben. Sound, content Ben!

He had to head to the borders of his state to resolve some issues with the Native Americans. On this occasion, he writes:

"We discovered that they had built a huge bonfire in the center of the square; everyone was drunk, with both men and women arguing and fighting. Their dark-skinned bodies, mostly bare, illuminated only by the dim flicker of the bonfire, chased each other and struck one another with burning sticks, accompanied by their terrifying screams, creating a scene that closely resembled our ideas of hell. The chaos was relentless, so we went back to our place. At midnight, a group of them came banging on our door, demanding more rum, but we ignored them."

"The next day, realizing they had messed up by causing us that disturbance, they sent three of their counselors to apologize. The speaker acknowledged the mistake but blamed it on the rum, then tried to defend the rum by saying: 'The Great Spirit, who created everything, made everything for a purpose; and whatever he intended something for, that’s how it should always be used. Now, when he created rum, he said: 'Let this be for the Indians to get drunk with.' And it has to be that way.'"

"And, if it's the plan of Providence to wipe out these savages to clear space for farmers, it seems likely that rum might be the chosen method. It has already destroyed all the tribes that used to live along the coastline..."

This, from the good doctor, with such smooth confidence is a bit disappointing. Almost too good to be real.

But there you are! The barbed wire fence. "Eliminate these savages to make way for the farmers." Oh, Benjamin Franklin! He even "engaged in sexual activity" as a farmer of seed.

Cultivate the land, you gods! The Native Americans did that, as much as they needed. And they stopped there. Who built Chicago? Who farmed the land until it created Pittsburgh, Pa.?

The moral issue! Just look at it! Cultivation included. If it’s just a choice between culture or cultivation, I’m done with it.

Which brings us back to our question: what's wrong with Benjamin that we can't stand him? Or what's wrong with us that we criticize someone who's so admirable?

Man is a moral being. Fine. I am a moral being. And I'm going to stay that way. I'm not going to be turned into a virtuous little robot like Benjamin wants me to be. "This is good, that is bad. Just turn the handle and let the good flow," says Benjamin and everyone in America with him. "But first, let's get rid of those people who keep turning on the bad."

I’m a moral being, but I’m not a moral robot. I don’t operate with just a few knobs or switches. The Temperance-silence-order-resolution-frugality-industry-sincerity-justice-moderation-cleanliness-tranquility-chastity-humility keyboard isn’t what drives me. I’m not just an automatic piano with a moral guide getting melodies out of me.

Here's my belief, in contrast to Benjamin's. This is what I stand for:

"I am who I am."

"My soul is a dark forest."

"That my known self will always be just a small clearing in the forest."

"That strange gods come out of the forest into the clearing of my familiar self, and then return."

I need to have the courage to let them come and go.

I will never let anyone have power over me; instead, I will always strive to acknowledge and honor the divine within myself and in others.

There is my belief. Those who run may understand. Those who choose to crawl, or to go by car, can dismiss it as nonsense.

Then for a "list." It's pretty fun to play at being Benjamin.

1

Self-control

Eat and party with Bacchus, or nibble on dry bread with Jesus, but don’t sit down without one of the gods.

2

MUTE

Be quiet when you don’t have anything to say; when real passion inspires you, speak your mind and do it with intensity.

3

ORDER

Know that you are accountable to the gods within you and to the people in whom the gods are present. Acknowledge those above you and those below you, according to the gods. This is the foundation of all order.

4

Goal

Resolve to follow your own inner voice and prioritize the bigger picture over the smaller things. Fight when necessary, and be ready to be fought against as well: this necessity should come from the deities within you or from the people in whom you see the Holy Spirit.

5

THRIFTINESS

Demand nothing; accept what you think is right. Don’t waste your pride or squander your feelings.

6

INDUSTRY

Lose no time with ideals; serve the Holy Spirit; never serve humanity.

7

Genuineness

To be sincere means to recognize that I am myself, and that the other person is not me.

8

Justice

The only true justice comes from following the genuine intuition of the soul, whether it's angry or gentle. Anger is just, and compassion is just, but judgment is never just.

9

Moderation

Beware of absolutes. There are many gods.

10

CLEANLINESS

Don't be overly clean. It weakens the blood.

11

Calmness

The soul has many movements, and many gods rise and fall. Try to discover your deepest concern in every confusion, and stick to that. Follow the person in whom you see the Holy Spirit; take charge when your honor demands it.

12

ABSTINENCE

Never "use" sexuality at all. Follow your passionate instincts, if they are reciprocated by the other person; but never have any agenda, whether it's for offspring, health, pleasure, or even service. Just understand that "sexuality" is of the great gods. It's a surrender of yourself to the very great gods, the dark ones, and nothing more.

13

Humbleness

See all men and women through the lens of the Holy Spirit that is within them. Never give in to the unfruitful.

There's my list. I've been vaguely trying to make it happen for a long time, and it's only America and old Benjamin who have finally pushed me to try to put it into words.

And now I finally understand why I can't stand Benjamin. He tries to strip away my wholeness and my dark forest, my freedom. How can anyone be truly free without an endless background? But Benjamin wants to force me into a barbed-wire enclosure and make me grow potatoes or get stuck in Chicago.

And how can I be free, without gods that come and go? But Benjamin won’t let anything exist except for my useful fellow humans, and I’m tired of them; as for his God, his Providence, He heads nothing except a huge celestial warehouse that stocks every possible item, from record players to whips.

And how can any man be truly free without a soul of his own that he believes in and won’t sell for any amount? But Benjamin won’t let me have my own soul. He says I’m nothing but a servant of humanity—like a galley slave, I’d say—and if I don’t get paid here on Earth—that is, if Mr. Pierpont Morgan or Mr. Nosey Hebrew or the grand United States Government, the great US, US or SOME OF US, manages to take my share along with theirs—well, it doesn’t matter, I’ll get my rewards in the AFTERLIFE.

Oh Benjamin! Oh Benjamin! You can't pull me in any longer.

And why on earth would the snuff-colored little trap want to take us all in? Why did he do it?

Out of pure human stubbornness, to begin with. We all like to corral things inside a barbed-wire fence. Especially other people. We love to gather them up inside the barbed-wire enclosure of FREEDOM and make them work. "Work, you free treasure, WORK!" shouts the liberator, cracking his whip. Benjamin, I will not work. I do not choose to be a free democrat. I am completely a servant of my own Holy Spirit.

Sheer stubbornness! But there was also the hint of a deeper motive. Benjamin was totally over the moon—using a common English expression meaning he was just thrilled—when he was in Paris cleverly extracting money from the French monarchy to bring down all monarchies. If you want to guide your horse to a destination, you have to put a bit in its mouth. And Benjamin wanted to guide his horse to overturn the entire system of the old rulers. He aimed to flip the whole European system upside down. So, he had to put a strong bit in the mouth of his donkey.

"From now on, be free."

That is, he had to completely break in the human ass so that much more could be broken in the long run. For now, it was the British Government that needed a hole put in it. The first real hole it ever had: the breach caused by the American rebellion.

Benjamin, with his wisdom, understood that the collapse of the old world was a lengthy journey. Deep down, he resented England, Europe, and everything that made up European identity. He yearned to be American. But you can't change who you are or how you think like swapping out shoes. It's a slow process of letting go. Years need to pass, and centuries must go by before you’re done with it. Like a child breaking free from their parents' control. The escape isn't just a single break. It's a long, often hidden process.

So, about the American. He was a European when he first crossed the Atlantic. Basically, he's still a failing European. From Benjamin Franklin to Woodrow Wilson is a big leap, but it’s still a step on the same path. There’s no new path. It’s the same old path, now dull and pointless. Theoretical and materialistic.

Why then did Benjamin create this ideal of a perfect citizen as a model for America? He definitely did it in good faith, as far as he understood. He believed it was simply the true ideal. But what we think we do isn't very important. We never really know what we're doing. Either we're just materialistic tools, like Benjamin, or we act out of a creative impulse from our deepest self, which is usually unconscious. We're just the performers; we're never entirely the authors of our own actions or creations. It is the true author, the unknown force inside us or outside us. The best we can do is try to align ourselves with the depths within us. And the worst we can do is try to force things to go our way when we go against that force, and eventually face the consequences of our arrogance.

So Benjamin is working on getting money from the Court of France. He’s planning the initial steps to overturn all of Europe, including France. You can’t create something new without destroying something old. Europe is the old thing. America, as long as the people there don’t push back too much against their inner instincts, should be the new thing. The new thing represents the end of the old. But you can't simply end an era; you have to gradually take its life away over several centuries.

And Benjamin worked on this in both direct and indirect ways. Directly, at the Court of France, he created a small but very dangerous breach in the side of England, through which Europe has almost bled to death by now. Indirectly, in Philadelphia, he established this unattractive, dull, snuff-colored ideal, or automaton, of a typical American. This typical American, a dry, moral, utilitarian little democrat, has done more to damage old Europe than any Russian nihilist. He has managed this through slow erosion, like a son who stays at home and obeys his parents while quietly resenting their authority, and silently, in his soul, undermining not just their authority but their entire existence. For the American remained spiritually at home in Europe. The spiritual home of America was and still is Europe. This is the frustrating bondage, despite the several billions of stacked gold. Your piles of gold are just so many heaps of refuse, America, and will remain so until you become a reality to yourselves.

All this push to Americanize and mechanize has been aimed at overthrowing the past. And now look at America, caught up in her own barbed wire and controlled by her own machines. Completely trapped by her own restrictions and stuck tight in her so-called "productive" machines, like millions of squirrels running in countless cages. It’s just a joke.

Now is your moment, Europe. Unleash your fury and take your revenge, and navigate your own course on a new sea, while smart America lounges on her piles of gold, tangled in her own restrictive ideals and moral constraints. While she goes about her business like millions of squirrels in countless cages. Production!

Let chaos erupt, and get your revenge, Europe!

Crèvecœur was born in France, in Caen, in 1735. As a child, he was sent to England and received part of his education there. He moved to Canada as a young man, served for a while with Montcalm in the war against the English, and later moved to the United States, where he became a passionate American. He married a girl from New England and settled on the frontier. During his time "cultivating the earth," he wrote the Letters From an American Farmer, which were quite popular in their time, especially in England, among new reformers like Godwin and Tom Paine.

But Crèvecœur wasn’t just a farmer. That was his best act, so to speak. He was more focused on creating a perfect society and controlling it than on growing carrots. Imagine him setting off with high hopes for France, leaving his farm in the wilderness to be burned by the Native Americans, and his wife to fend for herself. This was during the American War of Independence when the Noble Red Man reverted to his true nature. Upon returning to America, the American Farmer got involved in politics and business. He made another trip to France, where he enjoyed himself as a nature-loving writer, became friends with old Benjamin Franklin in Paris, and was quite popular with Jean Jacques Rousseau's Madame d'Houdetot, the literary figure.

Hazlitt, Godwin, Shelley, Coleridge, the English romanticists, were obviously excited by the Letters From an American Farmer. A new world, a world of the Noble Savage and Untouched Nature and Ideal Simplicity and all that beauty that comes from the pure source of the ink bottle. Lucky Coleridge, who only made it as far as Bristol. Some of us have gone all the way.

I believe this wild and amazing America is exactly what I've longed for ever since I read Fenimore Cooper as a kid. Now I finally have it.

Franklin is the true practical model of the American. Crèvecœur represents the emotional side. To Europeans, Americans are primarily seen as money-driven. We often overlook the emotional legacy of Hector St. John de Crèvecœur. We tend to doubt, for instance, Woodrow Wilson's heartfelt struggles and tear-stained handkerchief. But surely, these feelings are genuine enough. Right?

It wasn’t surprising that the dry, dull Doctor didn’t have everything go his way. The new Americans might engage in sex for health or procreation and spend their time growing potatoes and developing Chicago, but they did have some passion in them after all. They needed to find a bit of intense emotion somewhere.

NATURE.

I wish I could write it bigger than that.

NATURE.

Benjamin overlooked nature. But the French Crèvecœur noticed it long before Thoreau and Emerson explored it. The best way to process your emotions is through nature.

Crèvecœur's Letters are written with a heartfelt simplicity, even more so than Chateaubriand. You'd assume neither of them would ever understand the basics of common sense. This American Farmer shares the joys of building a home in the wild and farming the untouched land. Poor untouched land, exploited from the very beginning.

The farmer had a kind wife and a baby son, his child. He took the baby son—who has no other name than this—

"What's your name?"
I have no name.
I am the Baby Son——

to the fields with him, and I. S. sat on the shafts of the plough while the American Farmer worked the potato patch. He also, the A. F., helped his neighbors, whom he surely loved as much as himself, to build a barn, and they worked together in the innocent simplicity of one of Nature's Communities. Meanwhile, the amiable spouse, who also in Blakean simplicity has no name, cooked the doughnuts or the pie, though those aren't mentioned. She was probably a strong daughter of America, though she could just as well have been a flat-chested Methodist. She would have been an amiable spouse in either case, and the American Farmer expected nothing more. I don't know if her name was Lizzie or Ahoolibah, and Crèvecœur probably didn't either. Spouse was enough for him. "Spouse, hand me the carving knife."

The baby grew into healthy children as more came along: there's no doubt Crèvecœur followed the guidance given. So, these natural kids worked hard in the wilderness with simple labor and a bit of honest sweat now and then. You have the full picture, dear reader. The American farmer created his own family portrait, and it’s still there for everyone to see. Naturally, the loving spouse wore her best apron to be in the picture, for all to see and admire.

I used to be really impressed: before I quietly entered the Wilds and saw the homes of the Homesteaders. Especially the Friendly Wife, poor thing. It’s no surprise that she never sang the song of Simple Labor in the Innocent Wilds. What a tired worker, like a ghost mourning in the wilderness, nine times out of ten.

Hector St. John, you have lied to me. You lied even more deceitfully to yourself. Hector St. John, you are an emotional liar.

Jean Jacques, Bernardin de St. Pierre, Chateaubriand, you lovely group, with your Nature Sweet and Pure! Marie Antoinette lost her head for pretending to be a dairy maid, and no one even bothered to check your stories until now, despite all the lies you told us.

But Crèvecœur was both an artist and a liar, or we wouldn’t have paid him any mind. He wanted to capture NATURE, just like Benjamin captured Humanity. Together, they aimed to hold the entire scheme of things in their hands, along with the things themselves. Once you have the scheme of things in your pocket, you can do whatever you want with it, even profit from it, if you can’t bring yourself to destroy it, as was your initial plan. So, H. St. J. de C. tried to stuff Nature-Sweet-and-Pure into his pocket. But nature wasn’t having it; she stuck her head out and baa-ed.

This whole nature-is-sweet-and-pure idea is just another way to overthink things. It’s an attempt to force nature to fit into a few concepts created by humans. The nice and simple concepts. For a while, nature seemed to be cooperating. But now, it’s stopped.

That's why you find the most serious thinkers in a Garden Suburb or a Brook Farm experiment. For sure, Robinson Crusoe was a top intellectual among intellectuals.

You can idealize or analyze things. Or, on the other hand, you can allow your darker side to perceive things for itself. An artist often analyzes outwardly, while their darker subconscious frequently undermines them internally. This is almost comically true for most American artists. Crèvecœur is a prime example. He’s somewhat of an artist; Franklin isn’t one at all.

Crèvecœur the idealist throws a lot at us about nature, the noble savage, and the purity of hard work, and so on. Nonsense! But Crèvecœur the artist shows us real glimpses of nature, without all the embellishments.

Curious that his vision sees only the simplest forms of natural life. Insects, snakes, and birds he perceives in their own mystery, their own pure existence. And immediately contradicts Innocent Nature.

"I am amazed to see," he writes early on in the Letters, "that everything has its enemy, one species hunts and feeds on another: sadly, our king-birds are the destroyers of those hardworking insects (the bees); but on the flip side, these birds protect our fields from the attacks of the crows, which they chase in the air with great alertness and incredible skill."

This is a sad blow to the sweetness and purity of Nature. But it contrasts the voice of the artist with the voice of the ideal turtle. It represents the basic American vision. The sight of king-birds flying with hostility and pride is surely an echo of the indigenous Indian perspective. The Eagle symbolizes human awareness. The dark, swinging wings of a hawk-beaked destiny can’t help but feel like they’re hovering above the wild heart of America. You look around in vain for the "One being Who made all things, and governs the world by His Providence."

"One species hunts and survives by preying on another."

Reconcile the two statements if you want. But, in America, act on Crèvecœur's observation.

The horse, however, says Hector, is a friend to humans, and humans are friends to the horse. But then we don't give the horse much choice. And I don't see much of a friend, really, in my crafty old Indian pony, even though he is a decent old guy.

Man, too, says Hector, is a friend to man. Then the Indians burned his farm; so he decides not to mention it in the Letters, fearing it will undermine his arguments.

Some great hornets have built their nest on the ceiling of the living room of the American Farmer, and these tiger-striped insects buzz around the heads of the Healthy Offspring and the Amiable Spouse, much to the delight of the American Farmer. He enjoyed their buzzing and their aggressive nature. Additionally, in practical terms, they helped keep the house free of flies. So Hector says. Therefore, Benjamin would have agreed. However, we don’t know how the Amiable Spouse felt about this, and after all, she was the one who had to make the jam.

Another story. Swallows built their nest on the porch of the American Farm. Wrens became fond of the swallows' nest. They aggressively (I like the word aggressively; it feels so American) attacked the heralds of spring and drove them away from their cozy adobe nest. The swallows returned when they had the chance. But the wrens, coming home, forcefully drove them out again. This went on until the gentle swallows patiently started to build another nest, while the wrens sat in triumph in the stolen home. The American Farmer watched this struggle with delight and no doubt cheered for those little troublemakers, the wrens. Because in the Land of the Free, the greatest joy for every man is getting the upper hand over another man.

Crèvecœur mentions that he shot a kingbird that was eating his bees. He opened its throat and found a huge number of bees, which, after lying stunned in the sun for a minute or two, shook themselves off, fluffed their wings, and strutted away confidently, like Jonah on the beach; or like real Americans who had escaped from the kingbird of Europe.

I don't care if it's true or not. I like the picture and see it as a symbol of the American revival.

The hummingbird.

"Its bill is as long and sharp as a thick sewing needle; like the bee, nature has taught it to find the sweet particles in the open parts of flowers that can serve as its food; yet it seems to leave them untouched, without taking anything that the eye can see. Where it feeds, it appears almost motionless, even though it's always on the move: and sometimes, for reasons I can't understand, it will tear flowers into a hundred pieces; strangely enough, they are the most fiery of the bird species. How do such strong emotions fit in such a tiny body? They often fight with the intensity of lions until one of them falls and dies. When tired, it often perches just a few feet away from me, and during those moments, I've observed it very closely. Its tiny eyes sparkle like diamonds, reflecting light all around; elegantly crafted in every detail, it is a small masterpiece from our Creator, who seems to have made it the smallest and most beautiful of the flying creatures."

A typical little Tartar, too. Lions no bigger than ink spots! I've read about hummingbirds in other places, like Bates and W. H. Hudson, for example. But it’s the American farmer who shows me the real little raging lion. Birds clearly aren’t angels in America, or to the true American. He notices how they start and flash their wings like little devils and jab each other with their sharp, self-serving beaks. But he also observes the quiet, tender shyness of the wild creature at times. Quails in winter, for instance.

"Often, in the corners of the fences, where the wind keeps the snow from piling up, I bring them both chaff and grain; the chaff to feed them, the grain to stop their delicate feet from freezing to the ground, which I've seen happen quite often."

This is beautiful and a deep understanding of nature. Crèvecœur feels the touch of birds' feet, as if they had stood with their delicate, sharp, and chilly balance, bare-footed on his bare hand. It’s a beautiful, raw tenderness of the heart. He doesn’t try to turn them into “little sisters of the air,” like St. Francis, or start lecturing them. He sees them as unique, timid, passionate beings in their own right.

The Letter, which talks about snakes and hummingbirds, is a remarkable essay in its raw, dark honesty. The description of the battle between two snakes, a huge water snake and a large black serpent, comes right after the description of the hummingbird: "It was a strange sight; two massive snakes firmly grounded, intertwined through their writhing movements that held them together, stretched out to their full lengths, pulling and pulling in vain; in their most intense moments, the part of their bodies wrapped together looked tiny, while the rest appeared bloated, and now and then convulsed with rapid undulations. Their eyes seemed to blaze, ready to pop out of their heads; at one moment, it looked like one side had the upper hand; the water snake coiled itself into two massive loops, stretching the other snake unusually far. But in the next moment, the renewed efforts of the black snake turned the tide unexpectedly; it also formed two large loops, which pulled its opponent’s body longer as it contracted its own."

This fight, which Crèvecœur describes in detail, he calls a sight "uncommon and beautiful." He overlooks the sweetness and purity of Nature and, for the moment, is purely an admirer of snakes. His chapter is as striking a piece of snake admiration, perhaps, as that coiled Aztec rattlesnake carved in stone.

And yet the real Crèvecœur isn't just a farmer, a child of nature, or a lover of snakes. He returns to France, mingles in literary circles, and is friends with Rousseau's Madame d'Houdetot. He’s also a savvy businessman, setting up a shipping line between France and America. In the end, it all leads to materialism, really. But the Letters don’t mention any of this.

We can only picture him returning in sorrow to live with his Native American brothers in their wigwams. The War of Independence has started, and the Indians are armed by the enemies; they are causing terrible destruction on the frontiers. While Crèvecœur is in France, his farm is destroyed, and his family is left homeless. As a result, the last letter expresses deep sadness about the war and humanity's foolishness and cruelty towards one another.

But Crèvecœur wraps up his lament with a sense of determination. With his friendly wife and his healthy children, who are now growing up, he plans to leave the civilized shores, where people are sophisticated and therefore tend to be corrupt, and instead live with the Children of Nature, the Native Americans, under the wigwam. Surely, in real life, Crèvecœur recognized a difference between the Native American who drank rum like Franklin, who burned down homes and slaughtered families, and those Native Americans, the noble Children of Nature, who filled his own idealized imagination. No matter what he did in reality, deep down he couldn't let go of this self-created world, where the natural man was a figure of pure brotherhood. He touches on this vividly as he describes his tented home near the Indian village, how he cultivates the native soil to grow a little corn while his wife weaves inside the wigwam. And his imaginary attempts to protect his delicate children from the harshness of unchristian ignorance are both moving and confusing, as how can Nature, so sweet and pure beneath the trees, have any corrupting influence?

But it's all a scam. Crèvecœur was heading to France in fancy shoes and a stylish vest, trying to act like a literary figure and make a name for himself. We, on the other hand, have no choice but to trail behind him into the wilderness, where the pure, natural life can be realized, close to the tented village of the Bed Man.

He wanted, of course, to understand the dark and brutal way of life, to get it all clear in his head. He wanted to know things like the Indigenous people and outsiders do, in a deep and different way. He was just obsessed, as Americans say, with this. Obsessed enough! At the same time, he was completely convinced that Nature is beautiful and pure, that all people are brothers, and that they love each other like a bunch of cooing doves. He was determined to live life on his own terms. So, he wisely stayed away from getting too close to Nature and found comfort in business and the material world. But still, he was set on understanding the savage way of life, for his own mind’s satisfaction. So he just pretended in the last Letters. A kind of wish-fulfillment.

For animals and wild beings are alone, each in their own pure form. The animal raises its head, sniffs, and knows deep within its instinctive gut. It instinctively understands, in a thoughtless way. Then it either bolts away immediately; or it crouches to hunt, caught up in the thrilling anticipation of capturing a prey; or it lowers its head again in complete indifference; or it moves forward with endless wild curiosity, a relentless desire to explore what is profoundly strange and impossible to measure; or it approaches slowly with the trusting nature of wild, instinctive love.

Crèvecœur wanted this kind of knowledge. But he wanted it in a comfortable way, kept in his head alongside his other thoughts and ideals. He didn’t get too close to the wigwam. He must have suspected that the moment he saw things the way the natives did, all his ideas of brotherhood and equality would vanish, along with his ideal world of pure goodness. Even worse, he’d have to let go of his own belief that the world is as it is because it would be best if it were that way. So, he headed back to France in high-heeled shoes, imagining America while in Paris.

He wanted his perfect world. At the same time, he wanted to understand the other side, the dark, primal mind. He wanted both.

Can't be done, Hector. One's death means the other's death.

Best turn to business, where you can get things done your way.

He really hates the dark, primal life. He hates the real sensual mystery. But he wants to "know." To KNOW. Oh, endless American curiosity!

He's dishonest.

But if he won't take the chance to know in person, he'll risk all the imagination you want.

It’s funny to watch him stay away and weigh the risks of each step he takes so indulgently, all by himself. He gets a kick from a taste of real wildness, just like people today love to indulge in a taste of imaginary mischief—completely self-created.

"I have to say," he says, "there's something really unique about being near the woods. Just like how plants and animals in the forests are completely different from those that live in the plains, people are the same way. I'll honestly share all my thoughts, but don't expect me to provide reasons. Living in or near the woods means their actions are shaped by the wild environment around them. The deer often come to eat their crops, wolves kill their sheep, bears attack their pigs, and foxes steal their chickens. This constant threat pushes them to pick up guns; they start watching these animals and end up killing some of them. By protecting their property, they quickly become seasoned hunters; that's how it goes—once you become a hunter, you can forget about farming. The hunt makes them fierce, moody, and reclusive; a hunter doesn’t want neighbors, he actually resents them because he fears the competition. Eating wild meat, whether you believe it or not, changes their temperament..."

Crèvecœur, of course, never meant to go back as a hunter to the heart of Nature, only as a farmer. The hunter takes lives. The farmer, on the other hand, brings new life and growth. But even the farmer exerts a dark control over the unwilling earth and animals; he struggles to extract value, needing to dominate the land and the strong livestock. He must possess deep knowledge and a gradual, but profound, expertise. There’s no equality or selfless humility. The hard work overwhelms the idea, inevitably. This is why the most idealistic nations create the most machines. America is full of mechanical inventions because nobody in America ever wants to do anything. They are idealists. Let machines handle the work.

Again, Crèvecœur focuses on "the fear that my younger children might be caught by that unique charm, so harmful to their impressionable years"—referring to the allure of a primitive lifestyle. He continues: "What leads to the fact that children who were adopted young by these people (the Indians) can never be convinced to take on European ways again? I've seen so many worried parents during the last war who, when peace was restored, went to the Indian villages where their children had been taken captive, only to their utter dismay to find them fully assimilated into Indian culture, with many no longer recognizing them. Those who were old enough to remember their fathers and mothers absolutely refused to return with them, instead running to their adopted parents to shield them from the overflow of affection their unfortunate biological parents showered on them! As unbelievable as this may seem, I've heard it claimed in countless instances by reliable people."

"There must be something in their (the Indians') social bond that is uniquely captivating and far better than anything we can brag about; because thousands of Europeans choose to be Indians, and we don't have any examples of even one of those indigenous people willingly becoming Europeans..."

Our cat and another cat, Hector.

I like the image of thousands of stubborn children, with their faces turned away from their natural white parents, resolutely turning towards the Native Americans who took them in.

I have seen some Native Americans that you really couldn't distinguish from white people. And I've never seen a white person who actually looked like a Native American. So Hector is lying again.

But Crèvecœur wanted to be an intellectual savage, like many others we've encountered. Sweet children of Nature. Savage and bloodthirsty children of Nature.

White Americans really try to think of themselves as intellectuals. This is especially true for white American women. And now the latest move is this "savage" stunt again.

White savages, with cars, phones, incomes, and ideals! Savages trapped inside the machine; yet savage enough, oh my gosh!

Benjamin Franklin had a clever little formula in divine mathematics:

Rum + Savage = 0

Awfully nice! You could end up reducing the entire universe to nothing if you keep going.

Rum plus Savage may equal a dead savage. But is a dead savage nothing? Can you make a land pure by wiping out its native people?

The Aztecs are gone, and so are the Incas. The Native Americans, the Eskimos, and the Patagonians have been reduced to very small numbers.

Where are the snows of yesteryear?

My dear, no matter where they are, they will definitely come back again next winter, just like clockwork.

Not that the Native American will ever own the vast lands of America. At least, I doubt it. But his spirit will.

The Native American died filled with resentment towards white people. Whatever part of him still exists, still harbors that hate. Get close to the Indigenous people, and you can sense it. As far as we’re concerned, the Native American is quietly and relentlessly malicious. Even when he isn’t aware of it. He struggles with loss in life and holds onto grudges. He doesn’t trust us and our way of life, making him our hidden adversary, as we force him out of existence.

Belief is mysterious. It's the only thing that heals the wounds of the soul. There is no belief in the world.

The Red Man is dead, no longer believing in us. He is dead and unsatisfied. Don't think of him as happy in his Happy Hunting Ground. No. Only those who die with faith die happy. Those who are forced out of life in disappointment return unsatisfied, seeking revenge.

A curious thing about the Spirit of Place is that no location has its full impact on a newcomer until the old inhabitants are gone or absorbed. So it is with America. As long as Native Americans exist in significant numbers, the new colonists remain largely unaffected by the spirit or essence of America. The moment the last remnants of Native life disappear in America, the white population will have to face the complete force of the continent's spirit. Right now, the spirit of the land and the restless souls of the deceased Native Americans influence the deeper, often unacknowledged psyche of white Americans, leading to a widespread discontent and a restless frenzy within the Yankee spirit, an inner unease that sometimes borders on madness. The Mexican identity is haunting and disjointed in its own way. Until now, the unexpressed spirit of America has quietly affected the psyche of the white American. But in this current generation, the remaining Native Americans are set to blend into the overwhelming white culture. Then, the Spirit of America will reveal itself clearly, and we will witness real change.

There has always been a conflicting feeling in the white American psyche regarding Native Americans. First, there was Franklin's belief that a wise Providence surely intended the elimination of these "savages." Then, Crèvecœur offered a contradictory view, romanticizing the noble Indigenous people and the simple life in their lodges. Now, we struggle to accept Benjamin's idea of a Providence that wisely removes Native Americans to make space for "farmers." In Crèvecœur, we encounter a sentimental longing to idealize these groups. Totally sentimental. Hector makes a trip to Paris to rave about the wigwam.

The desire to eliminate the Indian. And the conflicting desire to celebrate him. Both are still widespread today.

The majority of white people who interact with Native Americans today would prefer to see this Indigenous brother eliminated; not just to take his land, but because of the quiet, unseen, yet deadly animosity between the spirits of the two races. The minority of white people romanticize the Indigenous person and praise them highly. However, this minority is mostly an elitist group with a significant resentment toward their own whiteness. So there you have it.

I doubt there can be any real reconciliation, in person, between white and Native American people. For example, a Native American girl working in a white family's home, if treated with genuine respect, will likely do her job well and even find some happiness in it. She feels empowered in the white woman's kitchen. The white world boosts her pride, as long as she can return to her own community when needed. But her happiness comes from the fact that she's pretending to be a white woman. There are other Native American women who would never work for white people and would rather die than be with a white man romantically.

In either case, there's no reconciliation. There's no spiritual connection between the two races. The Indian girl who happily serves white people puts aside her own racial identity for the moment.

Suppose a white guy goes hunting in the mountains with a Native American. The two will probably bond like brothers. But if that same white guy goes alone with two Native Americans, he’ll face a sneaky kind of harassment. If they, the Native Americans, find out he’s afraid of heights, they’ll lead him to every cliff in the area. And so on. Malice! That's the underlying sentiment in the Native American heart toward the white man. It might even be completely unintentional.

Suppose an Indian man loves a white woman and lives with her. He will probably feel very proud of it, as he will be a prominent figure among his people, especially if the white woman has money. He will never shake off the pride of dining in a white dining room and smoking in a white living room. But at the same time, he will subtly mock his white partner, attempting to undermine her sense of superiority. He will go along with her, if necessary, with a kind of reluctant, childlike attitude, and even love her with the same innocent gentleness, which can be beautiful. But deep down, he is sneering at her. It's not just about resisting intimacy, but also about resisting their racial differences.

There doesn't seem to be any reconciliation physically.

That leaves us with only atonement and then peace within ourselves. A curious form of atonement: atonement and unity.

Fenimore Cooper has likely done more than any other writer to introduce Native Americans to white readers. However, Cooper's portrayal is really a fulfillment of his own desires. That's why Cooper continues to be so successful today.

Modern critics begrudge Cooper his success. I think I resent it a little myself. This popular wish-fulfillment stuff makes it really difficult for the genuine article to shine through later.

Cooper was a wealthy American from a respected family. His father founded Cooperstown, by Lake Champlain. And Fenimore was a cultured gentleman. No question about it.

It’s incredible how sophisticated the Americans were in the first half of the eighteenth century. Extremely so. Austin Dobson and Andrew Lang are insignificant by comparison. Lots of very refined light poetry and carefully crafted casual literature will show this to anyone willing to dive into these older books. The English and French writers from that same time seem awkward and rough around the edges by the same standards.

Truly, European decadence was expected in America; and American influence crossed over to Europe, was embraced there, and then came back to this land of innocence as something purplish in its modernity and a bit wicked. That's how ridiculous things are.

Cooper quotes a Frenchman, who says, "L'Amérique est pourrie avant d'être mûre." And there's a lot of truth in that. America wasn't taught by France—by Baudelaire, for instance. Baudelaire learned his lessons from America.

Cooper's novels can be divided into two categories: his white novels, like Homeward Bound, Eve Effingham, The Spy, The Pilot, and the Leatherstocking Series. Let's start with the white novels.

The Effinghams are three extremely refined, classy Americans who are "Homeward Bound" from England to the States. Their group includes the father, daughter, uncle, and a loyal nurse. The daughter has just completed her education in Europe. She has truly enjoyed the best of what Europe has to offer. England, France, Italy, and Germany have nothing more to teach her. She is a bright and charming, admirable person; a real modern heroine; fearless, calm, and composed, yet wonderfully spontaneous, always in great taste; smart and confident in her speech, like a man, but also charmingly respectful and modest around men. She embodies the ideal woman. We have learned to be wary of her, but Cooper still admired her.

On board is the other kind of American, the social climber, the demagogue, who has "done" Europe and shoved it into his pants pocket in a month. Oh, Septimus Dodge, if a European had drawn you, that European would never have been forgiven by America. But since an American drew you, Americans smartly overlook you.

Septimus is the quintessential American self-made man. He had no help from God in who he became. He created himself. He's traveled to Europe and has seen it all, including the Venus de Milo. "What, is that the Venus de Milo?" And he turns his back on her. He's seen her. He's got her. She's a trophy he's captured, and now he's heading back to America with her, leaving the leftover statue standing in the Louvre.

That’s one way Americans vandalize things. The original Vandals would have taken a battle axe to that complacent woman and finished her off. The insatiable American looks at her and says, “Is that the Venus de Milo?—give me a break!” And the Venus de Milo stands there like a naked slave in a marketplace, someone having just spat on her. Spat on!

I often think about American tourists in Europe—like in the Bargello in Florence or in the Piazza di San Marco in Venice—exclaiming, "Isn't that just the cutest!" or "Aren't you just in love with Saint Mark's! Don’t you think those domes look like the prettiest turnips turned upside down?" It’s as if the beautiful things in Europe are being completely stripped of their significance by these American fans. They admire so blindly. Sometimes, they even seem to fawn. But after enough American tourists have seen them, the golden domes of St. Mark's in Venice really do just look like turnips upside down in a stale stew. Turnips upside down in a stale stew. Poor Europe!

And there you are. When a few German bombs hit Rheims Cathedral, a loud outcry followed. But there are many forms of vandalism. I believe the American admiration of quick, five-minute tourists has done more to destroy the sacredness of old European beauty and inspiration than countless bombs ever could.

But there you are. Europe has to fall, and peace has her victories.

Look, here comes Mr. Septimus Dodge returning to Dodge-town a winner. Not wearing a laurel crown, it's true, but surrounded by a list of things he’s experienced and exhausted. Experienced and exhausted, you see: the Venus de Milo, the Rhine, or the Coliseum: devoured like so many clams, leaving just the shells behind.

Now the aristocratic Effinghams, on their way back from Europe to America, are at the mercy of Mr. Dodge: Septimus. He’s one of their fellow countrymen, so they can’t ignore him. If they were English, of course, they would never have acknowledged his existence. But no. They are American democrats, and so, if Mr. Dodge walks up and says, “Mr. Effingham? Nice to meet you, Mr. Effingham”—then Mr. Effingham is obligated to respond: “Nice to meet you, Mr. Dodge.” If he didn’t, he would have the harsh reality of democracy chasing him down the moment he stepped foot in the Land of the Free. An Englishman is free to remain unaware of a fellow countryman’s presence if he finds them unpleasant. But every American citizen is free to insist on being in your space, no matter how reluctant you might be.

Freedom!

The Effinghams can’t stand Mr. Dodge. They really hate him. They loathe and despise him. They have total contempt for him. Everything about him—what he is, what he says, and what he does—seems too vulgar and despicable to them. Yet, they have to respond when he shows up: “Nice to meet you, Mr. Dodge.”

Freedom!

Mr. Dodge from Dodgetown is a mix of flattery and invasion, being both submissive and aggressive. The Effinghams, who think they are very "superior" in a place that values equality, are in a helpless position. They wish they could just dismiss Septimus completely. But Septimus won’t be dismissed. As a true democrat, he can’t be ignored. And being right gives him strength.

Right is power. It’s the age-old battle for control.

Septimus, as a true democrat, is equal to anyone. As a genuine democrat with a full wallet, he's significantly better off than the democrats with empty wallets, simply because of the amount he's carrying. Because, even though all people are born equal and die equal, you won't find anyone who believes that ten dollars is the same as ten thousand dollars. No, there's definitely a difference there, no matter how much you argue for equality.

Septimus has the Effinghams completely cornered. He has them trapped, and they won’t be able to get away. We wouldn’t want to reveal the tortures waiting for them at home, in the so-called Land of the Free, at the hands of the overly friendly Dodge. What was the oppression from a proud Lord or a pillaging Baron or an overzealous Abbot compared to the torment from a million Dodges? The proud Effinghams are like people buried naked up to their chins in ant hills, destined to be bitten to death by countless ants. Stoically, as true democrats and idealists, they writhe and endure without complaining too much.

They squirm and suffer. There’s no way out. Not from then to now. No way out. They struggled with the dilemma of the Dodge.

Since then, Ford has made things even worse.

Through these white novels of Cooper runs this sting of ant bites, the formic acid of democratic poisoning. The Effinghams feel superior. Cooper felt superior. Mrs. Cooper felt superior too. And stung.

For they were democrats. They didn’t believe in kings, lords, masters, or any real superiority. Before God, of course. In God’s eyes, all men were equal. This was their belief. And so, even though they felt really superior to Mr. Dodge, they couldn’t bring themselves to say to him: “Mr. Dodge, please go to hell.” They had to say: “Nice to meet you.”

What a lie to tell! Lies from the Democrats.

What a dilemma! To feel so superior. To know you are superior. And yet to believe that, in the eyes of God, you are equal. Can't help yourself.

Why couldn’t they let the Almighty take care of equality, since it seems to happen right in front of Him, and focus on their own superiority? Why couldn’t they?

Somehow, they don't dare.

They were Americans, idealists. How could they possibly weigh a strong emotion against an IDEA and an IDEAL?

Ideally—in the eyes of God, Mr. Dodge was their equal.

What a poor opinion they had of God's ability to judge.

But it was true. The IDEAL of EQUALITY.

Pleased to meet you, Mr. Dodge.

We are equal in the eyes of God, of course. But, um—

Very happy to meet you, Miss Effingham. Did you say—uh? Well, I think my bank account can handle it.

Poor Eve Effingham.

Eve! Just think about it. Eve! And exotic birds. And apples.

And Mr. Dodge.

This is what the apples of knowledge do for you, Miss Eve. You should just leave them alone.

"Mr. Dodge, you are a completely hopeless and unbearable lowlife."

Why couldn't she say it? She felt it. And she was a hero.

Alas, she was an American heroine. She was an EDUCATED WOMAN. She KNEW all about IDEALS. She accepted the IDEAL of EQUALITY with her first taste of KNOWLEDGE. Alas for her and that tempting apple of Sodom that seemed so perfect. Alas for all her understanding.

Mr. Dodge (in checkered knickers): So, feeling a bit uncomfortable down there, are you, Miss Effingham?

Miss Effingham (struggling to pull her gaze away from the INFINITE OCEAN): Good morning, Mr. Dodge. I was admiring the deep blue horizon.

Mr. Dodge: Hey, couldn't you appreciate something a little closer?

Think about how easy it would have been for her to say "Go away!" or "Leave me, jerk!"—or "Get lost, you lowborn fool!" Or just to turn her back on him.

But then he would have just walked around to the other side of her.

Was she his boss, or not?

Why of course, deep down, she was. Deep down, Fenimore Cooper was better than the Dodges of his time. He knew it. But he felt he shouldn't feel that way. And he never fully confronted himself about it.

That’s why people tend to get frustrated with him. He sees himself as above others, and he knows he shouldn’t feel that way, which makes him a bit snobbish, but also somewhat apologetic. That’s definitely annoying.

If a guy feels superior, he should confront his own feelings. "Do I feel superior because I am superior? Or is it just snobbery from my class, education, or wealth?"

Class, education, and money won't make someone better than others. But if he’s simply born better, then that’s a fact. Why deny it?

It’s a terrible sight to see the Effinghams putting themselves at the mercy of a Dodge, all because of some silly idea or ideal. What fools. They ruin more than they realize. And at the same time, they’re so snobbish.

Septimus at the court of King Arthur.

Septimus: Hey, Arthur! Nice to meet you. By the way, what's with that huge sword?

Arthur: This is Excalibur, the sword of my knighthood and my kingship.

Septimus: Oh really! We're all equal in God's eyes, you know, Arthur.

Arthur: Yep.

Septimus: Then I guess it's about time I had that yard-and-a-half of Excalibur to mess around with. Don't you think? We're equal in God's eyes, and you've had it for quite a while.

Arthur: Yeah, I agree. (Hands him Excalibur.)

Septimus (prodding Arthur with Excalibur): Hey, Art, which one is your fifth rib?

Superiority is a weapon. Give it to Septimus, and you'll feel it poke through your ribs.—That's the whole lesson of democracy.

But there you are. Eve Effingham had fastened herself to the Contrat Social, and she was prouder of that pin through her body than of anything else in the world. Her IDEAL. Her IDEAL of DEMOCRACY.

When America decided to get rid of Kings, Lords, Masters, and everything else tied to European superiority, it ended up stabbing itself and is still struggling in pain on that very issue. The issue of democratic equality. Freedom.

There will never be any real life in America until you acknowledge and accept natural inequality. There’s natural superiority and natural inferiority. Until that happens, Americans just spin around like different types of propellers, held back by their freedom and equality.

That's why these white novels by Fenimore Cooper are only interesting from a historical and sarcastic perspective. The characters are all stuck in some social constraint, buzzing around in their own importance or conflicts, going in circles. They’re never real people. Just figures pinned down, choosing to be trapped, fixated on the idea of equality and democracy, and turning loudly and importantly, like propellers spinning. These States. From a human standpoint, it’s dull. As a historical phenomenon, it’s wonderfully ridiculous and annoying.

If you don't pull the pin out in time, you won't be able to pull it out again. You have to keep turning it forever, or you’ll bleed to death.

"I was shirtless"
And deep in my heart lies,
Even though no one could see any blood,
The tip of a spear—

Is it too late already?

Oh gosh, the democratic pin!

Freedom, equality, equal opportunity, education, human rights.

The pin! The pin!

Well, there goes Eve Effingham, acting all snobbish and stuck-up. She's the ultimate American heroine, and I'm pretty sure she was the first woman to ever wear a stylishly tailored "suit." I'm sure she spoke multiple languages. I'm sure she was incredibly capable. I'm sure she "loved" her husband, blew through a ton of his money, and divorced him because he didn’t get what LOVE was all about.

American women in their flawless "suits." American men in their imperfect coats and skirts!

I sense that I’m better than most guys I come across. Not because of my background, since I don’t have a great-grandfather. Not because of wealth, since I have none. Not because of education, because I’m just a bit rough around the edges. And definitely not because of looks or physical strength.

So, what now?

Just in myself.

When I'm challenged, I can’t help but feel superior to most of the guys I meet. It's just a natural sense of superiority.

But only when there’s an element of challenge involved.

When I meet another guy, and he’s just being himself—even if he’s an uneducated Mexican with scars from smallpox—there’s no question of superiority or inferiority between us. He’s a man and I’m a man. We are ourselves. There’s no question between us.

But if a question comes up or there’s a challenge, then I believe he should respect the gods within me, because they are greater than the gods within him. And he should honor the true me, because it aligns more closely with the gods than his own self does.

If this is being arrogant, I apologize. But it's the divine in me that counts. And in other men.

As for me, I’m really happy to greet the courageous, fearless gods in another person. I’m so glad to meet someone who stays true to himself.

Ideas! Ideals! All this paper separating us. What a drag.

If only people could connect with their true selves, without trying to impose their ideas or ideals on each other.

Damn all ideas and all ideals. Damn all the fake stress, and the pins.

I am who I am. Here I am. Where are you?

Ah, there you are! Now, screw the consequences, we've finally met.

That's my take on democracy, if you can even call it that.

In his Leatherstocking books, Fenimore is exploring a different path. He’s no longer focused on the social white Americans who are consumed with their own issues, complaining loudly about everything except what really matters. The issue of the Great Ideal.

One gets annoyed with Cooper because he never once snaps at the Great Ideal Pin that holds him captive. No, not at all. Instead, he tries to drive it right through the heart of the Continent.

But I have loved the Leatherstocking books so much. Wish fulfillment!

Anyway, you’re not really supposed to take LOVE seriously in these books. Eve Effingham, caught up in social pressures, focused only on herself and nothing else, suddenly swooning in the throes of love: no, it makes me sick. Love isn’t truly LOVE until it gets pricked and turns into an IDEAL. The ego spinning on a pin is always wildly IN LOVE. Because that’s the thing to be.

Cooper was a GENTLEMAN, in the worst sense of the word. In the Nineteenth Century sense of the word. A proper, mechanical man.

Not entirely, of course.

The huge National Grouch was churning inside him. He probably referred to it as COSMIC URGE. Americans typically do that: in all caps.

Best stick to National Grouch. The great American grouch.

Cooper had it, being the gentleman he was. That's why he moved around Europe so restlessly. Of course, in Europe, he could be— and was— a gentleman to his heart's content.

"In short," he says in one of his letters, "we were at the table with two earls, one monsignor, an English lord, an ambassador, and me."

Were we actually!

How great it must have been to know that one part of yourself, at least, was humble.

And he felt the democratic American tomahawk hovering over his uneasy head the whole time.

The ultimate American grump.

Two monsters appeared on Cooper's horizon.

There you have the key elements of Cooper's soul.

If there's one thing that annoys me more than a businessman and his BUSINESS, it's an artist, a writer, painter, musician, and MY WORK.

When an artist says MY WORK, my body feels worn out. When he says MY WIFE, I want to punch him.

Cooper grumbled about his work. Oh, man, he really cared about whether it was good or bad, what the French thought, what Mr. Snippy Knowall said, and how Mrs. Cooper reacted. The pressure, the pressure!

But he was truly an artist: then an American: then a gentleman.

And the grumpiness festered inside him, through it all.

They seemed to be particularly good at imagining themselves "under the wigwam," these Americans, just when their knees were comfortably under the mahogany, in Paris, along with the knees of

4 Counts
2 Cardinals
1 Lord
5 Courtesans
1 Humble self.

You bet, though, that when the women were being raffled off, Fenimore went home to his

Fenimore lounging in his Louis XIV hotel in Paris, deeply lost in thought about Natty Bumppo and the endless forest, blending his imagination with the Cupids and butterflies on the painted ceiling, while Mrs. Cooper wrestled with her latest dress in the next room, and lunch was scheduled with the Countess at eleven...

Men live by falsehoods.

In reality, Fenimore loved the refined continent of Europe and waited eagerly for the newspapers to praise his WORK.

In another reality, he loved the rugged landscape of America and imagined himself as Natty Bumppo.

His real desire was to be: Monsieur Fenimore Cooper, the great American writer.

His deepest desire was to be: Natty Bumppo.

Now Natty and Fenimore, walking arm-in-arm, make for an odd couple.

You can see Fenimore: blue coat, silver buttons, silver-and-diamond buckle shoes, ruffles.

You see Natty Bumppo: a rugged, rough old outlaw, with missing teeth and a droop on the tip of his nose.

But Natty was Fenimore's greatest desire: his dream come true.

"It was only natural," says Mrs. Cooper, "that he should focus on the better aspects of the picture instead of the rougher and more disgusting, even if they're more common. Like West, he could see Apollo in the young Mohawk."

The rougher and more disgusting, but more common aspects.

You can see now why he relied so heavily on MY WIFE. She had to confront things directly for him. The rougher, more disgusting, and definitely more ordinary aspects, she had to face.

He really enjoyed seeing beautiful things, with the excitement of a red scalp every now and then.

Fenimore, in his mind, wanted to be Natty Bumppo, who, I'm sure, burped after he finished his dinner. At the same time, Mr. Cooper was undeniably a gentleman. So he chose to stay in France and do things his way.

In France, Natty wouldn't burp after eating, and Chingachgook could be as much of an Apollo as he wanted.

As if any Indian could be compared to Apollo. The Indians, with their intriguing feminine traits, their ancient figures, with broad shoulders and deep, traditional waists, almost resemble a type of woman! And their inherent mischievousness, their natural slyness.

But people see what they want to see, especially when they’re looking from far away, like across the ocean.

Yet the Leatherstocking books are beautiful. Beautiful half-truths.

They create a kind of American Odyssey, with Natty Bumppo as Odysseus.

Only, in the original Odyssey, there are plenty of demons, Circe and pigs and all. And Odysseus is clever enough to outsmart the demons. But Natty is a saint with a gun, and the Indians are gentlemen through and through, even if they might take a scalp now and then.

There are five Leatherstocking novels: a decrescendo of reality, and a crescendo of beauty.

1. Pioneers: A rough frontier village on Lake Champlain, at the end of the 18th century. This must be a depiction of Cooper's childhood home as he remembered it. It's a really beautiful book. Natty Bumppo is an old man, an aging hunter who is half civilized.

2. The Last of The Mohicans: A historical conflict between the British and the French, with Native Americans on both sides, at a fort by Lake Champlain. A romantic escape of the British general's two daughters, led by the scout, Natty, who is at the height of his life; a tragic death of the last of the Delawares.

3. The Prairie: A wagon full of large, threatening Kentuckians traveling west into the untouched prairie. Prairie Indians, and Natty, an old man; he dies sitting in a chair on the Rocky Mountains, facing east.

4. The Pathfinder: The Great Lakes. Natty, a man around thirty-five, makes a failed attempt to propose to a lively young woman, the daughter of the Sergeant at the Fort.

5. Deerslayer: Natty and Hurry Harry, both pretty young, are hunting in the untouched wilderness. They come across two white women. Lake Champlain again.

These are the five Leatherstocking books: Natty Bumppo, also known as Leatherstocking, Pathfinder, and Deerslayer, depending on his age.

Now let me set aside my impatience at the unreal quality of this vision and accept it as a wish-fulfillment fantasy, a sort of longing myth. It seems to me that the things in Cooper that make one feel so fierce when compared to reality are, when viewed as expressions of a deep personal desire, real in their own way and almost prophetic.

The intense love for America, for its land, for example. As I mentioned, it might be easier to love America passionately when you look at it from a distance, across the vast Atlantic, like Cooper often did, rather than when you are actually here. When you’re really in America, it can be painful because it has a strong disintegrating effect on the white psyche. It’s filled with grinning, restless ancestral spirits, and it haunts white people like Furies until they let go of their absolute whiteness. America is charged with hidden violence and resistance. The common sense of white Americans often carries a hint of helplessness and a deep fear of what could happen if they weren't grounded in that common sense.

Yet one day, the demons of America must be calmed, the ghosts must be soothed, and the Spirit of Place must be reconciled. Only then will a true, passionate love for American soil emerge. For now, the landscape carries too much threat.

But maybe, one day America will be as beautiful in reality as it is in Cooper's work. Not yet, though. When the factories have crumbled again.

And again, this ongoing theme of brotherhood in the Leatherstocking novels. Natty and Chingachgook, the Great Serpent. Right now, it feels like a total myth. The Native American and the White man are not true brothers, even when they’re very friendly. When they are at their friendliest, it usually means one is giving up part of their identity for the other. In the white man—who considers himself sophisticated—who “loves” the Indian, there’s a sense of him betraying his own people. It feels unworthy and sneaky. Renegade. The same goes for the Americanized Indian who fully embraces white culture. It’s a betrayal. Renegade once more.

In reality, it feels like the white man and the red man create a sense of oppression towards each other, regardless of any good intentions. The red life flows in a different direction than the white life. You can't make two streams that flow in opposite directions come together and blend easily.

Certainly, if Cooper had to spend his entire life in the wilderness, right next to a Noble Red Brother, he would have felt completely suffocated. He needed Mrs. Cooper, a solid and reliable figure in society, to rely on. And he had to have the culture of France to escape to, or he would have just been overwhelmed. The Noble Red Brother would have stifled him and made him lose his mind.

So, the Natty and Chingachgook myth has to stay a myth. It’s a way of fulfilling wishes and avoiding reality. As we've mentioned before, the folds of the Great Serpent would have been burdensome, really burdensome, too burdensome for any white man. Unless the white man was a true renegade, someone who despised himself and his own race, which does happen sometimes.

It seems there can't be a merging in the physical body. But the spirit can evolve. The white man's spirit will never match the red man's spirit; it doesn’t desire to. However, it can stop being the complete opposite and the negative of the red man's spirit. It can expand into a new realm of awareness, where there is space for the red spirit as well.

To expand our awareness means to shed the old way of thinking. The old mindset has turned into a constricting prison for us, where we are rotting away.

You can't get a fresh, smooth skin until you've shed the old, tight skin.

You can't.

And you just can't, so you might as well stop pretending.

Now the essential history of the people of the United States seems to me just this: During the Renaissance, the old mindset was starting to feel a bit constricted. Europe shed its last skin and began a new, final phase.

But some Europeans pulled back from the final phase. They wouldn't enter the cul de sac of post-Renaissance, "liberal" Europe. They came to America.

They came to America for two reasons:

1. To completely shed the old European mindset.

2. To develop a new layer of skin underneath, a new shape. This second part is a concealed process.

The two processes happen at the same time, of course. The gradual formation of new skin underneath coincides with the slow shedding of the old skin. Sometimes this immortal serpent feels really happy, experiencing a new golden glow of a uniquely patterned skin wrapping around him; other times, he feels very sick, as if his insides are being ripped out of him, as he struggles once more to shed his old skin.

Out! Out! he yells, using all sorts of euphemisms.

He's got to put on his new skin before he can get out.

And he needs to leave before his new skin can ever become truly his.

So there he is, a broken, conflicted monster.

The true American, who twists and turns like a snake going through shedding its skin.

Sometimes snakes can't shed their skin. They can't break free from the old skin. Then they get sick and die inside the old skin, and nobody ever sees the new pattern.

It takes a genuine, reckless desperation to finally shed your old self. You really don't care what happens to you, even if you tear yourself apart, as long as you manage to break free.

It also requires a genuine belief in the new approach. Otherwise, you’re probably not going to put in the effort. Then you slowly start to fade away and deteriorate, stuck in the old ways.

Now Fenimore stayed very comfortable inside the old persona: a gentleman, almost European, as proper as can be. And, safe inside the old persona, he imagined the beautiful American design of a new persona.

He hated democracy. So he avoided it and had a nice vision of something beyond democracy. But he was part of democracy all along.

Evasion!—But even that doesn’t make the dream meaningless.

Democracy in America was never the same as freedom in Europe. In Europe, freedom was a vibrant pulse of life. But in America, democracy always felt anti-life. The greatest democrats, like Abraham Lincoln, always had a tone of sacrifice and self-destruction in their voices. American democracy was a form of self-destruction, always. Or of destroying someone else.

Necessarily. It was a last resort. It was the last resort to European Liberty. It was a harsh way of shedding the old self. People killed themselves to achieve this democracy. Democracy is the complete hardening of the old skin, the old form, the old mindset. It hardens until it’s tight and rigid and lifeless. Then it has to break open, like a chrysalis shell. And out must come the soft grub, or the soft, damp butterfly of the American-at-last.

America has reached the last resort of her democracy. Now she has to let go of even that, mainly that, for sure.

What did Cooper envision beyond democracy? In his timeless friendship between Chingachgook and Natty Bumppo, he imagined the foundation of a new society. Specifically, he envisioned a new kind of human connection. A raw, stripped-down relationship between two men, deeper than physical intimacy. Deeper than ownership, deeper than fatherhood, deeper than marriage, deeper than love. So profound that it transcends love itself. The bare, loveless, wordless unity of two men who have reached the core of their being. This is the new foundation of a new society, the key to a new era. It requires a significant and harsh shedding of the old first. Then it discovers a great release into a new world, a new morality, a new landscape.

Natty and the Great Serpent aren't equals or completely different. Each one follows the other when the time comes. And each is completely open and silent in the presence of the other, fully themselves without any illusions. They each represent the raw essence of a man, the basic living embodiment of their own masculinity. And each is aware of the sacredness of this raw representation of manhood. A new relationship.

The Leatherstocking novels shape the narrative of this new relationship. They move backward, from old age to a youthful golden age. That’s the real story of America. She begins old, worn out, and struggling in a tired shell. Then there’s a slow shedding of that old skin, leading to a renewed youth. It represents the myth of America.

You begin with reality. Pioneer is definitely Cooperstown, back when Cooperstown was just starting out: a village with a single rough street of log cabins beneath the forested hills by Lake Champlain: a village of rugged, untamed frontiersmen pushing back against civilization.

Towards this frontier village, in the wintertime, a Black slave drives a sled through the mountains, over deep snow. In the sled sits a fair young woman, Miss Temple, with her handsome pioneer father, Judge Temple. They hear a shot in the trees. It's the old hunter and woodsman, Natty Bumppo, tall, lean, and rugged, with a long rifle and gaps in his teeth.

Judge Temple is the "squire" of the village, and he has a rather ridiculous but spacious "hall" for his home. It still has that old English style. Miss Temple is a model young lady, similar to Eve Effingham; in fact, she ends up marrying a young, very respectable but broke Effingham. The old world is holding its ground on the outskirts of the wilderness. It can be a bit tedious, with more idealism than one can handle. It feels too romantic.

Against the "hall" and the upper class, the true frontierspeople, the rebels. The two groups come together at the village inn, at the snowy church, during the Christmas festivities, on the ice of the lake, and at the big pigeon shoot. It’s a stunning, vibrant representation of life. Fenimore captures only the beauty.

Perhaps my taste is childish, but these scenes in Pioneers seem incredibly beautiful to me. The raw village street, with wood fires flickering through the unglazed window openings on a winter night. The inn, with the rough woodsmen and the drunken Indian John; the church, with the snowy crowd gathered around the fire. Then the overflowing Christmas joy and turkey shooting in the snow. Spring arriving, forests all green, maple syrup tapped from the trees: and flocks of pigeons flying in from the south, countless pigeons, shot in piles; and night fishing on the rich, untouched lake; and deer hunting.

Pictures! Some of the most beautiful, glamorous pictures in all of literature.

Alas, without the harsh truth of reality. It’s all real enough. Except that one understands that Fenimore was writing from a comfortable distance, where he could romanticize and fulfill his desires.

Because when you come to America, you notice that there’s always a bit of a rebellious streak in the American landscape, and a touch of bitterness in the white man's heart. Hawthorne shows this. But Cooper overlooks it.

The American landscape has never been in harmony with white people. Never. And white people have likely never felt as angry anywhere else as they do here in America, where the landscape, in all its beauty, seems a bit wicked and mocking, standing against us.

Cooper, however, overlooks this resistance, which can never truly be ignored. He desires for the landscape to be in harmony with him. So he travels to Europe and perceives it that way. It's a kind of vision.

And yet, the unification will definitely happen—someday.

The myth is the story of Natty. The old, thin hunter and outdoorsman lives with his friend, the gray-haired Indian John, an old Delaware chief, in a hut close to the village. The Delaware has been converted to Christianity and goes by the name John. He is without a tribe and feels lost. He degrades his gray hair with drunkenness and dies, relieved to be dead, in a forest fire, returning to the fire from which he came.

And this is Chingachgook, the impressive Great Serpent from the later novels.

No doubt Cooper, as a kid, knew both Natty and Indian John. They probably sparked his imagination even back then. As an adult, settled in society and sheltering behind the protective figure of Mrs. Cooper, these two old friends become a myth in his mind. He sees a new youthful energy in them.

As for the story: Judge Temple has just played a key role in establishing sensible game laws. But Natty has relied on his gun his entire life in the wilderness and just can’t grasp how he could be poaching on the Judge's land among the pine trees. He shoots a deer during the closed season. The Judge is sympathetic, but the law has to be upheld. Confused Natty, an old man of seventy, is put in stocks and then imprisoned. They release him as soon as they can. But the damage was done.

The letter kills.

Natty's final link to his own people is gone. John, the Indian, is dead. The old hunter fades away, isolated and cut off, into the forest, away from his people.

In the new era that is approaching, there will be no Letter of the Law.

Chronologically, The Last of the Mohicans follows Pioneers. But in the myth, The Prairie comes next.

Cooper certainly knew his own America. He traveled west, explored the prairies, and camped with the prairie Indians.

The Prairie, like Pioneers, has a strong sense of reality. It's a strange, amazing book, filled with a sense of impending doom. The figures of the great Kentuckian men, along with their wolf-women, stand large on the vast prairie as they camp out with their wagons. These pioneers are different from Judge Temple. They are vivid, brutal, and marked by the darkness of crime; these are the lean white men who push westward, continuing on despite the natural challenges of the continent. Moving towards their doom. Large wings of vengeful doom seem to stretch out over the west, grimly looming over the intruders. You can sense this again in Frank Norris' novel, The Octopus. Meanwhile, in the West of Bret Harte, there's a real devil in the air, and below him are self-aware, sentimental people who are being wicked and good through evasion.

In The Prairie, there's a hint of violence and dark cruelty lingering in the air. It's the native demon lurking at the heart of the continent. It remains, and the fear is still present.

Into such a prairie strides the massive figure of Ishmael, heavy and outcast-like, accompanied by his large sons and his wolf-like wife. With their wagons, they roll in from the borders of Kentucky, like Cyclops venturing into the wild wilderness. Day after day, they seem to push deeper into oblivion. But their drive starts to fade. They come to a halt. They pull back amidst the chaos of violence and settle in isolation on a small hill in the middle of the prairie. There, they hold their ground like demigods against the elements and the cunning Native Americans.

The groundbreaking violent invasion of the West, marked by crime!

And in this situation, as a kind of peacekeeper, comes the old, old hunter Natty, along with his smooth, horse-riding Sioux Indians. But he appears to be like a ghost.

The hills gently rise to the west, towards the Rockies. There feels like a new peace: or is it just tension, an idea, anticipating something? Is it merely a kind of beyond?

Natty lives in these hills, in a village of the smooth, horse-riding Sioux. They respect him as an old wise father.

In these hills, he passes away, sitting in his chair and gazing far to the east, toward the forest and the vast, sweet waters from which he came. He dies peacefully, in harmony with the land and the Native Americans. He is an old, old man.

Cooper could see no farther than the foothills where Natty died, beyond the prairie.

The other novels take us back east.

The Last of the Mohicans is split between actual historical storytelling and genuine "romance." Personally, I lean towards the romance. It carries a deeper significance, while the narrative is mainly a documentation.

For the first time, we meet real women: the dark, attractive Cora and her delicate sister, the White Lily. The classic divide, the dark, seductive woman and the needy, submissive little blonde, who is so "innocent."

These sisters are runaways in the woods, under the protection of Major Heyward, a young American officer and Englishman. He is just a "white" man, kind and brave and generous, but also quite narrow-minded, most definitely borné. He would likely love Cora if he had the courage, but he feels it's safer to admire the delicate White Lily of her younger sister.

This trio is accompanied by Natty, now known as Leatherstocking, a hunter and scout in the prime of his life, with his inseparable friend Chingachgook, and the stunning son of the Delaware tribe—more like Adonis than Apollo—Uncas, the Last of the Mohicans.

There is also a "wicked" Indian, Magua, a handsome and wounded embodiment of evil.

Cora is the vibrant symbol of femininity, a fierce, passionate child of a mysterious relationship between a British officer and a Creole woman in the West Indies. Cora loves Uncas, and Uncas loves Cora. But Magua also wants Cora, with a violent desire. It's a twisted circle of sensuality. So, Fenimore eliminates them all—Cora, Uncas, and Magua—and leaves the White Lily to continue the lineage. She will bear many white children with Major Heyward. These annoying "lilies that fester" of our time.

Evidently, Cooper—or the artist within him—has decided that there can be no mixing of blood between the two races, white and red. He eliminates them.

Beyond all this heartbeats the figures of Natty and Chingachgook: the two childless, womanless men from different races. They are the constant presence. Each of them is alone, representing the essence of his race. And they stand side by side, stark, abstract, beyond emotion, yet eternally united. All the other loves seem trivial. This is the new great thing, the key, the beginning of a new humanity.

And Natty, what kind of white guy is he? Well, he's a guy with a gun. He's a killer, a hunter. As patient and gentle as he may be, he is still a killer. Unassuming and self-forgetful, yet he is a killer.

Twice in the book, he takes an enemy down, sending them to their death through the air. Once, it's the beautiful, evil Magua—shot from above, falling horrifyingly through space, into death.

This is Natty, the white pioneer. A killer. Like in Deerslayer, he shoots the bird soaring in the sky, causing it to fall from the unseen to the seen, lifeless; he represents himself. He will bring the spirit of the bird down from the heights. He is the stoic American killer of a bygone era. But he kills, as he says, only to survive.

Pathfinder takes us to the Great Lakes, showcasing the allure and beauty of sailing on the vast freshwater seas. Natty is now known as Pathfinder. He's around thirty-five years old, and he falls in love. The young woman is Mabel Dunham, daughter of Sergeant Dunham from the Fort garrison. She's blonde and truly admirable in every way. It's clear that Mrs. Cooper must have been very much like Mabel.

And Pathfinder doesn’t marry her. She doesn’t want him. Instead, she wisely chooses a more comfortable Jasper. So Natty goes off to sulk and ultimately feels grateful for his situation. When he finally calms down and sits by the campfire with Chingachgook in the forest, he really does thank his lucky stars! What a fortunate escape!

Men of an undefined age are prone to these crushes. They aren’t always fortunate enough to be turned down.

Whatever would poor Mabel have done if she had been Mrs. Bumppo?

Natty shouldn't have gotten married. His purpose was different.

The most fascinating Leatherstocking book is the last, Deerslayer. Natty is now a young man, referred to as Deerslayer. But he's the kind of quiet, reserved young man who never seems fully young, holding back for different pursuits.

It’s a great book. Or a bit of perfect fluff. Personally, I enjoy a bit of perfect fluff in a perfect setting, as long as I'm not deceived by a fake sense of reality. And the setting of Deerslayer could not be more stunning. Lake Champlain again.

Of course it never rains: it’s never cold and muddy and gloomy: no one ever has wet feet or a toothache: no one ever feels dirty when they can’t wash for a week. God knows what the women would have really looked like, since they ran through the wilderness without soap, a comb, or a towel. They had a piece of meat for breakfast, or nothing, the same for lunch, and the same for dinner.

Yet at every moment, they are graceful, impeccable ladies, dressed appropriately.

Which isn't really fair. Just go camping for a week, and you'll see.

But it’s a myth, not a realistic story. Read it as a beautiful myth. Lake Glimmerglass.

Deerslayer, the young man with the long rifle, is found in the woods with a big, handsome, blonde-bearded outdoorsman called Hurry Harry. Deerslayer seems to have been born under a hemlock tree from a pine cone: a young man of the wilderness. He is quiet, straightforward, thoughtful, principled, and an exceptional marksman. His simplicity reflects the wisdom of age rather than youth. He embodies an ancient essence. All his reactions and instincts are fixed, unchanging. He’s almost genderless in his timeless nature. Yet he is intelligent, tough, and fearless.

Hurry Harry is a big talker, completely the opposite of Deerslayer. Deerslayer remains calm and composed in his own mind. Hurry Harry is one of those people who bounce around from one emotion to the next, very self-aware, but lacking any solid core.

These two young guys are heading to a beautiful, medium-sized lake. Lake Glimmerglass. The Hutter family has settled by this water. It's suggested that Old Hutter has a shady, rough, adventurous past and is kind of a fugitive from justice. But he’s a decent dad to his two grown daughters. The family lives in a log cabin “castle” built on stilts in the water, and the old man has also built an “ark,” a kind of houseboat, where he can take his daughters when he goes out to trap beavers.

The two girls represent the inevitable contrast of dark and light. Judith, dark, fearless, passionate, and a bit sinful, is the scarlet-and-black flower. Hetty, the younger one, blonde, fragile, and innocent, is the white lily once more. But unfortunately, the lily has started to decay. She is somewhat slow-witted.

The two hunters reach the lake in the woods just as war has been declared. The Hutters don’t know about it. And hostile Indians are already on the lake. So, the story is filled with excitement and danger.

Thomas Hardy's unavoidable separation of women into dark and light, sinful and innocent, sensual and pure, mirrors Cooper's perspective as well. It reflects the man's desire. He craves sensuality and sin, but he also wants purity and "innocence." If that innocence starts to decay and becomes a bit dull, tough luck!

Hurry Harry, like a charming and impulsive fly, immediately desires Judith, the bright poppy flower. Judith dismisses him with disdain.

Judith, the alluring woman, simultaneously desires the calm, reserved, untamed Deerslayer. She wants to take control of him. Deerslayer is somewhat tempted, but never completely. He refuses to be dominated. A thoughtful old soul, he doesn’t place much value on the lure of sex. He will likely die a virgin.

And he’s right about it. Instead of getting caught up in a fake intensity of deliberate sensuality, he chooses to stay alone. His soul is alone, forever alone. So, he will keep his integrity and stay alone in body. It's a stoicism that is genuine and brave, and Deerslayer never wavers from it, except when he approaches middle age and proposes to the attractive Mabel.

He allows his mind to delve into the solitude of the new continent. His interactions aren't with other people. He struggles against the spirits of the forest and the American wilderness, just like a hermit contends with God and Satan. His only encounter is with Chingachgook, and that meeting is quiet, restrained, across an insurmountable distance.

Hetty, the White Lily, is naive and lost in her dreamy religious beliefs about the dear, good God "who oversees everything with his wisdom," but she is hopelessly in love with Hurry Harry. Being innocent yet foolish, like Dostoevsky's Idiot, she yearns to give herself to the charming guy. Naturally, he doesn’t want her.

And so nothing happens: in that direction. Deerslayer goes off to meet Chingachgook and help him win over an Indian girl. Living through someone else.

It’s a grim tale about the breakdown of the white psyche. The white man's mind and soul are torn between two things: innocence and desire, spirituality and sensuality. Sensuality is always seen in a negative light, making it more intensely yearned for, or lusted after. But spirituality alone offers a feeling of elevation, joy, and a "free-spirited life," which inevitably leads to sin and bitterness. Thus, the white man is at war with himself. He pits one part of himself against the other, turning it into a ridiculous and repulsive story.

Against this, one can't help but admire the strong, lasting presence of Deerslayer. He isn't spiritual or sensual. He has a moral compass, but he always tries to base his morals on real experiences, not just theory. He says, "Don't hurt anything unless you have to." Yet he finds his deepest satisfaction, perhaps, when he takes a shot at a beautiful buck as it bends down to drink from the lake. Or when he brings a hidden bird tumbling down in death from the clear blue sky. "Don't hurt anything unless you have to." And still, he lives by death, by hunting the wild creatures of the air and earth.

It's not acceptable.

But you have the myth of the core white America. Everything else, the love, the democracy, the struggles with desire, is just a side show. The true American spirit is tough, alone, resilient, and ruthless. It has never truly softened.

Of course, the soul often falls apart, and you have shocking sin and Judith, foolish innocence craving, in Hetty, and arrogance, boasting, and self-aware strength, in Harry. But those are the results of that disintegration.

What true myth is really about isn’t just the breakdown of things. True myth focuses on the ongoing journey of the whole soul. For America, that’s Deerslayer. A man who rejects white society. A man who maintains his moral integrity strong and unblemished. An outsider, nearly selfless, stoic, and resilient, who survives through death and killing, yet remains pure.

This is the most fundamentally American person. He is at the center of all the other chaos and nonsense. And when this man breaks free from his static isolation and takes a new step, then watch out, something is going to happen.

Poe doesn't have anything to do with Native Americans or nature. He's straightforward about Red Brothers and wigwams.

He is completely focused on the breakdown of his own mind. As we mentioned, the rhythm of American art activity is two-fold.

1. A breaking down and shedding of the old mindset.

2. The development of a new awareness below the surface.

Fenimore Cooper has two dynamics working together. Poe has just one, the disintegrative dynamic. This makes him almost more of a scientist than an artist.

Moralists have always wondered why Poe's "morbid" stories needed to be written. They needed to be written because old things have to die and break down, because the old white mindset has to be gradually dismantled before anything new can emerge.

Man must be stripped even of himself. And it's a painful, sometimes a horrifying process.

Poe had a pretty harsh fate. Condemned to boil over his soul in a constant state of breakdown, and doomed to document the whole thing. And then he was punished for it, even after he had gone through some of the most painful experiences a person can endure. These were necessary tasks, too. Because the human soul has to go through its own breakdown, consciously, if it ever wants to survive.

But Poe is more of a scientist than an artist. He breaks himself down like a scientist reduces salt in a crucible. It's almost a chemical analysis of the soul and consciousness. In true art, there's always the dual rhythm of creation and destruction.

This is why Poe calls his works "tales." They are a chain of cause and effect.

His best pieces, however, aren't just stories. They're more than that. They're chilling tales of the human soul in its chaotic struggles.

Moreover, they're "love" stories.

Ligeia and The Fall of the House of Usher are actually love stories.

Love is the mysterious, essential bond that pulls things together, closer and closer. This is why sex is the ultimate peak of love. In sex, the two blood systems of the male and female focus and connect, with only the slightest barrier in between. But if that barrier breaks, it leads to death.

So there you are. Everything has its limits. Love has its limits.

The main principle of all living things is that each organism is fundamentally separate and unique on its own.

The moment its isolation ends and there’s real mixing and confusion, death occurs.

This is true for every single organism, from humans to amoebas.

But the secondary rule of all living things is that each organism only survives through interaction with other matter, assimilation, and connection with other life, which involves taking in new, non-material vibrations. Each individual organism is energized by close contact with other organisms: up to a certain limit.

So, man. He takes in air, eats food, and drinks water. But it’s more than that. He absorbs the life of others around him, and he returns life to them. This connection gets closer and closer as intimacy grows. When it becomes a complete connection, we call it love. People live by food, but they can die if they overindulge. People live by love, but they can die, or cause death, if they love excessively.

There are two types of love: sacred and worldly, spiritual and physical.

In sensual love, it's the two blood systems, the man's and the woman's, that come together in pure contact and almost blend. Almost mix. But never fully. There’s always the thinnest barrier imaginable between the two blood waves, through which unknown vibrations and forces pass, but the blood itself must never cross, or it means bleeding.

In spiritual love, the connection is purely emotional. The nerves of the lovers resonate together like two instruments. The intensity can increase more and more. But if this goes too far, the nerves start to fray and suffer, as it were, leading to a kind of death.

The issue with humans is that they demand to be in control of their own destiny, and they crave unity. For example, once they've experienced the bliss of spiritual love, they believe they should have it constantly, nothing less, because to them, this is life. They refer to it as "enhancing" life. They want their nerves to resonate intensely and exhilaratingly with another person's, and through this connection, they achieve a heightened vision, feeling in vibrant harmony with the entire universe.

But the truth is that this vibrant harmony is just a temporary state, because the fundamental law of life is that each organism is isolated in itself; it must ultimately return to its own solitude.

Yet man has experienced the warmth of connection, called love, and he likes it. It gives him the greatest satisfaction. He craves it. He craves it constantly. He wants it and he will get it. He doesn’t want to go back to his own solitude. Or if he has to, it’s just like a wild animal going back to its den to rest before heading out again.

This brings us to Edgar Allan Poe. The key to understanding him is in the motto he chose for Ligeia, a quote from the mystic Joseph Glanville: "And the will therein lies, which does not die. Who knows the mysteries of the will, with its power? For God is just a great Will that permeates all things by the nature of its purpose. Man does not completely surrender himself to the angels or to death, except through the weakness of his frail will."

It’s a deep saying—and a dangerous one.

Because if God is a great will, then the universe is just a tool.

I don’t know what God is. But He isn’t just a will. That’s too simplistic. Too human-like. A man desires his own will, and nothing but his will; he doesn’t have to claim that God is just that will, made bigger ad infinitum.

For me, there might be one God, but He is without a name and impossible to fully understand.

For me, there are many gods who come to me and then leave again. And I have to say, they all have very different desires.

But the point is Poe.

Poe had felt the intense joy of deep spiritual love. And he craved those intense feelings and nothing else. He desired that overwhelming pleasure, the feeling of connection, the sense of life becoming more vibrant. He had felt this pleasure before. Everyone around him insisted that this ecstasy of emotional, passionate love was the best thing in life, was life itself. And he had experienced it himself; he knew it was life for him. So he wanted it. And he would have it. He stood firm against all the limits of nature.

This is a brave man, acting on his own beliefs and experiences. But he is also an arrogant man and a fool.

Poe was determined to experience ecstasy and elevation, no matter the cost. He moved forward in a frenzy, much like typical American women today who pursue the same thing: elevation, flow, ecstasy. Poe experimented with alcohol and any drug he could find. He also sought out any person he could connect with.

His big attempt and achievement were with his wife; his cousin, a girl with a beautiful singing voice. Together they went for the deepest emotions, the peaks, the vibrant shades of ecstasy. It was an intense nervous connection, rising higher and higher in pitch, until the girl's blood vessels burst, and blood started to flow out. It was love. If you want to call it love.

Love can be really wild.

It’s love that drives today’s neuroses. It’s love that’s the main cause of tuberculosis.

The nerves that resonate most strongly in spiritual harmony are the sympathetic ganglia in the chest, throat, and lower brain. If you push this vibration too hard, you risk damaging the sympathetic tissues in the chest—the lungs—or in the throat, or in the lower brain, which can create a ripe environment for issues.

But Poe pushed the limits of endurance beyond anything a person could handle.

Being his cousin, she understood him more easily.

Ligeia is the main story. Ligeia! A name created by the mind. To him, the woman, his wife, was not Lucy. She was Ligeia. No doubt she even liked it that way.

Ligeia is Poe's love story, and its surreal quality makes it feel even more uniquely his.

It’s a story of love taken to the limit. When love is pushed to extremes, it becomes a struggle of wills between the lovers.

Love has turned into a battle of wills.

Which of the lovers will destroy the other first? Who can endure longer against the other?

Ligeia is still the traditional woman. She chooses to submit. She chooses to submit to the vampire of her husband's mind. Even death.

"In height, she was tall, a bit slender, and, in her later years, even somewhat gaunt. I could never quite capture the grace and calm confidence of her presence, or the amazing lightness and springiness of her steps. I only knew she had entered my closed study by the lovely sound of her soft, sweet voice as she lightly rested her hand on my shoulder."

Poe has been highly praised for his style. But it feels to me like a superficial thing. "Her marble hand" and "the elasticity of her footfall" sound more like chair springs and mantelpieces than a human being. To him, she never quite felt like a real person. She was a tool, from which he drew his extreme sensations. His machine à plaisir, as someone puts it.

All of Poe's style also has this mechanical quality, just like his poetry has a mechanical rhythm. He rarely views things in terms of life; instead, he often sees them in terms of material things like jewels, marble, etc.—or in terms of scientific force. His cadences are all controlled mechanically. This is what's referred to as "having a style."

What he wants to do with Ligeia is analyze her until he understands all her parts, until he has her fully in his mind. She is like some weird chemical compound that he needs to break down in the test tubes of his brain, and then—when he’s done with the analysis—E finita la commedia!

But she won’t be completely figured out. There’s something he just can’t grasp. Writing about her eyes, he says: "They were, I must believe, much larger than the usual eyes of our kind"—as if anyone would actually want eyes "much larger" than everyone else's. "They were even fuller than the fullest of the gazelle eyes of the tribe of Nourjahad—" Which is nonsense. "The color of the orbs was the most brilliant black and, hanging over them, were long, jet-black lashes."—Sounds like a whip. "The brows, slightly uneven in shape, had the same color. The strangeness I found in those eyes was something different from the shape, or the color, or the brightness of the features, and should ultimately be referred to as the expression."—Sounds like a scientist dissecting a cat.—"Ah, a meaningless word! Behind its vast range of sound, we hide our ignorance of so much that is spiritual. The expression of Ligeia's eyes! How many hours have I thought about it! How have I, throughout a whole midsummer night, struggled to understand it! What was it—that something deeper than the well of Democritus—that lay deep within the pupils of my beloved? What was it? I was driven by a desire to find out...."

It’s clear why every man ends up killing the thing he loves. To know a living thing is to destroy it. You need to destroy something to truly understand it. Because of this, the longing soul, the SPIRIT, is like a vampire.

One should be smart enough and curious to know a good amount about any person one interacts with closely. About her. Or about him.

But trying to understand any living being is like trying to drain the energy from that being.

Above all, with the woman you love. Every sacred instinct tells you to leave her a mystery. You understand your woman deeply, in your soul. Trying to truly **know** her mentally is like trying to kill her. Be cautious, oh woman, of the man who wants to **figure out what you are.** And, oh men, be even more wary of the woman who wants to know you or to uncover what you are.

It is the lure of a vampire monster, this knowledge.

Man really wants to figure out the secret of life and individuality with his mind. It's like analyzing protoplasm. You can only analyze dead protoplasm and understand what it's made of. It's a process of dying.

Keep KNOWLEDGE for the world of matter, force, and function. It has nothing to do with existence.

But Poe wanted to know—wanted to know what the strangeness was in Ligeia's eyes. She might have told him it was horror at his probing, horror at being drained by his consciousness.

But she wanted to be seduced. She wanted to be explored by his mind, to be TRULY KNOWN. She paid the price for wanting it, too.

Nowadays, it's typically the man who wants to be seduced, to be RECOGNIZED.

Edgar Allan dug deep and deep. So many times he seemed close to understanding. But she crossed the line into death before he crossed the line into knowledge. And it’s always like that.

He decided that the key to the strangeness was in the mystery of will. "And the will within it lives on..."

Ligeia had a "massive will.... An intensity in her thoughts, actions, or speech was likely, in her, a result, or at least a sign" (he really meant indication) "of that massive will which, throughout our long relationship, didn’t provide other and more immediate proof of its existence."

I should have realized that her lengthy submission to him was the main and plenty of "other evidence."

"Of all the women I’ve ever known, she, the seemingly calm and always serene Ligeia, was the most intensely caught up in the chaotic turmoil of deep passion. I couldn't fully grasp this passion except through the extraordinary intensity of her eyes, which both thrilled and frightened me—through the almost magical quality, tone, clarity, and calmness of her soft voice—and through the intense energy (which felt even more striking because of her way of speaking) of the wild words she often expressed."

Poor Poe, he had caught a bird of the same kind as him. One of those terrible seekers, who crave more intense experiences. Crave to the point of madness or death. "Vultures of stern passion" indeed! Condors.

But realizing that the clue was in her immense willpower, he should have understood that this process of love, longing, and understanding was a battle of wills. However, Ligeia, faithful to the deep tradition of feminine love, used her will to remain submissive and open. She was the passive figure, examined and analyzed to the point of death. Yet, at times, her powerful feminine will must have resisted. "Vultures of intense passion!" With a surge of desire, she wanted him to continue his probing and exploration—no matter the lengths. But then, "tumultuous vultures of intense passion." She had to struggle with herself.

But Ligeia wanted to keep going with the craving, with the love, with the feeling, with the exploring, with the understanding, endlessly to the end.

There is no end. There is only the break of death. That's where people are "caught." A person is always sold in their quest for ultimate KNOWLEDGE.

"That she loved me, I should not have doubted; and I probably should have realized that, in a heart like hers, love was no ordinary feeling. But it was only in death that I truly understood the depth of her affection. For long hours, holding my hand, she would share the overwhelming feelings of a heart whose more than passionate devotion turned into idolatry. (Oh, the absurdity of all this endless intimate talk!) "How did I deserve to be blessed with such confessions?" (Another man might have felt cursed.) "How did I deserve to be cursed with losing my beloved just when she was making them? But I can't bear to dwell on this. Let me just say that in Ligeia's almost superhuman devotion to a love that was, unfortunately, unearned and undeserved, I finally recognized the essence of her desperate longing for the life that was slipping away so quickly. It is this wild yearning—it is this intense desire for life—but for life—that I have no ability to convey—no words that can capture it."

Well, that's pretty awful, to be honest.

"And from those who don’t have, even what they do have will be taken away."

"To those who have life, more life will be given, and from those who do not have life, even the little they have will be taken away."

Or her too.

These intensely aware birds, like Poe and his Ligeia, reject the very life within them; they want to transform everything into conversation, into understanding. As a result, life, which cannot be fully understood, slips away from them.

But poor Ligeia, how could she avoid it? It was her fate. All the centuries of the SPIRIT, all the years of American defiance against the Holy Ghost, had brought this upon her.

She dies when she'd rather do anything else but die. And when she dies, the clue he lived to understand dies with her.

Blocked!

Got thwarted!

No surprise she screams with her last breath.

On the last day, Ligeia tells her husband a poem. As poems go, it feels pretty fake and flashy. But if you put yourself in Ligeia's shoes, it feels very real and horrifying to the point of being unbearable.

"Lights out, it's completely dark—but everything!"
And above each quivering figure
The curtain, resembling a funeral shroud,
Falls down with the power of a storm,
And the angels, looking pale and weak,
Stand up, show, verify
That the play is the tragic story 'Man,'
"And its hero is the Conqueror Worm."

Which is the American equivalent of a William Blake poem. For Blake, too, was one of these grotesque, obscene "Knowers."

"'Oh God!' half-shrieked Ligeia, jumping to her feet and raising her arms above her head in a sudden movement as I finished these lines. 'Oh God! Oh Divine Father!—will things always be this way? Will this conqueror never be defeated? Are we not all part of You? Who—who knows the mysteries of the angels, nor unto death utterly, except through the weakness of their frail will?'"

So Ligeia dies. And gives in to death at least partly. Too much.

As for her plea to God—didn't God say that those who sin against the Holy Spirit won't be forgiven?

And the Holy Spirit is inside us. It's what encourages us to be genuine, to not let our desires take over, to avoid pretending and showing off, and most importantly, not to be overly selfish and stubborn in our conscious selves. Instead, we should change when the spirit within us calls for it, stop when it signals us to stop, and laugh when we need to laugh, especially at ourselves, because in being overly serious, there’s always something a little absurd. The Holy Spirit reminds us to never take ourselves too seriously, to always find time to laugh at ourselves and at everything, especially our pretensions. Everything has its moment of being ridiculous—everything.

Now Poe and Ligeia, unfortunately, couldn't laugh. They were intensely serious. And intensely, they continued this shared awareness and connection in thought. They went against the Holy Spirit that urges us all to laugh and let go, to recognize our own boundaries. And they weren’t forgiven.

Ligeia shouldn't blame God. She could only thank her own will, her "huge desire" for craving more awareness, more primal KNOWING.

Ligeia dies. The husband goes to England, carelessly buys or rents a gloomy, grand old abbey, makes some repairs, and decorates it with a mix of exotic and mysterious theatrical flair. There's nothing honest or straightforward about it. This dramatic "decision" of his. The poor taste of sensationalism.

Then he marries the blonde, blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion of Tremaine. Essentially, she would be a kind of Saxon-Cornish aristocrat. Poor Poe!

"In places like this—in a bridal chamber like this—I spent the restless hours of the first month of our marriage with the Lady of Tremaine—getting through them with hardly any anxiety. I noticed that my wife feared my intense mood swings—that she avoided me and didn’t love me much—but it actually pleased me more than it upset me. I hated her with a hatred that felt more fitting for a demon than a man. My thoughts drifted back (Oh, with what deep regret!) to Ligeia, the beloved, the majestic, the entombed. I indulged in memories of her purity..." etc.

Now the vampire's desire is fully aware of itself.

In the second month of their marriage, Lady Rowena got sick. The shadow of Ligeia is looming over her. It's the ghostly Ligeia who is pouring poison into Rowena's cup. It's the spirit of Ligeia, working with the spirit of the husband, that now craves the slow destruction of Rowena. The two vampires, the dead wife and the living husband.

For Ligeia hasn’t given in to death completely. Her strong, frustrated will returns with a sense of revenge. She couldn’t get what she wanted in life. So, she will also find victims in life. Meanwhile, the husband uses Rowena as a living body to take out his frustration for being denied the chance to truly know Ligeia.

And finally, from Rowena's corpse, Ligeia emerges. Out of her death, through the door of a body they have both destroyed, Ligeia reappears, still seeking her desires, wanting more love and understanding, the ultimate satisfaction that is never truly complete, with her husband.

For it’s true, as William James, Conan Doyle, and the others agree, that a spirit can continue to exist after death. It can do so by its own choice. But often, it’s the dark persistence of a frustrated will, seeking revenge on the living. Lemures, vampires.

It is a horrifying story about the strength of the human spirit, the desire to love and to be aware, pushing back against death itself. The arrogance of human pride in KNOWLEDGE.

There are horrible spirits, ghosts, in the atmosphere of America.

Eleanora, the next story, is a fantasy that explores the thrilling joys of a man in his early marriage with his young and gentle bride. They lived together, along with his cousin and her mother, in the secluded Valley of Many-Colored Grass, a valley filled with vibrant sensations where everything appears to be in a spectrum of colors. They gazed at their own images in the River of Silence and pulled the god Eros from that wave: from their own self-awareness, that is. This describes a life of introspection and the love that arises from within oneself, a self-created love. The trees resemble serpents worshiping the sun, symbolizing phallic passion in its toxic or mental state. Everything leads to consciousness: serpents worshiping the sun. The embrace of love, which should bring darkness and forgetfulness, for these lovers becomes a daytime experience that enhances their awareness, creating visions, spectrum-visions, prismatic. Daytime love-making is portrayed as problematic along with all the trivial talk about sex.

In Berenice, the man has to go to the grave of his beloved and take out her thirty-two small white teeth, which he carries with him in a box. It’s disturbing and indulgent. The teeth represent biting, resistance, and conflict. They often symbolize opposition, small tools or entities of crushing and destruction. Hence the dragon's teeth in the myth. That’s why the man in Berenice must claim the essential part of his mistress. "Toutes ses dents étaient des idées," he says. So, they become fixed ideas of intense hatred that he takes possession of.

The other significant story connected to this group is The Fall of the House of Usher. In this tale, the love exists between a brother and sister. When the self is fragmented, and the understanding of otherness fails, the desire for connection with the beloved turns into obsession. This deep yearning for closeness and complete merging is at the heart of the incest issue. In psychoanalysis, almost every mental struggle is linked back to incestuous desire. But that’s not the whole picture. Incest desire is just one way that people seek to fulfill their most intense spiritual sensations without any pushback. Within the family, the natural connection is usually in harmony. With a stranger, there’s more resistance. Incest is about seeking pleasure while avoiding that resistance.

The root of all evil is that we all desire this spiritual fulfillment, this flow, this apparent enhancement of life, this knowledge, this valley of vibrant grass, even grass and light broken down into colors, providing ecstasy. We want all this without resistance. We want it all the time. And this is the root of all evil within us.

We should pray to be challenged and fight back until the very end. We should make a commitment to finally be done with longing.

The motto to The Fall of the House of Usher is a couple of lines from Béranger.

"His heart is a hanging lute;
"Once it’s touched, it vibrates."

We have all the elements of Poe's pretty over-the-top, crude fantasy. "I pulled my horse to the edge of a dark, eerie pond that lay still and shiny next to the house, and looked down—but with a shiver even more intense than before—at the distorted reflections of the gray reeds, the creepy tree trunks, and the empty, staring windows." The House of Usher, both the home and the family, was very old. Tiny fungi covered the outside of the house, hanging in strands from the eaves. Gothic archways, a stealthy servant, dark tapestries, black floors, a lot of tattered, old furniture, weak glimmers of red light shining through the lattice windows, and over everything "an air of stern, deep, irredeemable gloom"—this makes up the interior.

The residents of the house, Roderick and Madeline Usher, are the last remaining members of their incredibly old and deteriorating family. Roderick shares the same large, bright eyes and slightly curved nose, reminiscent of delicate Hebrew features, that defined Ligeia. He suffers from the same nervous condition that plagues his family. His nerves are so tightly wound that they resonate with the unseen vibrations of the universe. He, too, has lost his sense of self, his living spirit, and has become a highly sensitive instrument to outside forces; his nerves are truly like an Aeolian harp that must produce sound. He struggles with the relentless presence of Fear, as he is merely the physical, lifeless shell of a once-living person.

It raises the question of how much, once the true core of the self is shattered, a person's instrumental awareness can actually register. When someone becomes devoid of self, floating aimlessly like a harp in an open window, how much can their basic consciousness truly express? The blood, as it flows, has its own feelings and reactions to the material world, separate from what we see. And we know the nerves constantly resonate with unseen forces and presences. So Roderick Usher trembles on the brink of physical existence.

It’s this mechanical awareness that gives him “the intense ease of his spontaneous creations.” It’s the same reason Poe has such an exceptional knack for writing poetry. The lack of a true central or impulsive self makes him overly responsive to sounds and effects, like sound associations and rhyme associations—mechanical, easy, with no foundation in any real emotion. It’s all a secondary, superficial process. That’s how we get Roderick Usher’s poem. The Haunted Palace, with its quick yet mechanical subtleties of rhyme and rhythm, its lack of depth in description. It’s all a kind of dream-like process, where the connections between parts are mechanical and random in terms of emotional significance.

Usher believed that all living things had some form of awareness. Clearly, all physical things possess a type of consciousness, even the non-living: they must all exist in a complex and subtle state of vibration that makes them responsive to outside influences and allows them to impact other objects, regardless of direct contact. This concept of vibration or inorganic awareness is where Poe excels: the awareness found in sleep. Therefore, Roderick Usher was convinced that everything around him—the stones of the house, the fungi, the water in the tarn, even the reflected image of everything—was intertwined in a physical unity with his family, condensed, in a way, into one shared atmosphere—which was the only environment in which the Ushers could truly thrive. And it was this atmosphere that shaped the fate of his family.

But as long as the soul stays alive, it shapes rather than being shaped. It's the souls of living people that subtly influence stones, buildings, mountains, continents, giving them their most delicate forms. People only become subject to stones once they've lost their essential souls.

In the human world, Roderick had one bond: his sister Madeline. She was also suffering from a mysterious illness, nervous and cataleptic. The brother and sister shared an intense and exclusive love for each other. They were twins, nearly identical in appearance. Their love was all-consuming, creating a connection in their nervous systems that led to heightened emotions and a shared awareness, ultimately leading to a slow decline into death. The exceptionally sensitive Roderick, resonating deeply with his sister Madeline, increasingly absorbed her, draining her life like a vampire in his desperate longing. And she yearned for that connection.

Madeline died and was taken down by her brother into the deep vaults of the house. But she wasn't dead. Her brother wandered around in a creeping madness—one filled with unimaginable terror and guilt. After eight days, they were suddenly jolted by the sound of metal clashing, followed by a distinct, hollow, metallic echo that was loud yet somehow muffled. Then Roderick Usher, in a frenzy, began to say: "We have put her living into the tomb! Didn't I say my senses were sharp? Now I tell you that I heard her first weak movements in the hollow coffin. I heard them—many, many days ago—but I didn’t dare—I didn’t dare speak."

It’s the same old idea of "each person destroys the thing they love." He realized his love had killed her. He understood she died at last, like Ligeia, unwilling and unsatisfied. So, she rose again before him. "But then without those doors there stood the tall and cloaked figure of Lady Madeline of Usher. There was blood on her white robes, and signs of some bitter struggle on every part of her emaciated body. For a moment, she wavered, trembling and swaying at the threshold, then, with a low moan, collapsed heavily onto her brother, and in her violent and now final death agonies, brought him to the floor as a corpse—a victim of the fears he had dreaded."

It’s dramatic and shocking, but it’s the truth. It reveals a terrifying psychological reality of the final moments of this cherished love, which cannot be separated or isolated, and cannot hear the isolated Holy Spirit alone. Because it’s the Holy Spirit we need to live by. The next age will be the age of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit speaks to each person individually: always there, like a ghost. There’s no visible presence in the outside world. Each solitary individual listens alone to the Holy Spirit within them.

The Ushers, a brother and sister, betrayed the Holy Spirit within themselves. They wanted to love, love, love, without any resistance. They wanted to merge completely, to become one entity. But in doing so, they pulled each other down into death. Because the Holy Spirit says you must not become one entity with another being. Each must stand on its own, and interact only within certain boundaries.

The best stories all share the same weight. Hate is just as excessive as love, and just as slowly consuming, secretive, hidden, and subtle. All that happens beneath our awareness, the hidden, dark themes in Poe, symbolize this. On the surface, everything seems fair and polite. But underneath, there's a horrifying, murderous extreme of being buried alive. Fortunato, in The Cask of Amontillado, is buried alive out of pure hatred, while Lady Madeline of Usher is buried alive out of love. The desire of hate is an overwhelming urge to consume and possess the soul of the hated person in an unspoken way, just as the desire of love is the craving to possess or to be possessed by the beloved entirely. But in either case, the outcome is the breakdown of both souls, each losing itself by crossing its own limits.

The desire of Montresor is to completely consume the soul of Fortunato. Simply killing him wouldn't achieve anything. When a person is killed instantly, their soul stays intact, free to return to a loved one where it can continue to exist. By trapping his enemy in the vault, Montresor aims to force the unimaginable surrender of the man's soul, so that he, as the winner, can take on the very essence of the defeated. Perhaps this is actually possible. Maybe, in trying to do this, the victor loses his own identity and collapses into nothingness or becomes part of the infinite. Turns into a monster.

What applies to excessive hate applies to excessive love. The motto, Nemo me impune lacessit, could just as easily be Nemo me impune amat.

In "William Wilson," we see a straightforward depiction of a man's struggle to destroy his own spirit. William Wilson, the mechanical, lustful part of him, manages to eliminate William Wilson, his true self. The lustful side persists, slowly diminishing itself to nothingness.

In the Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Gold Bug, we have those intricate stories where the excitement comes from tracing a subtle chain of cause and effect. The focus is more scientific than artistic, serving as a study in psychological reactions.

The fascination with murder itself is interesting. Murder isn't just about killing. It's a desire to reach the very essence of life and extinguish it—hence the stealth and often gruesome dismemberment of the body, the drive to get to the core of the victim and possess it. It's intriguing that the two men drawn to the art of murder, albeit in different ways, were De Quincey and Poe, individuals so distinct in their lifestyles, yet perhaps not so dissimilar in their essence. Each exhibits that strange craving for intense love and intense hatred, a possession through mystical violence of another's soul, or a violent, lethal surrender of one's own soul: a lack of masculine virtue, which stands alone and acknowledges boundaries.

Inquisition and torture are like murder: the same twisted desire. It’s a battle between the inquisitor and the victim over whether the inquisitor can reach the very essence of life and pierce it. To pierce the very essence of the soul. The dark will of humanity tries to do this. The brave spirit of humanity refuses to let the essence of life be pierced within him. It’s strange: just as a thwarted will can continue to act maliciously, even after death, a courageous spirit can maintain, even through torture and death, the essence of life and truth. Today, society is evil. It finds subtle ways to torture, to destroy the essence of life, to attack the essence in a person. All possible forms. And still, a person can endure, if he can laugh and listen to the Holy Spirit. —But society is evil, evil, and love is twisted. And evil breeds more evil, endlessly.

So the mystery continues. La Bruyère says that all our human unhappiness comes from being alone. As long as people live, they will experience the longing for love or the sting of hate, which is just love turned upside down.

But he is affected by something more than this. If we don’t live to eat, we don’t live to love either.

We live to be independent and to listen to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, who is within us, represents multiple gods. Many gods appear and disappear, some say one thing and others say another, and we must follow the God of the present moment. It's the many gods within us that form the Holy Spirit.

But Poe only knew love, love, love, intense feelings, and elevated awareness. Drugs, women, self-destruction, but still the colorful bliss of heightened awareness and love, of connection. The human spirit in him was overwhelmed. But it wasn’t lost. He clearly explained how it was, so that we would understand.

He was an explorer of hidden places and dark passages within the depths of the human soul. He echoed the fear and the warning of his own fate.

Doomed he was. He died wanting more love, and love killed him. A terrible disease, love. Poe telling us about his illness: trying even to make his illness seem fair and appealing. Even succeeding.

Which is the unavoidable falsehood and deception of art, especially American art.

Nathaniel Hawthorne writes fiction.

And what’s romance? Usually, it’s a sweet little story where everything goes your way, where rain never ruins your jacket and bugs never bite your nose, and it’s always a perfect day. As You Like It and Forest Lovers, etc. Morte D'Arthur.

Hawthorne clearly isn't that type of romanticist; although no one has muddy boots in the Scarlet Letter, either.

But there’s more to it. The Scarlet Letter isn’t a light, romantic tale. It’s more like a parable, an earthly story with a dark message.

All the time there's this divide in American art and how people think about it. On the surface, everything seems perfect and sweet, with a good vibe and all that. It's like Hawthorne being such a charming figure in life, and Longfellow and the others being so sentimental. Hawthorne's wife said she "never saw him in time," which doesn't mean she saw him too late. But always in the "fragile glow of eternity."

Serpents they were. Look at the deeper meaning of their art and see what demons they were.

You have to look beyond the surface of American art and recognize the deeper, darker meanings behind the symbols. Otherwise, it’s just childishness.

That blue-eyed sweetheart Nathaniel was aware of unpleasant truths deep inside him. He made sure to express them in disguise.

Always the same. The careful awareness of Americans, so polite and smooth-talking, while the hidden awareness is so malevolent. Destroy! destroy! destroy! hums the hidden awareness. Love and produce! Love and produce! cackles the overt awareness. And the world only hears the Love-and-produce cackle. It refuses to acknowledge the hum of destruction beneath. Until the time comes when it will have to listen.

The American has to destroy. It's his fate. It's his fate to dismantle the entire fabric of the white psyche, the white consciousness. And he has to do it quietly. Like how the development of a dragonfly inside a chrysalis or cocoon quietly destroys the larva grub.

Though many dragonflies never make it out of their chrysalis and die inside, America might too.

So the hidden transformation of The Scarlet Letter is destructively reshaping the old mindset within.

Be good! Be good! sings Nathaniel. Be good, and never do anything wrong! Just know that your wrongdoings will catch up to you.

So convincingly that his wife never saw him as he really was.

Then pay attention to the sinister undertone of The Scarlet Letter.

Man ate from the tree of knowledge and felt ashamed of himself.

Do you think Adam had never lived with Eve before the apple incident? Yes, he had. Like a wild animal with his partner.

It didn't become "sin" until that knowledge-poison came in. That apple of Sodom.

We are split within ourselves, at odds with ourselves. And that is what the cross symbol means.

In the beginning, Adam recognized Eve like a wild animal recognizes its partner, instantly yet deeply, with an instinctual connection. This connection is based on blood, not intellect. Blood-knowledge might feel like it forgets, but it doesn’t. Blood-knowledge, instinct, intuition—all the profound, essential flow of understanding that happens in the dark, before the mind takes over.

Then came that terrible apple, and a different kind of knowledge began.

Adam started to examine himself. "My hat!" he exclaimed. "What’s this? My God! What the heck!—And Eve! I’m curious about Eve."

Thus begins KNOWING. This quickly leads to UNDERSTANDING, when the devil gets what he deserves.

When Adam went and took Eve, after the apple, he didn't do anything different from what he had done many times before. But in his mind, it was something completely different. The same went for Eve. They both paid attention to what they were doing, they observed what was happening to them. They wanted to UNDERSTAND. And that was the beginning of sin. Not the act itself, but the UNDERSTANDING of it. Before the apple, they had closed their eyes and their minds were clouded. Now, they peeked and probed and imagined. They watched themselves. And they felt uneasy afterward. They felt self-aware. So they said, "The act is sin. Let's hide. We've sinned."

No surprise the Lord kicked them out of the Garden. Dirty hypocrites.

The sin was the constant self-observation, the self-awareness. That was the sin, and the curse. A tainted understanding.

Nowadays, men really dislike the idea of dualism. It's not beneficial; we are dual. The Cross. If we accept the symbol, then, in essence, we accept the reality. We are at odds with ourselves.

For example, the blood hates being understood by the mind. It feels shattered when it is KNOWN. This is why there’s such a deep instinct for privacy.

And on the other hand, the mind and the spiritual consciousness of a person simply hate the dark power of violent acts: hate the true dark sensual pleasures, which, for a time, actually erase the mind and the spiritual awareness, drowning them in a suffocating wave of darkness.

You can't escape this.

Blood-consciousness takes over, wipes out, and cancels mind-consciousness.

Mind-consciousness overrides blood-consciousness and absorbs the blood.

We are all aware in both ways. And the two ways are conflicting within us.

They will always stay that way.

That's our cross to bear.

The hostility is so clear and widespread that it affects even the tiniest details. The educated, aware person today hates any kind of physical, "lowly" work, like washing dishes, sweeping floors, or chopping wood. This kind of work is a blow to the spirit. “When I see men carrying heavy loads and doing tough work, it always makes me want to cry,” a beautiful, cultured woman said to me.

"When you say that, it makes me want to hit you," I replied. "When I see you with your beautiful head lost in deep thoughts, I just want to punch you. It drives me crazy."

My dad hated books and couldn't stand the sight of anyone reading or writing.

My mom hated the idea that any of her sons would have to do manual labor. Her sons should have something better than that.

She won. But she died first.

He who laughs last, laughs the longest.

There is a fundamental conflict in all of us between the physical and the mental, the body and the spirit. The mind feels "ashamed" of the body. And the body is affected negatively by the mind, in fact. That's why we have pale faces.

At present, the mind and what people call the spirit are in control. Especially in America. In America, no one acts based on emotion or instinct. It's always driven by nerves, if not by the mind. The blood is chemically filtered through the nerves in American behavior.

When an Italian worker works, his mind and nerves are at rest, and his blood flows heavily.

Americans, when they're doing things, never really seem to be fully engaged. They're always "busy about" something. They're constantly preoccupied "about" something. But genuinely immersed in doing something, with a strong awareness of what they're doing, they never are.

They admire the instinctive awareness of blood. And they want to understand it. "Live through the body," they shout. It is their final mental shout. Co-ordinate.

It’s another effort to rationalize the body and blood. “Focus on this muscle,” they say, “and relax there.”

And every time you "conquer" the body with the mind (you can say "heal" it if you want), you create a deeper, more dangerous complex or tension somewhere else.

Ghastly Americans, with their blood no longer blood. A yellow spiritual fluid.

Autumn.

There have been many falls.

We came into knowledge when Eve took a bite of the apple. Self-aware knowledge. For the first time, the mind struggled against the body. Wanting to UNDERSTAND. That is, to make sense of the body intellectually.

The blood must be shed, says Jesus.

Shed on the cross of our own conflicted mind.

Shed the blood, and you become aware of your thoughts. Eat the body and drink the blood, consuming yourself, and you become hyper-aware, like Americans and some Hindus. Devour yourself, and who knows how much you’ll understand, how much you’ll be aware of.

Be careful not to choke.

For a long time, men thought they could achieve perfection through the mind and spirit. They believed in it passionately. They found ecstasy in pure consciousness. They believed in purity, chastity, and the elevation of the spirit.

America quickly discarded the idea of the spirit. America soon rejected the belief in the spirit. But not the practice. The practice persisted with a sarcastic intensity. America, with a complete inner disregard for the spirit and human awareness, constantly engages in the same spirituality and universal love and KNOWING, as if it were an addiction. And inwardly cares not at all for it. Only for the feeling. The lovely feeling of love, loving everyone. And the nice, exhilarating airplane feeling of knowing, knowing, knowing. Then the loveliest of all feelings, the feeling of UNDERSTANDING. Oh, how much they claim to understand, the darlings! So skilled at the act, they are. Just a trick of self-importance.

The Scarlet Letter exposes everything.

You have your innocent young pastor Dimmesdale.

You have the beautiful Puritan Hester right at his feet.

And the first thing she does is seduce him.

And the first thing he does is get seduced.

And the second thing they do is hold onto their sin in secret, and take pleasure in it, and try to make sense of it.

Which is the myth of New England.

Deerslayer wouldn’t let himself be tempted by Judith Hutter. At least the forbidden fruit of sin didn’t draw him in.

But Dimmesdale was seduced with delight. Oh, tempting Sin!

He was such a genuinely good young man.

That he had to make a fool of innocence.

The American mindset.

Of course, the best part of the game was maintaining a perfect facade.

The biggest achievement a woman can have, especially an American woman, is the ability to seduce a man, particularly if he is innocent.

And he feels the biggest excitement of all, in falling.—"Tempt me, Mrs. Hercules."

And the two of them take subtle pleasure in maintaining a facade of purity, even though everyone is aware of the truth. But there's something exhilarating about the power of appearances. All of America succumbs to it. Look pure!

To attract a man. To let everyone know. To maintain the image of being pure. Pure!

This is the great triumph of women.

A. The Scarlet Letter. Cheater! The great Alpha. Alpha! Cheater! The new Adam and Eve! American!

A. Adulteress! Sewn with gold thread, shining on the chest. The most proud emblem.

Put her on the scaffold and worship her there. Worship her there. The Woman, the Great Mother. A. Adulteress! Abel!

Abel! Abel! Abel! Awesome!

It turns into a joke.

The fiery heart. A. Mary of the Bleeding Heart. Mater Adolerata! A. Capital A. Adulteress. Sparkling with gold thread. Abel! Adultery. Amazing!

It might be the biggest satire ever written. The Scarlet Letter. And by a charming guy, Nathaniel.

Not Bumppo, though.

The human spirit, trapped in a lie, clinging to a lie, endlessly deceiving itself.

All starts with A.

Adulteress. Alpha. Abel, Adam. A. America.

The Scarlet Letter.

"Had there been a Catholic in the crowd of Puritans, he might have seen in this beautiful woman, so striking in her outfit and demeanor, with the baby at her chest, a reminder of the image of Divine Motherhood that so many famous artists have competed to portray; something that should remind him, indeed, but only by contrast, of that sacred image of sinless Motherhood, whose child was destined to save the world."

Whose baby is going to save the world! The world is in for a shocking redemption from the American baby.

"Here was a stain of profound wrongdoing in the most sacred aspect of human life, causing the world to be only darker because of this woman's beauty and more lost because of the child she had given birth to."

Just listen to him. Isn't he great at saying sorry?

Of symbols, as well.

His devout criticism is really just a smirk of admiration the whole time.

Oh, Hester, you’re a wicked one. A man has to be innocent just so you can tempt him to fall. Because the biggest thrill in life is to take the Holy Saint and drag him down into the dirt. Then, once you’ve brought him down, you humbly wipe the mud off with your hair, just like another Magdalen. After that, you go home and dance a witch's victory dance, and create yourself a Scarlet Letter with gold thread, just like duchesses used to make crowns for themselves. Then you stand there, humble on the scaffold, and trick the world. Everyone will envy you for your sin, resenting you because you’ve gained an advantage over them.

Hester Prynne is the ultimate enemy of women. She is the AWARE Ligeia, come back from the dead in a wicked way. She is self-sufficient. KNOWLEDGEABLE.

This time it’s Mr. Dimmesdale who dies. She continues to live and is Abel.

His spiritual love was a deception. And exploiting the woman for his spiritual love, like popular clergymen do in their sermons and grandiosity, was a big white lie. Which backfired.

We are so pure in spirit. Hi-tiddly-i-ty!

Till she tickled him in the right spot, and he fell.

Fail.

Flop goes deep love.

But keep playing the game. Keep up appearances. The pure are truly pure. To the pure, all things, etc.

Look out, dude, for the Female Devotee. Whatever you do, don't let her start tickling you. She knows your weak spot. Keep your guard up.

When Hester Prynne seduced Arthur Dimmesdale, it marked the start of the downfall. But from the start of the downfall to the actual end takes a hundred years or so.

Mr. Dimmesdale also wasn't out of options. Before, he had lived by controlling his body for the sake of his spirit. Now, he spends time alone torturing himself, whipping his body, piercing it with thorns, and punishing himself. It's a kind of self-gratification. He wants to gain mental control over his body. But since he can't quite do that in his mind, as shown by his downfall, he'll make it suffer with whips. His will shall lash his body. And he finds pleasure in his pain. He revels in it. To the pure, all things are pure.

It’s the same old self-harm process, now corrupted. The mind eager to sink its teeth into the blood and flesh. The ego reveling in the pain of the rebellious body. I, the ego, I will conquer my own flesh. Whip! Whip! I am a magnificent free spirit Whip! I am the master of my soul! Whip! Whip! I am the captain of my soul. Whip! Hooray! "In the cruel grip of circumstance," etc., etc.

Goodbye, Arthur. He relied on women for his spiritual followers, his spiritual brides. So, the woman just hit him where it hurt, his Achilles' Heel of the flesh. Watch out for the spiritual bride. She's targeting the weak spot.

It's a battle of willpower.

"For the will is what remains, which does not die—"

The Scarlet Woman becomes a Sister of Mercy. Didn't she just, in the recent war. Oh, Prophet Nathaniel!

Hester encourages Dimmesdale to leave with her, to a new country, for a new life. He isn’t interested.

He knows there's no new country, no new life anywhere in the world today. It's the same old stuff, just in different degrees, everywhere. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Hester thinks that with Dimmesdale as her husband and Pearl as her child, maybe in Australia, she would have been happy.

But she wouldn't. Dimmesdale had already compromised his integrity as a minister of the Gospel. He had lost his masculinity. He didn’t see the point in just surrendering himself to a woman and moving to a "new country" to be completely hers. She would only have looked down on him more, just like every woman looks down on a man who has "fallen" for her: looks down on him with her deepest desire.

He didn’t stand for anything anymore. So let him stay where he was and deal with his fate.

She had put him down and his beliefs, so he hated her. Just like Angel Clare was put down and hated Tess. And how Jude ultimately hated Sue, or should have. The women make fools of these spiritual men. And when they’ve failed in their spirituality, they can't fully recover. So they just drag themselves along, dying with a hatred for the woman, or women, who caused their downfall.

The righteous minister finally gets a taste of revenge at the last moment by publicly confessing from the very scaffold where she was displayed. Then he escapes into death. But he’s managed to get a bit of his own back on everyone.

"'Aren't we going to meet again?' she whispered, leaning her face down close to him. 'Aren't we going to spend our forever together? Surely, we've saved each other from all this pain! You look so deep into eternity with those bright, fading eyes. Tell me what you see!'"

"Hush, Hester—hush," he said, trembling as he spoke. "The law we broke!—the sin that’s so terribly exposed here! Let this be all that's on your mind. I'm afraid! I'm afraid!"

So he dies, throwing her the "sin" in her face, and escaping into death.

The law we broke, for sure. You bet!

Whose rules?

But it’s really a rule that a person must either hold on to the belief they’ve based their life on and follow the rules of that belief, or they must acknowledge that belief is insufficient and get ready for something new.

There was no change in belief, whether in Hester, Dimmesdale, Hawthorne, or America. The same old deceptive belief, which was actually a clever disbelief, in the Spirit, in Purity, in Selfless Love, and in Pure Consciousness. They would continue to follow this belief, driven by its sensationalism. But they would mock it constantly. Like Woodrow Wilson and the rest of today's Believers. The rest of today's Saviours.

If you meet a Savior today, make sure he's not trying to make a fool out of you. Especially if the Savior is an UNDERSTANDING WOMAN, offering her love.

Hester carries on, as virtuous as ever, working as a public nurse. In the end, she is recognized as a saint, the Abel of the Scarlet Letter.

She would, being a woman. She has had her victory over the individual man, so she truly enjoys being part of the entire spiritual life of society. She will make herself as fake as can be, for the sake of society, once she's had her true victory over Saint Arthur.

Blossoms into a Sister of Mercy Saint.

But it takes a long time before she actually trusts anyone. People kept thinking she was a witch, which she was.

As a matter of fact, unless a woman is kept safe within the boundaries of a man's beliefs, she inevitably turns into a destructive force. She can't help it. A woman is almost always sensitive to compassion. She can't stand to see anything physically injured. But once a woman is freed from the limits and constraints of a man's strong beliefs, in his gods and in himself, she becomes a gentle menace. She transforms into something subtly evil. The immense danger of the united spirit of Woman. WOMAN, whether German, American, or of any other nationality, in the last war, was something terrifying. As every man knows.

Woman turns into a helpless, would-be-loving demon. She is powerless. Her love itself is a subtle poison.

Unless a man believes in himself and his gods, genuinely: unless he fiercely follows his own inner voice; his partner will bring him down. Woman is the enemy of a man who doubts. She can't help it.

And with Hester, after Ligeia, woman turns into a nemesis for man. She supports him from the outside but tears him apart from the inside. And he ends up dying with hatred for her, just like Dimmesdale did.

Dimmesdale's spirituality had gone on for too long, too far. It had turned into something false. He met his match in a woman. And he was doomed.

Woman is a strange and somewhat terrifying phenomenon to man. When a woman's subconscious soul pulls away from its creative connection with man, it turns into a destructive force. It, whether she intends it or not, has an invisible destructive influence. The woman herself may seem as sweet as can be, like Ligeia. But she is still emitting waves of silent destruction upon the struggling spirit in men. She isn't aware of it. She can't even stop it. But she does it anyway. The devil is within her.

The very women who are busy saving men and caring for children—these women doctors, these nurses, these educators, these community-minded women, these female heroes—are, deep down, sending out waves of harmful negativity that drain a man's inner life like a cancer. This is the reality, and it will continue until men recognize it and take action to protect themselves.

God won't save us. The women are so wickedly divine. Men have to save themselves in this situation, and not in any sweet way either.

A woman can use her sexuality with pure malice and toxicity while acting as meek and innocent as can be. Oh dear, she truly appears blameless and sweet. All the while, she’s using her femininity like a she-devil, causing endless pain for her man. She doesn’t even realize it. She would never accept it if you pointed it out to her. And if you confronted her for her wickedness, she would run to the nearest authority figure in outrage. She is so completely blameless, that she-devil, that sweet, dutiful creature.

Give her the big slap, just the same, right when she’s being the most angelic. Right when she’s bearing her burden most humbly.

Oh, a woman who steps out of line is like a devil. But it's the man's fault. A woman never asked to be pushed out of her little paradise of trust and faith. It's up to men to take responsibility for belief. If a man turns into a spiritual cheat and liar, like Ligeia's husband and Arthur Dimmesdale, how can a woman have faith in him? Belief isn't a matter of choice. And if a woman doesn't believe in a man, she ultimately believes in nothing. She becomes, whether she likes it or not, a devil.

A devil she is, and a devil she will be. And most men will fall for her devilish ways.

Hester Prynne was a devil. Even when she was quietly going around as a nurse. Poor Hester. Part of her wanted to be saved from her own wickedness. And another part wanted to keep going in her wickedness, for revenge. Revenge! REVENGE! This is what fuels the unconscious spirit of women today. Revenge against men, and against the spirit of man, which has betrayed her into disbelief. Even when she’s the sweetest and most devoted, she can be the most wicked. She offers her man the sweet lure of her submissive nature. And when he takes this sweet treat, a scorpion comes out of it. After he embraces this Eve with such love, she destroys him little by little. Woman and her revenge! She will pursue it and continue pursuing it for decades, unless she’s stopped. And to stop her, you’ve got to believe in yourself and your ideals, your own Holy Spirit, Sir Man; and then you have to fight her and never give in. She's a devil. But in the end, she can be conquered. And just a tiny part of her wants to be conquered. You’ve got to battle three-quarters of her, in absolute hell, to reach the final quarter that longs for a release, at last, from the hell of her own vengeance. But that release is a long way off. And not yet.

"She had a rich, sensual, exotic quality to her character—a love for the incredibly beautiful." This is Hester. This is American. But she held back her nature in this way. She wouldn’t even allow herself the indulgence of fine, delicate sewing. Still, she dressed her little sin-child Pearl in bright colors, and the scarlet letter was beautifully embroidered. Her Hecate and Astarte symbols.

"A curvy, exotic trait—" that lies in wait within American women. It's likely that Mormons are the pioneers of the future America. It's likely that men will have more than one wife in this upcoming America. You'll see a return of a somewhat exotic femininity and a practice of polygamy.

The gray nurse, Hester. The Hecate, the hell-cat. The slowly-evolving voluptuous woman of the new era, with a completely new submissiveness to the dark, phallic principle.

But it takes time. Generation after generation of nurses, political women, and social reformers. And in the end, the oppressive images of sexual worship resurface, along with the newly submissive women. That kind of depth. Profound women in this sense. When we finally break free from this madness of mental-spiritual awareness. And the women choose to once again embrace the great submission.

"The poor, who she tried to help with her generosity, often criticized the hand that reached out to assist them."

Naturally. The poor dislike a Salvationist. They can sense the devil underneath.

"She was patient—a true martyr—but she refrained from praying for her enemies, fearing that, despite her desire to forgive, her blessing might stubbornly turn into a curse."

So much honesty, at least. No wonder the old witch, Mistress Hibbins, declared her to be another witch.

"She developed a fear of children because they had picked up from their parents a vague sense of something terrible about this gloomy woman silently moving through the town, accompanied only by one child."

"A vague idea!" Can't you see her "gliding silently?" It's not just a vague concept picked up, but a clear emotion felt straight away.

"But sometimes, once every few days, or maybe every few months, she felt the gaze of someone—a human gaze—on the shameful mark, which provided a fleeting sense of relief, as if a part of her suffering was being shared. But in the next moment, everything rushed back, with an even deeper ache; because in that short time, she had sinned again. Had Hester really sinned alone?"

Of course not. As for sinning again, she would quietly go on "sinning" for the rest of her life without changing. She never felt guilty. Not her. Why would she? She had taken down Arthur Dimmesdale, that pure and innocent soul, and that was her life's work.

As for sinning again when she locked eyes with two dark eyes in a crowd, why of course. Someone who got her the way she got herself.

I always remember locking eyes with a gypsy woman for just a moment in a crowd in England. She knew, and I knew. What did we know? I couldn't figure it out. But we knew.

Probably the same deep-seated hatred of this spiritually aware society in which the outcast woman and I both wandered like meek-looking wolves. Tame wolves just waiting to break free from their tameness. Never able to.

And again, that "sensual, exotic" trait that understands the mystery of the ithyphallic gods. She wouldn’t betray the ithyphallic gods to this white, leprous-white society of "lovers." Neither will I, if I can help it. These leprous-white, seductive, spiritual women who "understand" so much. One has been seduced too many times and "understood." "I can read him like a book," said my first lover about me. The book is in several volumes, dear. And more and more, I remember the deep dark hatred and other understanding in the eyes of the gypsy woman. So different from the hateful white light of understanding that floats like scum on the eyes of white, oh, so white English and American women, with their understanding voices and their deep, sad words, and their profound, good spirits. Pfui!

Hester was only afraid of one outcome of her sin: Pearl. Pearl, the embodiment of the scarlet letter. The little girl. When women have children, they either bring forth devils or sons with a bit of divinity in them. It's an evolution. The darkness in Hester created a more innocent darkness in Pearl. And the darkness in Pearl will create—she married an Italian Count—a piece of even purer darkness.

And so, as time passes, we grow and mature.

And then, hour by hour, we waste away.

There was something about the child that often made Hester bitterly question whether it was for better or worse that the poor little creature had been born at all.

For bad, Hester. But don’t worry. Bad is just as essential as good. Malice is just as necessary as kindness. If you have given rise to a young malice, know that there is a widespread falsehood in the world that this malice must confront. Falsehood needs to be attacked and attacked until it’s completely destroyed. Hence Pearl.

Pearl. Her own mother compares her to the demon of disease, or scarlet fever, in her red dress. But then, disease is necessary to cleanse a corrupt, fake humanity.

Pearl, the mischievous little girl, who can be so sweet and caring and understanding, and then, when she has grasped what you’ve said, will slap you across the face and turn to you with a grin of pure devilish mockery.

Serves you right, you shouldn't be understood. That's your flaw. You shouldn't want to be loved, and then you wouldn't get slapped in the face. Pearl will love you: wonderfully. And she'll slap you in the face: oh, so perfectly. And serves you right.

Pearl might be the most contemporary child in all of literature.

Old-fashioned Nathaniel, with his little-boy charm, will tell you what's up. But he'll layer it with some sweetness.

Hester really hates her child in one part of herself. But in another part, she treasures her child as her one valuable possession. Pearl represents Hester's ongoing female anger against life. But that anger impacts both sides; it strikes back at Hester herself. The anger in Pearl retaliates against Hester, the mother, and Hester is just filled with rage and "sadness," which is quite ironic.

"The child couldn't follow any rules. When she was brought into the world, a major law had been broken; as a result, she was a mix of elements that might be beautiful and bright, but all chaotic, or arranged in a way unique to her, making it hard or even impossible to pinpoint any sense of variety or organization."

Of course, the order is unique to them. But the point of variety is this: "Bring out the loving, sweet soul, bring it out with amazing understanding; and then spit in its eye."

Hester, of course, didn’t like it at all when her sweet child pulled at her motherly instincts, filled with longing and deep understanding, and then spat in her motherly eye with a grin. But it was a process the mother had begun.

Pearl had a strange look in her eyes: "a look that was so smart, yet so unexplainable, so twisted, sometimes so spiteful, but usually paired with an exuberant energy, that Hester couldn’t help but wonder at those times if Pearl was even a real human child."

A little demon! But her mother, and the saintly Dimmesdale, had given birth to her. And Pearl, by the sheer boldness of her mischief, was more honest than her parents. She outright denies any Heavenly Father, viewing the earthly one as a complete fraud. And she has the pious Dimmesdale wrapped around her finger, spitting right in his face: in both of his eyes.

Poor, brave, tormented little soul, always pulling back; she'll be a nightmare for men when she grows up. But the men deserve it. If they allow themselves to be “pulled in” by her loving understanding, they deserve to be slapped across the face the moment they are drawn in. The fools! Pulled in and tied up.

Poor little phenomenon of a modern child, she'll grow up into the wicked modern woman. The nemesis of weak-kneed modern men, longing to be drawn in by love.

The third person in the evil trio of the Scarlet Letter is Hester's first husband, Roger Chillingworth. He’s an older Elizabethan doctor with a gray beard, a long fur coat, and a twisted shoulder. Another healer. But he’s also somewhat of an alchemist, a magician. He’s a magician on the edge of modern science, like Francis Bacon.

Roger Chillingworth represents the outdated way of thinking, tracing his roots back to the medieval alchemists like Roger Bacon. He holds on to an archaic, intellectual belief in dark sciences and Hermetic philosophies. He isn't a Christian or someone who seeks selflessness. He's not a seeker. He embodies the traditional authoritarian figure. The old male authority. But he lacks passionate belief, relying solely on his intellectual belief in himself and his male authority.

Shakespeare's entire tragic lament is due to the collapse of genuine male authority, the powerful and dominant kind. It fell with Elizabeth. It was crushed underfoot with Victoria.

But Chillingworth continues the intellectual tradition. He despises the new spiritual seekers, like Dimmesdale, with a deep, twisted hatred. He represents the old male authority in intellectual tradition.

You can't hold onto a wife simply because of old beliefs. So Hester started seducing Dimmesdale.

Yet her only marriage, and her last promise, is to the old Roger. He and she are partners in bringing down the spiritual saint.

"Why are you smiling at me like that—" she says to her old, vengeful husband. "Aren't you like the Black Man who haunts the forest around us? Haven't you lured me into a bond that will ruin my soul?"

"Not your soul!" he replied with another smile. "No, not your soul!"

It’s the essence of the ideal preacher, that deceptive thing, that they seek. And the damaged doctor—this other healer—filled with dark vengeance in his twisted, outdated male authority, and the “caring” woman, they both drag down the saint between them.

A deep, dark hatred, almost like love, is what Chillingworth feels for the young, righteous minister. Dimmesdale responds with a twisted kind of love. Gradually, the saint's life is poisoned. But the sinister old doctor just smiles, trying to keep him alive. Dimmesdale engages in self-torment, whipping his own frail, spiritual body. The wicked old Chillingworth listens outside the door, laughing, and prepares another dose of poison so the game can continue. Meanwhile, the saint's very soul decays. This is his ultimate victory. Yet he still maintains his facade.

The dark, vengeful spirit of the broken, skilled man, still ominous in his power: and the pale horror of the fallen saint! The two halves of humanity relentlessly tearing each other apart.

Dimmesdale has a "coup" at the very end. He reveals everything by confessing publicly on the scaffold and then dying, leaving Hester abandoned and Roger, in a way, even more betrayed. It’s a clever final act of revenge.

Down comes the curtain, just like in Ligeia's poem.

But the child Pearl will be in the next scene, along with her Italian Count and a new group of troublemakers. And Hester is watching gloomily from the shadows after her outburst.

It’s an amazing allegory. To me, it’s one of the greatest allegories in all literature, The Scarlet Letter. Its incredible deeper meaning! And its perfect duality.

The complete dishonesty of that blue-eyed Wunderkind named Nathaniel. The American prodigy, with his incredible allegorical understanding.

But even wonder kids have to grow up in a generation or two.

And even sin gets stale.

No other book by Nathaniel Hawthorne is as profound, as dual, and as comprehensive as The Scarlet Letter: this powerful allegory of the victory of sin.

Sin is a strange thing. It's not just about breaking divine rules. It's about breaking your own integrity.

For example, the wrong in Hester and Arthur Dimmesdale's situation was a wrong because they believed it was wrong to do. If they had truly wanted to be together, and if they had had the genuine courage to embrace their feelings, there wouldn't have been any wrongdoing, even if the desire was only fleeting.

But if there hadn’t been any sin, they would have lost at least half the fun, or even more, of the game.

It was the very act of doing something that they themselves thought was wrong that made it so appealing. People create sin to enjoy the thrill of being bad. They also use it to avoid taking responsibility for their own actions. A Divine Father tells him what to do, but people are rebellious and don’t follow the rules. Then, trembling with shame, a disrespectful person lowers their pants for punishment.

If the Divine Father doesn't punish us in this life, then Sinful Man nervously anticipates his punishment in the afterlife.

Bah, the Divine Father, like many other royal figures, has given up his authority. People can sin as much as they want.

There’s only one consequence: the loss of his integrity. A person should never do what he thinks is wrong. Because if he does, he loses his own unity, completeness, and natural honor.

If you want to do something, you either have to genuinely believe that it's part of who you are to do it, or you need to leave it alone.

Believe in your own spirit. Otherwise, if you have doubts, stay away.

A thing that you genuinely believe in can't be wrong. Belief isn't something you choose; it comes from the Holy Spirit within. So a thing you truly believe in can't be wrong.

But there is such a thing as false belief. There is such a thing as evil belief: a belief that one cannot do wrong. There is also such a thing as a half-false belief. And this is the worst of all. The devil hiding behind the cross.

So there you are. Between real belief, fake belief, and half-real belief, you're just as likely to be in a tough spot. And the half-real belief is the most deceptive and messy thing in life.

Hester and Dimmesdale believed in God and almost proudly sinned against Him. The Allegory of Sin.

Pearl no longer believes in the Divine Father. She says so. She has no Divine Father. She rejects both big and little Papa.

So she can't go against him.

What will she do, then, if she has no god to sin against? Well, obviously, she won’t be able to sin at all. She’ll happily go her own way, do whatever she wants, and later, when she’s created a mess, she’ll say, “Yes, I did it. But I acted with good intentions, so I’m not to blame. It’s the other person’s fault. Or maybe it’s Its fault.”

She will be innocent, Pearl will, no matter what happens.

And the world is just a string of pearls today. And America is a full rope of these completely spotless pearls, who can’t sin, no matter what they do. Because they have no god to sin against. Just people, one after another. People with no spirit to their name.

Pearls!

Oh, the irony, the bitter, bitter irony of the name! Oh, Nathaniel, you great man! Oh, America, you Pearl, you Pearl without a flaw!

How can Pearl have a flaw when there’s no one but herself to judge her? Of course she’ll be perfect, even if, like Cleopatra, she drowns a lover every night in her filthy Nile. The constant flow of her love.

Candida!

By Hawthorne's time, it was already Pearl. Before pigs, of course. There has never been a Pearl that wasn't thrown before pigs.

It's part of her game, part of her elegance.

Because when Circe sleeps with a man, he's a pig afterward, if he wasn't one already. Not she. Circe is the great white flawless Pearl.

And yet, oh. Pearl, there’s a rival even for you.

There's a Doom, Pearl.

Doom! What a beautiful word from the north. Doom.

The Curse of the Pearl.

Who will write that allegory?

Here's what Doom is.

When you don't have a Divine Father to sin against, and when you don't sin against the Son—which the Pearls don’t, because they’re all really focused on LOVE, even stronger on LOVE than anything else—then there's nothing left for you to sin against except the Holy Ghost.

Now, Pearl, come on, let's dip you in the vinegar.

And it's a tricky thing to sin against the Holy Spirit. "It shall not be forgiven him."

Didn't I tell you there was doom?

She won’t be forgiven.

The Father forgives; the Son forgives; but the Holy Spirit does not forgive. So, deal with it.

The Holy Ghost doesn't forgive because the Holy Ghost is inside you. The Holy Ghost is you: your true self. So, if in your arrogance you create a break in your own self, in your own integrity, how can you expect forgiveness? It’s like tearing apart your own insides. You know if you tear your own insides they will decay, and you will decay too. That’s the end of you: in the physical sense.

The same if you break a connection with your own Holy Spirit. You become spiritually decayed. Like the Pearls.

These precious Pearls, they do whatever they want and stay untainted. Oh, purity!

But they can't help but rot from the inside. Beautiful on the outside, like rotten pearls. Their souls stink because their souls are decaying inside them.

The sin against the Holy Spirit.

And over time, from the inside out, they decay. Some kind of dementia. Something falling apart. A breaking down mind. Dementia.

Those whom God wants to destroy, He first makes them crazy.

Watch these Pearls, these Pearls of modern women. Especially American women. Feeding off love. And flapping in the first bat-like grips of mental decline.

You can have your cake and eat it. But wow, it will go bad inside you.

Hawthorne's other books don't measure up to The Scarlet Letter.

But there are great stories and amazing dark insights into early Puritan America in Twice Told Tales.

The House of the Seven Gables has "vibes." The decline of the old way, represented by the proud, bearded, dark-browed Father: a way that is slowly being pushed out of life and continues to linger in the old, shadowy spots. But a new generation arrives, ready to banish even the ghosts with these new vacuum cleaners. No ghost could compete with a vacuum cleaner.

The new generation isn’t haunted by the past. They’re establishing themselves in photography and are about to make a solid financial success out of it. To do this, all the old grudges and sadness from the outdated era of arrogant fathers are being cleaned out, and the couple, shaped by past conflicts, achieve a great understanding under the dark cloth of a camera and success. Vivat Industria!

Oh, Nathaniel, you brutal ironist! Ugh, how you would have hated it if you had nothing but that wealthy, "darling" young couple to write about! If you had lived to see the day when America was just a Main Street.

The Dark Old Dads.

The Beloved Wishy-Washy Sons.

The Photography Biz.

? ? ?

Hawthorne got closest to reality in the Blithedale Romance. This novel paints a picture of the infamous Brook Farm experiment. There, the well-known idealists and transcendentalists of America came together to farm the land and cut timber, working hard while contemplating lofty ideas, surrounded by a sense of communal love, and resonating with the Oversoul, like the strings of a heavenly harp. It's reminiscent of the old sound of the Crèvecœur instrument.

Of course, they fought like cats and dogs. They couldn’t stand each other. And all the music they created was filled with the sound of their arguments.

You can't romanticize hard work. That’s why America creates so many machines and gadgets of all kinds: so that people don’t have to do physical labor.

And that's why the idealists stopped brookfarming and started bookfarming.

You can't romanticize the raw, primal instincts, the basic desires, the fundamental, cynical understanding of our nature.

That you can't romanticize.

And you can't get rid of it.

So that's the end of the ideal man.

Man is made up of two different ways of thinking, which often conflict with each other. And this will continue for as long as time exists.

You've got to learn to switch from one mindset to another, turn around and adjust. Don’t try to make either one absolute or the main focus. The Holy Spirit guides you on the how and when.

Never did Nathaniel feel more ghostly—of course he went brookfarming—than when he was blowing the horn in the morning to call the otherworldly workers to their tasks, or when he was heading off with a hoe to tend to the turnips. "Never did I feel more ghostly," says Nathaniel.

Never have I felt so foolish, that would be more accurate.

Foolish people trying to romanticize hard work. You’ll never succeed in making hard work seem perfect. Before you can dig into the earth, you need to take off your idealistic mindset. The harder someone works at physical labor, the less idealistic they become, and the more negative their thinking gets. And the more someone works on mental tasks, on ideals, and on lofty pursuits, the weaker their body becomes, and the more strained their nerves feel.

Oh, the anxious brookfarmers!

You've got to be able to do both: the thinking and the physical work. But be ready to switch from one pair of shoes to another. Don’t try to make it all one pair of shoes.

The attempt to romanticize violence!

Nathaniel knew he was being foolish for trying.

He went home to his friendly spouse and his private study.

Nathaniel!

But the Blithedale Romance. It starts off with a beautiful, wintry evening in a farmhouse kitchen kind of vibe.

Cast of Characters:

1. I.—The narrator: let's call him Nathaniel. A delicate yet profound young man, who's sensitive and no longer quite so young.

2. Zenobia: a striking, confidently curvy, smart woman with a tropical flower in her hair. It's said she was inspired by Margaret Fuller, in whom Hawthorne identified some "evil nature." Nathaniel was more conscious of Zenobia's physical allure than her intellect.

3. Hollingsworth: a black-bearded blacksmith with a deep voice and a strong desire to save criminals. He wants to create a great Home for these unfortunate souls.

4. Priscilla: a type of White Lily, a clingy little mediumistic seamstress who has been used in public séances. A kind of prostituted soul.

5. Zenobia's Husband: an unpleasant, decayed individual with a magnetic presence and a mouth full of gold teeth—or teeth that are gold-plated. He is the one who has conducted public spiritualist demonstrations, with Priscilla as the medium. He has the dark, sensual, decayed-handsome vibe and arrives unexpectedly through the back door.

Plot I.—I, Nathaniel, suddenly catch a cold and have to go to bed. I'm cared for with excessive tenderness by the blacksmith, whose large hands are softer than a woman's, etc.

The two men love each other with a bond that's deeper than the love for women, as long as the healing and salvation business continues. When Nathaniel wants to be healed and have his own soul, he feels hatred towards this black-bearded, booming Salvationist, Hephæstos of the underworld. He despises him for being a tyrannical monomaniac.

Plot II.—Zenobia, that clever and striking woman, is captivated by the criminal-blacksmith, wanting him at any cost. At the same time, she shares a nuanced understanding with the delicate yet profound Nathaniel. She takes the White Lily under her rich and glossy dark wing, half out of pity and half out of contempt.

Plot III.—The blacksmith is after Zenobia to collect her money for his shady asylum, where he will obviously be the first resident.

Plot IV.—Nathaniel also finds himself craving the rich allure of Zenobia.

Plot V.—The White Lily, Priscilla, languidly struggling, turns out to be the well-known Veiled Lady from public spiritualist shows: the one whom the unwanted Husband, known as the Professor, has exploited as a medium. She is also Zenohia's half-sister.

Debacle

Nobody wants Zenohia in the end. She leaves without her flower. The blacksmith marries Priscilla. Nathaniel awkwardly admits that he has loved Prissy all along. Boo-hoo!

Conclusion

A few years later, Nathaniel encounters the blacksmith on a country lane near a modest cottage, leaning unsteadily on the arm of the frail but passionate Priscilla. All dreams of asylums are gone, and the savior of criminals can't even rescue himself from his own Veiled Lady.

There you have a nice little group of idealists, transcendentalists, brookfarmers, and broken-down nobility. All going a bit bad.

Two Pearls: a white Pearl and a black Pearl: the latter one more expensive, flashy with wealth.

The white Pearl, the little medium, Priscilla, the fake pearl, really has some "supernormal" powers. She could drain the blacksmith of his darkness and his strength.

Priscilla, the young psychic sex worker. The morally questionable descendant of Ligeia. The completely submissive, "loving" woman, who gives herself completely to her partner. Or even to a gold-toothed "professor" of spiritualism.

Is all this spiritualism just nonsense? Is the Veiled Lady just a load of garbage?

Not really. Aside from telepathy, the human mind is the most incredible message-receiver in existence. It puts any wireless station to shame.

Put Prissy under the tablecloth then. Miaow!

What happens? Prissy under the tablecloth, like a canary when you cover its cage, goes into a "sleep," a trance.

A trance, not a sleep. A trance means that all her individual, personal intelligence goes to sleep, like a hen with her head under her wing. But the apparatus of consciousness stays active. Without a soul in it.

And what can this consciousness apparatus do when it's functioning? Well, it definitely does something. A wireless device goes tick-tick-tick, recording messages. Your human system does the same. It captures all kinds of messages. But the soul, or the subconscious, handles these messages in the dark, beneath the surface. That’s just how things work.

But what kinds of messages? All kinds. Signals from the stars, signals from unknown magnetic forces, signals from unknown people, unknown passions. The human system picks them all up, and they are all processed in the subconscious.

There are also numerous thought vibrations, many, many of them. They are essential to get the two human instruments in tune.

There may even be ghostly vibrations in the air. Ghosts are dead wills, just so you know, not dead souls. The soul has nothing to do with these tricks.

But some force may stick around for a while after someone dies—some vibrations might hang around like little clouds in the ether after a person or an animal has passed. These little clumps of vibration can connect with the consciousness of the medium. So, the deceased son of a grieving widow might send a message to his mourning mother to tell her that he owes Bill Jackson seven dollars, or that Uncle Sam's will is in the back of the bureau, and to reassure her: "Cheer up, Mom, I'm okay."

There’s never much value in these “messages.” They’re just fragmented bits of lost, broken thoughts. The medium has always had a tough time trying to sort through the chaos of messages.

Again, upcoming events might cast their shadow ahead. The oracle might pick up on material vibrations with her conscious apparatus, indicating that the next major war will start in 1925. And to the extent that the realm of cause-and-effect governs the living soul, and events are inevitably developing, this prediction could be accurate.

But the living souls of people can disrupt the mechanical flow of events at any moment.

Nothing is certain.

Vibrations of the finest matter. Connections of vibrations and impacts! Spiritualism.

And what’s next? It’s all just about material things, and a lot of it is and always will be nonsense.

Because the true human soul, the Holy Spirit, has its own deep insight that can't be quantified, but instead flows onward, darkly, like a stream of intuition.

And the true human soul is too proud and too genuine in its belief in the Holy Spirit within to lower itself to the practices of these spiritualist and other psychic tricks of material vibrations.

Because the first part of respect is accepting that the Holy Ghost will never take physical form: will always be nothing more than a ghost.

And the second part of reverence is the careful attention to the movements, the arrivals and departures within us, of the Holy Spirit, and of the many deities that constitute the Holy Spirit.

The Father had his day and then fell.

The Son has had his moment and has fallen.

It is the day of the Holy Spirit.

But when souls become corrupt and fall apart, they no longer have any light. They have sinned against the Holy Spirit.

These people in Blithedale Romance have sinned against the Holy Spirit, and corruption has taken hold.

All, maybe except for me, Nathaniel. He is still a sorrowful, complete awareness.

But not excluding Zenobia. The Black Pearl is falling apart. Quickly. The smarter she is, the quicker she deteriorates.

And they are all falling apart, so they resort to mind games. It's a clear indication of someone's mental breakdown when they turn to spiritualism, table tapping, occult messages, witchcraft, or similar supernatural practices. When men seek out the supernatural, it's a sign that something has gone wrong in their everyday lives. This is even more true for women.

And yet the soul has its own deep understanding. And the blood has its unique knowledge.

But this isn't shameless and focused on material things, like spiritualism and magic and all that kind of pretentious supernatural nonsense.

You can't romanticize hard work. In other words, you can't romanticize hard work without falling apart as an idealist.

You can't romanticize hard work.

In other words, you can't romanticize hard work without falling apart as an idealist.

The soil! The amazing concept of the soil. Novels like Thomas Hardy's and artwork like the Frenchman Millet's. The soil.

What happens when you romanticize the earth, the mother nature, and truly return to it? Then, with powerful certainty, you realize, just like Thomas Hardy did, that everything in the grand scheme is working against you. The entire weight of natural fate is bearing down on you like a slow-moving glacier, ready to crush you out of existence. As an idealist.

Thomas Hardy's pessimism is completely valid. It reflects the idealist's ultimate realization as he grapples with the harsh reality of his beloved mother earth. He loves her, loves her, loves her. And she ensnares and crushes him like a slow-moving snake. Mother earth says the idealist must perish. So let him perish.

The deep, creative love for the land itself! Tolstoy had it, and so did Thomas Hardy. Both end up in a sort of extreme rejection of life because of it.

You can't put Mother Earth on a pedestal. You can try, and you might even succeed. But in succeeding, you give in. She won't accept any pure idealist offspring. None.

If you are a child of Mother Earth, you need to learn to let go of your ideal self, just like you take off your clothes at night when the season changes.

Americans have never had the same deep connection to the land of America that Europeans have felt for Europe. America has never been a homeland tied to blood. It has only been an ideal homeland. The homeland of ideas, of the spirit. And of money. Not of blood.

That time is yet to come, when the idea and the spirit will break free from their false oppression.

Europe has been cherished with a deep passion. That has made it beautiful.

In America, you have Fenimore Cooper's stunning landscapes, but that’s more of a fantasy from afar. Then there’s Thoreau in Concord. Thoreau kind of isolated his own little area and examined it closely. He almost dissected it with his admiration.

America isn't a homeland based on bloodlines. For every American, their ancestral homeland is Europe. The spiritual homeland is America.

Transcendentalism. Move beyond this local issue; elevate the concept of These States until it becomes a universal idea, says the true American. The oversoul is a world-soul, not just something regional.

So, in the next major wave of creativity, Americans looked to the sea. Not to the land. The earth is too specific, too defined. Plus, the blood of white men is not something that belongs to American soil. No, no.

But the blood of all people comes from the ocean. We share our material connection and our blood unity in the sea. The saltwater.

You can't glorify the earth. But you have to give it a shot. And in trying, you gain a huge creative reward. And the biggest reward is failure. To realize you have failed, that you have to fail. That is the greatest comfort of all, in the end.

Tolstoy failed with farming: so did Thomas Hardy and Giovanni Verga; the three greatest.

The ultimate extreme, the greatest mother, is the sea. Love the great mother of the sea, the Magna Mater. And see how bitter it is. And see how you must fail to win her over to your ideal: forever fail. Absolutely fail.

Swinburne attempted in England. But the Americans had the biggest challenge. The most striking failure.

At some point, human life becomes boring to people. What happens next? They seek something universal.

The biggest material mother of us all is the ocean.

Dana's eyesight let him down while he was studying at Harvard. And then, he suddenly turned to the sea, the bare Mother. He went to sea as an ordinary sailor before the mast.

You can't romanticize hard work. But you can. You can push through tough labor and understand what it really means. You can even face the sea and truly KNOW her.

This is what Dana wanted: a raw, unfiltered fight with the ocean.

KNOW THYSELF. That means, understand the earth that’s part of you. Recognize the sea that’s part of you. The great elements.

But we must repeat: KNOWING and BEING are opposite, conflicting states. The more you know, precisely, the less you are. The more you are, in being, the less you know.

This is the major struggle of humanity, its dual nature. The blood self and the nerve-brain self.

Knowing, then, is the slow death of existence. People go through periods of existence and periods of knowledge. It will always be a major back-and-forth. The goal is to learn how to not know.

Dana took another big step in understanding: understanding the mother sea. But it was also a step toward his own unraveling. It marked a new phase of dissolving his own self. Afterwards, he would be less human. He would be a knower: but closer to a machine than ever before. That is our burden, our fate.

And so he writes, in his early days at sea, in winter, on the Atlantic: "Nothing compares to the early dawn over the vast, sorrowful ocean. There’s something about the first gray rays stretching across the Eastern horizon, casting a hazy light on the surface of the deep, that evokes a sense of loneliness, fear, and a melancholy sense of foreboding that nothing else in nature can provide."

So he moves awake and alone into the vast, empty, watery universe at the end of life, that twilight space where existence fades away, and warm life starts to diminish. It’s man facing death, the great adventure, the great undoing, the strange expansion of consciousness. The same feeling he had when he saw the albatross. "But one of the most incredible sights I’ve ever seen was an albatross sleeping on the water, off Cape Horn, while a heavy sea was rolling. With no breeze, the water’s surface was smooth, but a long, powerful swell was coming through, and we spotted the bird, all white, directly in front of us, asleep on the waves, with its head tucked under its wing; it rose on top of a huge wave, then slowly fell until it disappeared in the trough below. It remained undisturbed for a while until the sound of our ship, getting closer, woke it up; when it lifted its head, it looked at us for a moment, then spread its massive wings and flew away."

We have to acknowledge Dana for his deep mystical insight. The best Americans are naturally mystics. Although his story is straightforward and unadorned, it is filled with deep emotion and clear understanding. He perceives the final, life-loving form of existence laid bare on the endless waters: a tiny spot, alone at the intersection of two elemental forces, air and water. And his own spirit is like that of the albatross.

It’s a storm-bird. And so is Dana. He has gone down to fight the sea. It’s a deep, real struggle of a complete soul against the vast, lifeless, yet powerful force. Dana never forgets, never stops watching. If Hawthorne was a ghost on land, how much more is Dana a ghost at sea. But he must watch, he must understand, he must conquer the sea in his mind. This is the sharp difference between him and the average sailor. The average sailor drifts out of awareness, becomes instinctual like a seal, a creature. Small and isolated, Dana watches the mighty seas rise around his tiny body. If he is swept away, someone else will have to continue what he has started. The sea must be mastered by human awareness, in the grand struggle of the human soul for control over life and death, in KNOWLEDGE. It’s the last harsh necessity of the Tree. The Cross. Impartial, Dana sees himself among the elements, calm and deadly. His style is grand and hopeless, the style of a perfect tragic recorder.

"Between five and six, the shout of 'All hands on deck!' called our watch, and immediately everyone was summoned. A big, dark gray cloud was approaching from the south-west, and we hurried to take in the sails before we were caught in it. We managed to furled the light sails, haul up the courses, and get the top-sail reef tackles ready, and we were just climbing the forerigging when the storm hit us. In an instant, the sea, which had been relatively calm, started to rise higher and higher; it became almost as dark as night. The hail and sleet were harsher than I had ever experienced, feeling like they were pinning us down to the rigging."

It’s in the straightforward presentation of plain material facts that Dana finds his greatness. Dana writes from a more distant, non-emotional place—not from the passionate emotional self.

So the ship keeps fighting on, around Cape Horn, and then into calmer waters. The island of Juan Fernandez, Crusoe's island, appears like a dream from the water, like a green cloud, and like a ghost, Dana watches it, feeling just a slight, ghostly pang of regret for the life that used to be.

But the stress of the long sea voyage starts to take its toll. The sea is a powerful force of disintegration. Its refreshing quality is also its disintegrating quality. It breaks down tissue and releases energy. And after a long time, this breakdown becomes destructive. The psyche becomes damaged, irritable, worn down, almost dehumanized.

So there's trouble on the ship, annoying discontent, unbearable friction, and finally a flogging. This flogging awakens Dana for the first and last time to human and ideal passion.

"By this time, Sam was tied up—he was against the ropes, his wrists secured to them, his jacket removed, and his back exposed. The captain stood on the edge of the deck, a few feet away and slightly elevated, giving him a good angle to swing at Sam, and he held a thick, light rope in his hand. The officers were gathered around, and the crew was huddled together in the middle. All these preparations made me feel sick and faint, even though I was angry and excited. A man—a human being created in God's image—tied up and whipped like an animal! My first and nearly overwhelming instinct was to resist. But what could be done?—The moment for that had passed—"

So Mr. Dana couldn't do anything. He could only lean over the side of the ship and vomit.

What made him throw up?

Why shouldn't a man be punished?

As long as people have a backside, they will definitely get punished. It seems like that’s how the Lord wanted it to be.

Why? For many reasons.

Man does not live by bread alone, to eat it and to pass it.

What is the breath of life? My dear, it’s the strange exchange that moves between people and people, people and women, and people and things. A continuous flow of interaction, a constant vibrating exchange. That is the breath of life.

And this exchange, this electric energy is polarized. There’s a positive and a negative polarity. This is a principle of life, of vitalism.

Only ideas are final, fixed, unchanging, and singular.

All interactions in life involve a two-way communication. It's like a circuit.

There are a lot of circuits. Male and female, for instance, and master and servant. The idea, that fixed gorgon monster, and the IDEAL, that huge stationary engine, these two gods of the machine have been busy destroying all natural reciprocity and natural circuits for centuries. IDEAS have seriously messed with relationships between sexes, that is, with the fundamental connection between man and woman. It has turned the whole thing into a wheel that breaks down the humanity in both. And the IDEAL has twisted the blood-reciprocity of master and servant into an abstract nightmare.

Master and servant—or master and employee—essentially represent a polarized relationship, much like love. It creates a vital energy that flows between them, providing essential nourishment to each and maintaining a delicate, dynamic balance. You can deny it all you want, but it’s true. However, once you abstract both the master and the employee, reducing them to merely serving an idea like production, wages, or efficiency—where each views themselves as just a tool executing a repetitive task—you transform the living, vibrant connection between master and employee into a mechanical, uniform process. It’s just another way of living, or rather, anti-living.

You could never really manage this on a sailing ship. A captain had to be in charge, or it was chaos. There had to be this unusual exchange between leader and crew, this odd balance of authority and submission.

The back-and-forth of authority and compliance is a state of fragile balance. Everything essential, or natural, is unpredictable, thank goodness.

The ship had been at sea for several weeks. There was a lot of pressure on the captain and the crew. The crew was growing more indifferent, while the captain was becoming increasingly irritable.

So, what happens next?

A storm.

Don't expect me to explain why storms exist. They simply do. Storms in the air, storms in the water, storms of thunder, storms of anger. Storms just exist.

Storms are a kind of intense reset in some polarized flow. You have a polarized circuit, a circuit of unstable balance. The instability builds up until there’s a breakdown. Everything seems to fall apart. Thunder roars, lightning strikes. The master shouts, the whip cracks. The sky brings down refreshing rain. The ship experiences a new, unusual calm, a reset, a return to balance.

Ask the Lord Almighty why it is like this. I don't know. I know it is like this.

But flogging? Why flogging? Why not use reasoning or take away the jam for tea?

Why not? Why not ask the thunder to please stop this loud crashing and thumping, to drift away like melting snow.

Sometimes the thunder does fade away like melting snow, and then you hate it. Hot, slow, lifeless, gloomy sky.

Corporal punishment.

You have a guy named Sam, a chubby, slow guy, who’s getting slower and lazier as the weeks go by. Your boss has become more annoyed with his power. Sam is just sinking deeper into his laziness, making you feel frustrated. And the boss is feeling really tense.

Now these two men, Captain and Sam, are caught in a very unstable balance of control and submission. A divided dynamic. Definitely divided.

The poles of will are the major clusters of the voluntary nervous system, positioned alongside the spinal column in the back. From the poles of will in the Captain’s backbone to the ganglia of will in the back of sloucher Sam, there flows a frayed, jagged current, a staggering circuit of vital electricity. If this circuit gets one jolt too many, it results in an explosion.

"Tie up that lousy pig!" yells the furious Captain.

And smack! Smack! down on the bare back of that sloucher Sam comes the cat.

What does it do? Wow, it sends chills down his spine like ice-cold water. The Captain's rage flows through those lashes, penetrating Sam's blood and dull nervous system. Crash! Crash! lightning strikes, hitting the very core of his living nerves.

And the living nerves react. They start to vibrate. They tense up. The blood begins to flow faster. The nerves start to regain their brightness. It's their boost. Sam has a fresh clarity of mind and a confident attitude. The Captain feels a new sense of relief, a new comfort in his position, and a heavy heart.

There is a new balance, and a fresh beginning. The physical abilities of a Sam are restored, and the swelling is eased from the Captain's veins.

It is a natural form of human interaction, exchange.

It’s good for Sam to be whipped. It’s good, this time, for the Captain to have Sam whipped. I mean it. Because they were both in that physical state.

Spare the rod and spoil the physical child.

Use discipline and ruin the ideal child.

Here you are.

Dana, as an idealist, turned away from the harsh realities of life, leaned over the side of the ship feeling powerless, and was about to vomit. His stomach was starting to rebel. To him, Sam was an "ideal" person, someone who should be engaged with through intellect, reason, and spirit. That lump of a Sam!

But there was another idealist on board, the seaman John, a Swede. He wasn't named John for nothing, this sailor of the Logos. John felt he was meant to be the Mediator, Intercessor, Savior, in this situation. The popular Paraclete.

"Why are you beating this guy, sir?"

But the Captain was really irritated. He wasn't going to let his natural passion be criticized and messed with by those nosy Salvationist Johannuses. So he had nosey John brought up and whipped too.

I'm really glad about that.

Alas, the Captain ultimately came out worse off. The one who smirks the longest is the one who smirks last. The Captain wasn't cautious enough. Natural anger and passion have a relentless adversary in the idealist. And the ship was already influenced by idealism, likely even more than the ships in Herman Melville's stories.

Which reminds us that Melville was once going to be whipped. In White Jacket. And he, too, would have seen it as the ultimate insult.

In my view, there are worse insults than being beaten. I’d prefer to be beaten than to have most people "like" me.

Melville also had an Intercedor: a calm, dignified man, not a savior. This man spoke for Justice. Melville was going to be wrongfully punished. The man spoke truthfully and calmly. Not in any kind of Salvationist way. And the punishment didn’t happen.

Justice is a powerful and honorable concept. Saviourism is a contemptible idea.

Sam got what he deserved. It was an emotional kind of justice.

But Melville's punishment would have been a harsh, unfair form of discipline. A vile thing. Even mechanical justice is a vile thing. Because true justice makes the heart feel alive. You can't be indifferent in a matter of real justice.

Already in those days, being a captain was no fun. You had to learn to detach yourself and act like a part of a machine, exercising mechanical control. And it’s a lot more bitter to exert machine control, selflessly and ideally, than it is to just obey mechanically. The idealists who follow orders usually end up hating the person giving them. Their idealism rarely lets them forgive the person for the role.

Dana's captain was the traditional kind. He really showed his hand. He should have been more careful, knowing he was facing a ship full of enemies and at least two ruthless idealists who hated all "masters" just on principle.

"As he continued, his enthusiasm grew, and he bounced around on the deck, shouting as he swung the rope, 'If you want to know why I whip you, I'll tell you. It's because I enjoy it!—Because I enjoy it!—It works for me. That's why I do it!'"

"The man writhed in pain. My blood ran cold; I couldn't watch any longer. Disgusted, sick, and horrified, I turned away and leaned over the railing to look down at the water. A few quick thoughts about my own situation and the idea of future revenge crossed my mind, but the sound of the blows and the man's cries brought me back immediately. Eventually, the noise stopped, and when I turned around, I saw that the Mate, following a signal from the captain, had cut him down."

After all, it wasn’t that bad. The captain clearly didn’t go beyond what was usual. Sam got exactly what he asked for. It was a natural occurrence. Everything would have been fine, except for the moral judgment. And this came from theoretical idealists like Dana and the sailor John, not from the sailors themselves. The sailors understood raw passional morality, not the fake ethical kind. They respected the harsh adjustments of raw force, both in people and in nature.

"The flogging was rarely, if ever, mentioned by us in the forecastle. If anyone felt like discussing it, the others, with a sensitivity I didn't expect from them, always interrupted or changed the topic."

Two men had been whipped: the second and the older one, John, for intervening and asking the captain why he was whipping Sam. It’s while whipping John that the captain shouts, "If you want to know why I’m whipping you, I’ll tell you——"

"But the behavior of the two men who were whipped," Dana continues, "toward each other, showed a sensitivity and sense of honor that would have been impressive even among the highest ranks of society. Sam understood that the other had endured punishment solely for his sake, and in all his complaints, he expressed that if he had been the only one whipped, it would have been nothing, but he could never see that man without recalling that he had caused that humiliation. And John never, through word or action, did anything to remind the other that it was by stepping in to save his shipmate that he had suffered."

Actually, it was John who should feel ashamed for bringing confusion and false emotions into a straightforward situation. Setting aside conventional morality, John is the one in the wrong, not Sam or the captain. This was merely a case of emotional adjustment, nothing unusual about it. And who was that preachy Johannus to interfere in this? If Mr. Dana has a weak stomach as well as bad eyesight, that's his problem. But this duo of idealists should stop making everyone else feel uncomfortable and anxious about something that would have naturally resolved itself if they hadn’t interfered. No, your Johannuses and your Danas have to create "public opinion," complicating the real issues with their preachiness. Oh, idealism!

The ship reaches the Pacific coast, and the rise and fall of the waves resonates in our blood—the tired coastline stretches beautifully, on the edge of the unknown.

"Not a single person around for miles—it was just us. The steep hill rose like a wall, cutting us off from everything but the 'world of waters.' I distanced myself from the group and sat down on a rock, right where the sea surged in and created a beautiful spouting-horn. Compared to the dull, flat sandy beach of the rest of the coast, this grandeur felt as refreshing as a large rock in a parched land. It was nearly the first time I had truly been alone... My better self reemerged powerfully. I felt a surge of joy realizing that the poetry and romance within me hadn’t been completely extinguished by the exhausting life I've been living. I sat there for nearly an hour, nearly lost in the luxury of this completely new scene of the play I was part of, when I was jolted back to reality by the distant shouts of my companions."

So Dana sits and contemplates by the Pacific—main character in the play of his own life. But in him, self-awareness is almost reaching the level of a scientific detachment from self.

He paints a lovely picture of the wild, unknown bay of San Francisco back then. —"As the tide went out, we dropped anchor near the mouth of the bay, beneath a tall and beautifully sloping hill, where herds of hundreds of red deer and stags with their large branching antlers were bounding around, glancing at us for a moment before darting away, startled by the sounds we made to catch a glimpse of their stunning poses and movements——"

Think about it now, and the Presidio! The stupid guns.

Two moments of intense human emotion Dana experiences: one moment of deep but powerless hate for the captain, and one strong urge of compassionate love for the Kanaka boy, Hope—a beautiful South Sea Islander suffering from a white man's disease, tuberculosis or syphilis. About him, Dana writes—"but the other, who was my friend, and aikane—Hope—was the most horrific sight I had ever seen in my life; his hands looked like claws; he had a terrible cough that seemed to rattle his whole weakened body; a hollow, whispering voice, and he couldn't move at all. There he lay on a mat on the ground, which served as the only floor of the oven, without any medicine, no comfort, and no one to care for or help him except a few Kanakas, who wanted to help but could do nothing. The sight of him made me feel sick and faint. Poor guy! During the four months I spent on the beach, we were constantly together, both at work and during our outings in the woods and on the water. I genuinely felt a strong affection for him and preferred him to any of my fellow countrymen. When I entered the oven, he looked at me, reached out his hand, and said in a low voice, but with a lovely smile, 'Aloha, Aikane! Aloha nui!' I comforted him as best as I could and promised to ask the captain to help him from the medicine chest."

We have sensed the hatred for the captain—now the feeling of savior-like love for the bright-eyed man from the Pacific, a true child of the ocean, full of the mystery of that great sea. For a brief moment, hope represents for Dana what Chingachgook means to Cooper—the brother at heart, the one who provides answers. But only for a fleeting moment. Even then, his love was mostly pity, mixed with a sense of charity. The unavoidable savior complex. The ideal figure.

Dana was upset to leave the California coast and return to the civilized East. Yet he feels the bittersweetness of departure as the ship finally pulls away. The Pacific is his dream world: the eastern states his world of reality, grounded in science and material things. He is a servant of civilization, an idealist, a democrat, a hater of authority, a KNOWER. Aware and self-aware, never forgetting.

"When all the sails were up and the decks were tidy, the California was just a tiny dot on the horizon, and the coast looked like a low cloud in the northeast. By sunset, they had both disappeared from view, and we were once again out on the ocean, where the sky and water come together."

The description of the journey home is amazing. It feels like the sea is rising up to stop this clever explorer from escaping. Dana seems to transition into another world, another existence that isn't of this earth. First, there's a feeling of unease, then he plunges into the dark depths. The waters almost engulf him, along with his triumphant awareness.

"The days grew shorter, the sun dipping lower in the sky each day and providing less warmth, while the nights turned so cold that we couldn’t sleep on deck; the Magellan Clouds appeared on clear nights; the skies looked cold and fierce; and at times, a long, heavy, rough sea rolled in from the south, indicating what lay ahead."

They were getting close to Cape Horn during the southern winter, moving into the eerie, intimidating areas of the fierce waters.

"And there it was, floating in the ocean several miles offshore, a huge irregular mass, its top and points covered in snow, its center a deep indigo. This was an iceberg, one of the largest you could find. As far as the eye could see, the sea was a deep blue in every direction, the waves running high and fresh, sparkling in the light; and in the middle lay this massive mountain-island, its cavities and valleys cast in deep shadow, while its peaks and points glittered in the sunlight. No description can really capture the strangeness, splendor, and true sublimity of the sight. Its great size—likely two or three miles around and several hundred feet high; its slow movement as its base rose and fell in the water, with its points swaying against the clouds; the waves crashing against it, breaking high with foam that lined its base with a white crust; the thunderous sound of the cracking mass and the massive pieces breaking and tumbling down; along with its closeness and approach, which added a hint of fear—all of these elements combined to give it a sense of true sublimity."

But as the ship got deeper into trouble, Dana became sick. It started as a minor toothache. The cold and exposure caused the pain to spread throughout his head and face. Then his face swelled up so much that he couldn’t open his mouth to eat and was at risk of lockjaw. In this condition, he had to stay in his bunk for three or four days. "By the end of the third day, the ice was very thick; a complete fog bank covered the ship. A strong gale blew from the east, bringing sleet and snow, and it looked like a dangerous and exhausting night ahead. At dark, the captain gathered the crew and told them that no one was to leave the deck that night; the ship was in great danger; any chunk of ice could put a hole in her, or she might run aground and fall apart. The lookouts were assigned, and every man took his position. When I heard about the situation, I started getting ready to stay up with the others when the mate came below, looked at my face, and ordered me back to my bunk, saying if we went down, we’d all go down together, but if I went on deck, I might injure myself for life. Following the mate's orders, I returned to my bunk; but I’ve never wished to spend a night more miserable than that one."

It’s the story of a man in conflict with the sea, a vast and almost all-powerful force. In this struggle against a cosmic enemy, he discovers deeper validation and a greater sense of purpose. He emerges victorious, but only after the sea has tested his very existence and made him pay a price for his triumph in awareness.

The terrible struggle around Cape Horn on the way home is the defining moment of Dana's journey. It plunges into chaos, a heaven of sleet and black ice rain, a sea of ice and iron-like water. Man battles against nature in all its stirred-up, mystical hostility to conscious life. This struggle represents the internal crisis and triumph of Dana's spirit. He goes through it all with awareness, enduring, knowing. It's not just about overcoming obstacles; it's a confrontation between deliberate awareness and the fierce, hostile, life-denying waters of the Pole.

After this fight, Dana has found his success. He understands. He understands what the sea is. He understands what Cape Horn is. He understands what work is, work before the mast. He knows, he knows a lot. He has navigated his awareness wide-eyed through it all. He has triumphed. The ideal being.

And from his book, we know too. He has lived this great experience for us; we owe him respect.

The ship moves through the strait, hits the chilling mystery of the polar waters, and heads north, back home. She looks like she's soaring with new energy, liberated. "Every rope and every thread of the canvas felt like it was pulled to the limit, and with this extra sail, the ship rushed through the water like it was alive. The sail being mostly in front lifted her out of the water, and she seemed to actually leap from wave to wave."

The sailing ship beautifully harnesses the forces of the sea and wind, using them for its own purpose. There’s no conflict like with a steam ship, just a perfect balance. It's this ideal adjustment of ourselves to the elements — the perfect equilibrium between them and us — that brings us a significant part of our joy in life. The more machinery we put between ourselves and the raw forces, the more we dull and weaken our own senses. Every time we turn on a faucet for water or a knob for fire or light, we deny ourselves and diminish our existence. The great elements — earth, air, fire, and water — are there like a powerful partner we court and struggle with, whom we lift and grapple with. But all our devices only deny us these beautiful connections and strip away the miracle of life. The machine is the great neutralizer. It’s the ultimate deprivation. In the end, it diminishes us all. When we balance sticks and light a fire, we engage with the mysteries. But when we turn on an electric faucet, there’s like a barrier between us and the dynamic universe. We don’t realize what we lose with all our labor-saving gadgets. Out of the two evils, it would be much better to give up all machinery entirely than to have the overwhelming excess we do now.

When we look at the pagan gods, we see they have different meanings at different times. Sometimes they represent the creative essence, and other times they represent the material-dynamic world. At one moment they show one side, and the next moment another. The highest god embodies both sides. He is first the source of life, and then he becomes the mystical dynamic master of the elemental physical forces. So Zeus is both Father and Thunderer.

Nations that idolize the material and dynamic world, which all nations do in their decline, seem to inevitably start worshiping the Thunderer. He is Ammon, Zeus, Wotan, and Thor, Shango of the West Africans. As the creator of humanity, the Father is the greatest in the creative realm, while the Thunderer is the greatest in the material realm. He represents force and earthly blessings, the god of the lightning bolt and the gentle rain.

So, electricity appears to be the primary, fundamental principle among the Forces. It has a mysterious ability to restore balance. It seems to dominate the two basic elements, fire and water, capable of mysteriously binding them together and mysteriously separating them from their connections. When these two great elements become hopelessly stuck and tangled, the bolt of lightning can split them apart. The sound of thunder isn’t just the crashing together of air waves. Thunder is the sound of the explosion that happens when the waters are freed from the elemental fire, when old vapors are suddenly broken down in the upper atmosphere by electric force. Then, fire becomes fluid, and the waters flow off in purity. It is the release of the elements from desperate union. Thunder, the electric force, is the counterpart in the material-dynamic world of the life-force, the creative mystery itself, in the world of creation.

Dana provides an amazing description of a tropical thunderstorm.

"When our watch came on deck at midnight, it was pitch black; not a breath of air stirred; the sails hung heavy and motionless from the yards; and the complete stillness, along with the darkness that felt almost tangible, was genuinely frightening. No one spoke a word, but everyone stood as if waiting for something to happen. A few minutes later, the mate came forward, and in a low voice that was almost a whisper, he commanded us to lower the jib. Once we did, we found everyone looking up, and right above where we had been standing, on the main top-gallant masthead, was a ball of light that the sailors call a corposant (corpus sancti). They were all watching it closely, because sailors believe that if the corposant rises in the rigging, it’s a sign of good weather, but if it drops lower, a storm is coming. Unfortunately, as an omen, it descended and appeared on the top-gallant yard."

"In a few minutes, it vanished and reappeared on the fore top-gallant yard. After moving around for a while, it disappeared again when the guy on the forecastle pointed to it at the end of the flying jib boom. But then our attention shifted away from watching it because of some drops of rain that started falling. In a few minutes, we heard low rumbling thunder and saw some random flashes of lightning coming from the southwest. We took in all sails except for the topsail. A few puffs lifted the topsails, but they fell back down to the mast, and everything was as quiet as before. A minute later, a massive flash and boom hit us at the same time, and it felt like a cloud opened right above us, pouring down water like a waterfall. We stood frozen and almost in shock, but nothing had been struck. The thunder rolled overhead with a sound that seemed to take the breath right out of us. The heavy rain lasted only a few minutes, followed by some occasional drops and showers; however, the lightning kept going for several hours, breaking the midnight darkness with sudden and blinding flashes."

"During all this time, hardly a word was spoken, no bell was rung, and the wheel was quietly taken care of. The rain fell in heavy showers, and we stood soaked through and blinded by the flashes that broke the darkness like a glaring light, while the thunder rolled in loud bursts that felt like they could shake the very ocean. A ship doesn't usually get damaged by lightning because the electricity is dispersed by the many points it presents and the iron scattered throughout. The electric current ran over our anchors, topsail sheets, and ties; yet nothing happened to us. We went below at four o'clock, leaving everything just as it was."

Dana is great at explaining these mechanical or physical events. He can’t talk about what it means to be human; he can only describe the forces at play. He shares another interesting example of recreation happening within the blood’s very particles. This time, it’s salt that halts life activity, causing a static pause in Matter after a certain separation of water from the warmth of the living body.

"The scurvy had started to show up on board. One man was so badly affected that he was disabled and off duty; and the English boy, Ben, was in terrible shape and was getting worse. His legs were swollen and painful, so he couldn't walk; his skin had lost its elasticity, so when it was pressed, it wouldn’t bounce back; and his gums were swollen to the point that he couldn't open his mouth. His breath also became very foul; he lost all his strength and energy; couldn’t eat anything; got worse every day; and honestly, unless something was done for him, he would be dead within a week at the rate he was deteriorating. The medicines were all gone, or almost all gone; and even if we had a full chest of them, they wouldn’t have helped, because nothing but fresh food and solid ground has any effect on scurvy."

However, a boatload of potatoes and onions was obtained from a passing ship. The men ate them raw.

"The freshness and crunchiness of the raw onion, with its earthy flavor, is incredibly satisfying to someone who's been stuck eating preserved foods for a long time. We were absolutely starving after those. We ate them at every meal, by the dozen; and stuffed our pockets with them for snacks while on watch on deck. However, the main purpose of the fresh food was for the men suffering from scurvy. One man managed to eat and quickly got better by gnawing on raw potatoes; but the other, by that time, could barely open his mouth. The cook took the raw potatoes, pounded them in a mortar, and gave him the juice to sip. The strong earthy taste and smell of the potato extract initially made him shudder all over, and after drinking it, he felt sharp pain throughout his body. But realizing that this meant it was working, he kept going, drinking a spoonful every hour or so. Thanks to this drink and his renewed hope, he eventually got well enough to move around and open his mouth wide enough to eat the raw potatoes and onions mashed into a soft paste. This approach quickly restored his appetite and strength; and ten days after we met the Solon, he had recovered so fast that, from being weak and nearly hopeless in his bunk, he was up at the masthead, furling a royal."

This is the odd result of the breaking down caused by the sea and salty food. Science tells us we all come from the sea. The moon, the sea, salt, phosphorus, and us: it's a long chain of connections. And then there's the earth: mother earth. Dana talks about the flavor that the earthy taste of the onion brings. The taste of created juice, the living essence of Gaia. And limes, which have the flavor of the sun.

How much weirder is the interaction of life with the elements than any chemical interaction among the elements themselves. Life—and salt—and phosphorus—and the sea—and the moon. Life—and sulfur—and carbon—and volcanoes—and the sun. The way up, and the way down. The oddities of life.

But Dana went home to become a lawyer and a pretty dull but respectable citizen. He was once nearly an ambassador and was very respectable.

He had been. He KNEW. He had even told us. It's a huge achievement.

And then what?—Nothing. Just the same boring routine. That's the downside of knowledge. It makes you feel even more empty. Dana spent his time living for two years, learned what he could, and then went through the motions for the rest. Dull years as a lawyer after that.

We know enough. We know way too much. We know nothing.

Let’s break something. Including ourselves. But the machine most of all.

Dana's little book is actually a really significant book: it holds a wealth of knowledge, knowledge about the great element.

And after all, we need to understand everything before we can realize that knowledge means nothing.

Imaginatively, we have to know everything: even the basic waters. And keep knowing and knowing, until knowledge suddenly fades and we realize that forever we don’t truly know.

Then there’s a kind of peace, and we can begin again, realizing we don’t know.

The best visionary and poet of the sea for me is Melville. His perspective feels more authentic than Swinburne's because he doesn't give the sea a personality, and it's much deeper than Joseph Conrad's since Melville doesn't romanticize the ocean and the people who suffer there. No need to whine in a soggy handkerchief like Lord Jim.

Melville has the strange, uncanny magic of sea creatures, along with some of their unsettling qualities. He doesn't quite fit in on land. There's something slippery about him. He always seems a bit out of it. People called him mad—or crazy. He was neither mad nor crazy. But he was on the edge. He was part water creature, like those fierce yellow-bearded Vikings who emerged from the waves in their longships.

He was a modern Viking. There's something intriguing about real blue-eyed people. They never seem quite human, in the traditional sense, as brown-eyed people do: the kind of human that comes from the living earth. A genuine blue-eyed person usually has an abstract, elemental quality. Brown-eyed people are like the earth itself, made up of the remnants of past life, organic and complex. In blue eyes, there’s sun, rain, and an abstract, untouched essence—water, ice, air, space—but not humanity. Brown-eyed people are from the ancient, ancient world: Allzu menschlich. Blue-eyed individuals often come across as too sharp and abstract.

Melville is like a Viking returning to the sea, weighed down by age and memories, with a kind of fulfilled despair, almost madness. He just can't accept humanity. He doesn't belong to humanity. Can't.

The great Northern cycle, of which he is the recurring part, has nearly completed its journey, fulfilling itself. Balder the beautiful is mystically dead, and by now he smells awful. Forget-me-nots and sea-poppies sink into the water. The man who came from the sea to live among humans can’t take it anymore. He hears the unsettling sound of the cracked church bell and goes back down the shore, back into the ocean, home, into the saltwater. Human life isn’t enough. He turns back to the elements. And all the vast sun-and-wheat consciousness of his day, he plunges back into the depths, burying the flame deep within, self-aware and intentional. Like blue flax and sea-poppies sinking into the waters, he gives back their created sunlight to the chaos of the flood.

The people of the sea, who can’t meet and interact anymore: who turn away from life, seeking the abstract and the elements: the sea embraces her own.

Let life fall apart, they say. Let water stop getting together with fire. Let the mating end. Let the elements stop embracing and turn their backs on each other. Let the merman walk away from his human wife and kids, let the seal-woman forget the world of men, remembering only the seas.

So they head down to the ocean, the people born of the sea. The Vikings are roaming once more. Homes are shattered. Cross the seas, cross the seas, the heart insists. Leave love and home. Leave love and home. Love and home are a dangerous illusion. Woman, what do I have to do with you? It’s over. Consummmatum est. The crucifixion of humanity is complete. Let’s return to the fierce, eerie elements: the corrosive endless sea. Or Fire.

Basta! It's enough. Enough of life. Let’s embrace the vast elements. Let’s escape this disgusting mess of living among humans. Let the sea cleanse us of the disease of our humanity.

Melville was from the North and raised by the sea. So the sea took him in. Most of us who speak English are connected to the water, shaped by it.

Melville went back to the oldest of all the oceans, to the Pacific. Der Grosse oder Stille Ozean.

Without a doubt, the Pacific Ocean is much older than the Atlantic or the Indian Oceans. When we say "older," we mean it hasn't entered modern awareness. Strange upheavals have shaken the Atlantic and Mediterranean peoples into various phases of awareness, while the Pacific and its people have remained asleep. To sleep is to dream—you can't stay unconscious forever. And, oh my God, for how many thousands of years has the true Pacific been dreaming, tossing and turning in its sleep and dreaming again: blissful dreams and nightmares.

The Maoris, the Tongans, the Marquesans, the Fijians, the Polynesians: holy cow, how long have they been lost in the same slumber, filled with different dreams. Maybe, to a sensitive imagination, those islands in the middle of the Pacific are the most unbearable places on earth. It's heart-stopping to think of being transported there, unknown ages ago, back into that life, that heartbeat, that rhythm. Scientists claim that South Sea Islanders belong to the Stone Age. It seems ridiculous to categorize people based on their tools. Yet there’s some truth to it. The heart of the Pacific still feels like the Stone Age, despite the steamboats. The center of the Pacific feels like a huge void, where, mirage-like, the life of countless ages continues on. It’s a phantom persistence of human beings who should have perished, by our timeline, in the Stone Age. It’s an illusion-like twist of reality: the enchanting South Seas.

Even Japan and China have been restless for countless centuries. Their blood is ancient, their flesh still soft with history. Their bustling days were many years ago, when the world was a gentler place, with more humidity in the air, plenty of warm mud on the ground, and the lotus always in bloom. The great past, before Egypt. And Japan and China have been tossing and turning while we have "progressed." Now they are waking up to a nightmare.

The world isn't what it looks like.

The Pacific Ocean carries the dreams of countless centuries. It is the deep blue twilight of the largest evenings: maybe of the most amazing dawns. Who knows.

It must have once been a huge, welcoming society, the Pacific. Nothing else has ever experienced such a massive decline into slow decay as this. Now, the waters are a haunting blue, filled with the remnants of ancient cultures. The islands appear like ghosts, echoes of a glamorous prehistoric time.

To this ghost, Melville came back. Back, back, away from life. No one ever instinctively hated human life, our human life, as it is, more than Melville did. And no one was ever so deeply consumed by the sense of the vastness and mystery of life that isn’t human. He was obsessed with looking beyond our horizons. Anywhere, anywhere out of our world. To escape. To escape, out!

To escape, to leave our life behind. To move beyond the horizon into a different life. Any life will do, as long as it's a different one.

Away, away from people. To the ocean. The raw, salty, basic ocean. To go out to sea, to break free from mankind.

The human heart finally goes wild, wanting to dehumanize itself.

So he finds himself in the middle of the Pacific. Truly beyond the horizon. In another world. In another time. Way back, in the days of palm trees and lizards and stone tools. The sunny Stone Age.

Samoa, Tahiti, Rarotonga, Nuku Hiva: just hearing these names brings a sense of peace and forgetting. They represent a past grandeur of human history that's been lost in time. "Trailing clouds of glory."

Melville hated the world; he was born with that hatred. But he was searching for heaven. That is, he was purposefully searching for paradise. Unintentionally, he was consumed with anger towards the world.

Well, the world is cruel. It is as cruel as Melville saw it. He wasn’t wrong in despising the world. Delenda est Chicago. He hated it to a point of madness, and not without reason.

But it's no good holding on to searching for paradise "regained."

Melville, at his best, always wrote from a kind of dream-like state, making the events he describes as real have a much deeper connection to his own soul and inner life.

So in Typee, when he describes entering the valley of the terrifying cannibals of Nukuheva, he slides and fights his way down this steep, narrow, dark gorge, much like we do in a dream or during the act of being born, trying to break through into the lush paradise of the Golden Age, the land of the cannibal savages. This reflects a form of birth myth, or rebirth myth, on Melville's part—unconscious, of course, since his underlying thoughts were always mystical and symbolic. He wasn't aware that he was being mystical.

There he is then, in Typee, surrounded by the feared cannibal tribe. They are kind and generous to him, and he is genuinely in a kind of paradise.

Here at last is Rousseau's Child of Nature and Chateaubriand's Noble Savage called upon and found at home. Yes, Melville loves his savage hosts. He finds them gentle, laughing lambs compared to the ravenous wolves of his white brothers, left behind in America and on an American whaling ship.

The ugliest beast on earth is the white man, says Melville.

In short, Herman found in Typee the paradise he was searching for. It's true that the Marquesans were "immoral," but he actually liked that. Morality felt too much like a trick to convince him. On the other hand, they were cannibals, and just thinking about that horrified him. But the savages were very private and even fiercely reserved about their cannibalism, so he could have saved himself the shudder. No doubt he had participated in the Christian Sacraments many times: "This is my body, take and eat. This is my blood. Drink it in remembrance of me." And if the savages preferred to partake of their sacrament without the debate over transubstantiation, and if they liked to say directly: "This is your body, which I take from you and eat. This is your blood, which I sip in annihilation of you," then surely their sacred ceremony was as awe-inspiring as the one Jesus offered. But Herman chose to be horrified. I confess, I am not horrified. Though of course I am not there. But the savage sacrament seems more valid to me than the Christian: there's less sidestepping about it. Thirdly, he was shocked by their brutal methods of warfare. He died before the great European war, so his shock was a comfortable one.

Three small issues: morality, the cannibal sacrament, and stone axes. There’s bound to be a flaw even in the best of situations. And the first was a ladybug.

But Paradise. He insists on it. Paradise. He could even go completely naked, like before the Apple incident. And his Fayaway, a laughing little Eve, naked with him, and not craving any apple of knowledge, as long as he would just love her whenever he wanted. Plenty to eat, no clothes needed, sunny, happy people, clean water to swim in: everything a man could want. So why wasn't he happy with the savages?

Because he wasn't.

He secretly felt frustrated and wanted to break free.

He even longed for Home and Mom, the two things he had escaped from as far as ships could take him. HOME and MOM. The two things that were his downfall.

There on the island, where the golden-green palm trees rustled in the sun, and the stylish reed houses let the sea breeze in, and people walked around naked and laughed a lot, and Fayaway put flowers in his hair for him—big red hibiscus flowers and frangipani—O God, why wasn’t he happy? Why wasn’t he?

Because he wasn't.

Well, it's tough to make a guy happy.

But I shouldn't have been happy either. It feels like your soul is in a vacuum in the South Seas.

The truth is, you can't go back. Some people can: rebels. But Melville couldn't go back; Gauguin couldn't really go back; and I realize now that I could never go back. Back to the past, to a primitive life. You can't go back. It's your fate within you.

There are these people, these "savages." You don’t look down on them. You don’t feel superior. But there is a divide. There is a divide in time and existence. I can't merge my existence with theirs.

There they are, these South Sea Islanders, strikingly tall men with their golden skin and their carefree, graceful laziness. And they will call you brother, choosing you as a brother. But why can't one truly be a brother?

There’s an invisible hand gripping my heart, keeping it from fully opening up to these strangers. They’re beautiful, like children, generous: but they are more than that. They feel distant, and in their eyes is an easy darkness from a soft, unformed past. In a way, they are unformed. I’m not going to claim any “white” superiority. But they are primitive. They are gentle, laughing, and very attractive. Yet it seems to me that, despite all our bitter centuries of civilization, we have still been moving forward. God knows it looks like a dead end now. But look at the first person you meet, and then listen to your own soul. Your soul will tell you that no matter how false and ugly our beliefs and systems are now, through the many centuries since Egypt, we’ve been living and pushing forward along a path that isn’t really a path at all and yet represents a significant development in life. We’ve carried on with the belief that we must continue. We might have to break things. So let’s break them. And our path may need to take a major turn that looks like a step back.

But we can't go back. No matter what else the South Sea Islander is, he's centuries behind us in the struggle for life, the struggle for awareness, the journey of the soul toward fulfillment. There's his woman, with her tangled hair and her dark, undefined, slightly sarcastic eyes. I like her; she's nice. But I would never want to touch her. I couldn't regress that much. Back to their raw, unformed state.

She has soft, warm skin, like warm mud. Closer to the reptile, the Saurian age. Noli me tangere.

We can't go back. We can't go back to the savages: not even a step. We can empathize with them. We can take a long detour towards their direction, moving forward. But we cannot reverse the flow of our lives, back to their soft, warm twilight and unformed mud. Not even for a moment. If we try to do it for a moment, it makes us feel sick.

We can only do it when we’re outlaws. The outlaw hates life itself. He wants life to end. So, all these "reformers" and "idealists" who romanticize the wild people in America—they are bringers of death, life-haters. Outlaws.

We can't go back. And Melville couldn't. No matter how much he despised the civilized people he knew. He couldn't return to the savages. He wanted to. He tried to. And he couldn't.

Because, first of all, it made him sick. It made him physically ill. He had a problem with his leg, and it wouldn’t heal. It got worse and worse during his four months on the island. When he escaped, he was in terrible shape. Sick and miserable. Ill, very ill.

Paradise!

But there you are. Try to return to the savages, and it feels like your very soul is rotting away inside you. That’s how it feels in the South Seas, anyway: like your soul is rotting inside you. And it’s the same with any savages; if you try to adopt their way, to go along with their current of sympathy.

Yet, as I’ve mentioned, we need to make a significant shift in our current path to reconnect with the primitive mysteries. But this doesn’t mean regressing.

Going back to the savages made Melville feel more nauseous than anything else. It felt like he was rotting from the inside. Even worse than being at Home and with Mother.

And that’s what really happens. If you sell out your mind by going back to the savages, you slowly start to fall apart. Before you can go back, you have to break down. And a white man breaking down is a horrifying sight. Even Melville in Typee.

We have to keep going, no matter what, even if it means pushing through obstacles.

So Melville got away. He threw a boat-hook right into the throat of one of his closest savage friends and sank him because that savage was chasing him. That's how he felt about the savages when they tried to stop him. He would have killed them all, without hesitation, rather than be held back. He had to get away from them—he had to escape at any cost.

And as soon as he escapes, he starts to sigh and long for the "Paradise." Home and Mom are at the other end, even after a whaling trip.

When he was truly home with Mom, he found it hellish. But Typee must have been even worse than hell, a soft kind of hell, judging by the desperate need he felt to escape.

But once he was on the whaler that took him away from Nukuheva, he looked back and sighed for the Paradise he had just left in such a rush.

Poor Melville! He was convinced that Paradise was real. So, he was constantly in Purgatory.

He was meant for Purgatory. Some souls are destined to be in purgatory.

The very freedom of his Typee felt like a torture to him. Its ease was gradually becoming horrible for him. This time, he was the fly in the fragrant tropical ointment.

He needed to fight. The relaxation of the non-moral tropics did him no good. He didn't really want paradise. He wanted to fight. Like every American. To fight. But with weapons of the spirit, not the flesh.

That was the whole story. His soul was in constant rebellion, twisting and turning in that struggle. When he had something specific to fight against—like the terrible conditions on a whaling ship—he felt much better about his suffering. The forces of fate were working within him, and they needed something to act on.

When they could complain about the injustice and stupidity of missionaries, or cruel sea captains, or governments, he felt more at ease. The wheels of God were turning inside him.

They are grinding inside every American. And they grind incredibly small.

Why? Only heaven knows. But we have to break down our old ways, our old selves, to nothingness. Whether something new will ever emerge, who knows. In the meantime, God's mills keep grinding, as seen in American Melville, and he ground himself down: himself and his wife when he was married. For now, the South Seas.

He escapes onto the wildest, most unbelievable whaling ship. Luckily for us, Melville makes it extraordinary. It must have been quite grimy.

And anyway, on the crazy Julia, his leg, which would never heal in the paradise of Typee, started to get better quickly. His life was returning to its normal rhythm. The pull back into past centuries was done.

Yet, oh, as he sails away from Nukuheva, on the journey that will ultimately take him to America, oh, the intense and unbearable nostalgia he feels for the island he has left.

The past. The Golden Age of the past. What nostalgia we all feel for it. Yet we won't want it when we have it. Try the South Seas.

Melville had to struggle, struggle against the world around him, against his own nature. Yet he could never quite bring himself to completely abandon his ideal of paradise. In some way, at some point, love should be fulfilling, and life should be full of happiness. That was his unwavering belief. Fata Morgana.

That was the pin he tormented himself with, like a pinned butterfly.

Love is never complete. Life isn't just nonstop happiness. There is no paradise. You fight, laugh, feel bitter, and feel joy: then you fight again. Fight, fight. That’s life.

Why limit ourselves to a perfect ideal? We're just hurting ourselves.

Melville had one incredible experience that took him away from people: the experience of the sea.

The South Sea Islands weren't his main experience. They were a glamorous world beyond New England. Outside. But it was the sea that was both outside and inside: the universal experience.

The book that follows Typee is Omoo.

Omoo is an intriguing book: adventurous, mischievous, and wandering. Melville has a bit of a beachcomber vibe. The wild ship Julia heads to Tahiti, and the unruly crew gets stranded. They're taken to a Tahitian prison. It's great reading.

Perhaps Melville is at his best, his happiest, in Omoo. For once he is truly carefree. For once he takes life as it comes. For once he is the bold, mischievous hedonist, savoring the world like a snipe, dirt and all baked into one bonne bouche.

For once, he’s truly reckless, hanging out with that troublemaker. Doctor Long Ghost. For once, he doesn’t care about his actions, doesn’t care about his morals, doesn’t care about his ideals: ironic, as an epicurean should be. The deep irony of a true scamp: your real epicurean of the moment.

But it was under the influence of the Long Doctor. This tall and skinny Scotsman wasn't just a slacker. He was a man filled with a funny sense of despair, throwing his life away in an ironic way. He wasn't just some aimless drifter like those the South Seas tend to attract.

That’s what's great about Melville: he never regrets anything. Whatever he did, in Typee or in Doctor Long Ghost's corrupt society, he never felt remorse. If he ate his snipe, dirt and all, and enjoyed it in the moment, he didn't have any guilty feelings afterward. Which is awesome.

But it wasn’t enough. The Long Doctor was truly struggling in a kind of despair. He allowed his ship to drift aimlessly.

Melville couldn't handle this. For a while, yes. For a while, in this Long Doctor's company, he felt lost and carefree. It was a good experience. But a person who refuses to give in to despair or indifference can't sustain that for long.

Melville would never give in to despair or apathy. He always cared. He always cared enough to dislike missionaries and to be moved by a genuine act of kindness. He always cared.

When he saw a white man who had truly "gone savage," a white man with a blue shark tattooed across his forehead, completely embraced by the savages, Herman's entire being recoiled. He couldn't handle it. He could not stand a traitor.

He finally joined an American warship. You can find the details in White Jacket. He was back in civilization, but still out at sea. He was in America, yet unmoored in the waters. Just good, regular days, following Doctor Long Ghost and the Julia.

As a matter of fact, a long thin chain was around Melville's ankle all the time, tying him to America, to civilization, to democracy, to the ideal world. It was a long chain, and it never broke. It pulled him back.

By the time he was twenty-five, he had lived his wild years; his reckless adventures were done. At twenty-five, he returned to Home and Mother, ready to face the challenges up close. You can't resolve your issues by avoiding them. After running far from Home and Mother, you come to understand that the world is round, and if you keep running, you'll end up back at the same old doorstep. It's like a curse.

Melville returned home to confront the long stretch of his life ahead. He got married and experienced a thrilling courtship, followed by fifty years of disappointment.

He had just filled his life with disappointments. No more Typees. No more paradises. No more Fayaways. A mother: a monster. A home: a place of suffering. A wife: someone with weak foundations. Life: a kind of shame. Fame: another shame, being looked down on by everyday snobs who only know how to read.

The whole embarrassing situation is just making a guy squirm.

Melville suffered for eighty years.

In his heart, he was proud and fierce.

But in his mind and heart, he wanted the perfect fulfillment of love. He craved the sweetness of perfect mutual understanding.

A proud, fierce man doesn't really want any perfect, romantic fulfillment in love. That's just nonsense. A mountain lion doesn’t pair up with a Persian cat. And when a grizzly bear roars for a mate, it's a female grizzly he’s after, not some fluffy sheep.

But Melville held on to his ideal. He wrote Pierre to show that the more you try to be good, the more you mess things up: that trying to do the right thing can lead to disaster. The better you are, the worse things go for you. The harder you try to be better, the bigger the mess you create. Your efforts to pursue righteousness only lead to your own gradual decline.

Well, it’s true. No men today are as bad as idealists, and no women are half as bad as the earnest woman who sees herself as a force for good. It’s unavoidable. After a certain point, the ideal goes stale and rotten. The once-pure ideal turns into something tainted. Charity becomes harmful, and the spirit itself becomes corrupt. The meek can be wicked. The pure in heart have deep, subtle revulsions, like Dostoevsky’s Idiot. The whole Sermon on the Mount becomes a list of hidden vices.

What now?

It's our own fault. We created the ideals. And if we're so foolish that we can't let go of our ideals in time, then that's on us.

Look at Melville's eighty long years of struggle. And he continued to struggle on the ideal pin until the end.

From the "ideal woman lover," he moved on to the "ideal friend." He searched and searched for the perfect male friend.

Couldn't locate him.

Marriage was a terrible disappointment for him because he was expecting a perfect relationship.

Friendship never really got going for him—except maybe for his somewhat sentimental affection for Jack Chase, in White Jacket.

Yet until the end, he longed for this: a perfect relationship: perfect pairing: perfect mutual understanding. A perfect friend.

Right to the end, he could never accept the fact that perfect relationships are impossible. Each soul is alone, and that solitude for each soul creates a double barrier to a perfect relationship between two beings.

Each soul should be alone. And in the end, the desire for a "perfect relationship" is just a toxic, unmanly craving. "Tous nos malheurs viennent de ne pouvoir être seuls."

Melville, however, refused to reach his conclusion. Life was wrong, he said. He rejected Life. But he held on to his ideal of a perfect relationship, a possible perfect love. The world should be a harmonious, loving place. And it can't be. So, life itself is wrong.

It’s pointless to argue. Because, in the end, only people who are here for a short time create the "shoulds."

The world should not be a perfectly loving and harmonious place. It should be a place of intense conflict and occasional harmony: which it is.

Love should not be perfect. It should have perfect moments and wild stretches of thorny bushes. And it does.

A "perfect" relationship shouldn't be possible. Every relationship should have its limits and boundaries, which are essential for the individuality of each person. A truly perfect relationship is one where each person leaves significant areas unexplored in the other.

No two people can connect at more than a few points consciously. If two individuals can spend time together regularly, creating a balance between each other, that forms the foundation of a perfect relationship. There also needs to be genuine individuality as well.

Melville was, at his core, a mystic and an idealist.

Maybe I am too.

And he stuck to his ideals.

I let go of mine.

He was a mystic who ranted because the old ideal guns caused chaos. The guns of the "noble spirit." Of "ideal love."

I say, let the old guns decay.

Get new ones and aim true.

MOBY DICK, or White Whale. A hunt. The final big hunt. For what?

For Moby Dick, the massive white sperm whale: who is ancient, grim, and monstrous, and swims alone; who is indescribably fearsome in his anger, having been attacked so many times; and snow-white.

He's definitely a symbol.

What about?

I doubt that even Melville knew for sure. That's the best part of it.

He’s warm-blooded, and he’s lovable. He’s the lonely Leviathan, not the Hobbes kind. Or is he?

But he is warm-blooded and lovable. The South Sea Islanders, Polynesians, and Malays, who worship sharks or crocodiles or weave endless frigate-bird designs, why didn’t they ever worship the whale? So huge!

Because the whale isn’t evil. It doesn’t bite. And their gods had to bite.

He's not a dragon. He is Leviathan. He never curls up like the Chinese dragon of the sun. He's not a water serpent. He is warm-blooded, a mammal. And hunted, hunted down.

It's a great book.

At first, you're put off by the style. It reads like news articles. It seems sketchy. You feel like Melville is trying to fool you. It just doesn't work.

And Melville can be a bit preachy: he’s self-aware, a bit awkward, even fooling himself sometimes. But it’s tough to dive into the flow of something profoundly mystical when you’re just starting with a story.

Nobody can be more foolish, more awkward, and more pretentiously bad at taste than Herman Melville, even in a great book like Moby Dick. He preaches and talks at length because he's not confident in himself. And he often talks at length in such an inexperienced way.

The artist was so much greater than the man. The man is just a boring New Englander of the ethical mystical-transcendentalist type: Emerson, Longfellow, Hawthorne, and so on. So one-dimensional, the serious guy even in humor. So hopelessly au grand serieux, you want to say: Good God, what does it matter? If life is a tragedy, or a farce, or a disaster, or anything else, what do I care! Let life be whatever it wants. Just give me a drink, that’s what I want right now.

For me, life is so many things that it doesn't matter what it is. It's not my job to figure it all out. Right now, it's a cup of tea. This morning, it was bitterness and regret. Pass me the sugar.

One gets tired of the grand serieux. There's something inauthentic about it. And that's Melville. Oh, man, when the serious fool keeps going on and on!

But he was a profound, great artist, even if he was a bit too self-righteous. He was a true American because he always sensed his audience in front of him. But when he stops being American, when he forgets about the audience, and simply shares his raw perception of the world, that's when he becomes extraordinary; his book brings a stillness to the soul, a sense of awe.

In his "human" self, Melville is nearly dead. He barely responds to human interactions anymore: or only in an ideal way: or just for a moment. His emotional side is almost exhausted. He is abstract, self-reflective, and detached. He's more fascinated by the strange movements and collisions of Matter than by what people do. In this way, he resembles Dana. It’s the material elements he truly engages with. His struggle is with them. He was a futurist long before futurism embraced painting. The raw, naked movements of the elements. And the human soul experiencing it all. So often, it teeters on the edge of psychiatry. Almost artificial. Yet so profound.

It’s the same old story with all Americans. They keep their outdated ideal of a frock coat and an old-fashioned silk hat while doing the most absurd things. There you see Melville, embraced in bed by a gigantic tattooed South Sea Islander, solemnly making a burnt offering to this savage's little idol, and his ideal frock coat just covers his shirt-tails and stops us from seeing his bare backside as he bows, while his proper silk hat sits snugly on his head. That’s so typically American: doing the most absurd things without shedding their spiritual attire. Their ideals are like rusted armor that they can never take off. Meanwhile, in Melville, his physical awareness moves freely, alive and vibrant among the raw elements. With sheer physical sensitivity, like a remarkable wireless station, he registers the effects of the outside world. He also records, almost beyond pain or pleasure, the extreme shifts of the isolated, far-removed soul, the soul that is now alone, without any real human connection.

The first few days in New Bedford introduce the only character who truly engages with the story, Ishmael, the book's "I." Then there's Ishmael's companion, Queequeg, the strong, tattooed harpooner from the South Seas, whom Melville cherishes like Dana cherishes "Hope." The arrival of Ishmael's roommate is both funny and memorable. Later on, the two declare their "marriage" in the words of the natives. Queequeg has reignited Ishmael's capacity for love and human connection.

"As I sat in that now empty room, the fire burning low, in that mild stage when, after its initial heat has warmed the air, it just glows for us to watch; the evening shadows and figures gathering around the windows, peering in at us, silent and alone together: I started to feel strange emotions. I felt something melting inside me. No longer was my broken hand and troubled heart set against the harsh world. This wild spirit had redeemed it. There he sat, his indifference revealing a nature free from any civilized hypocrisy or nice deceptions. He was wild; an incredible sight to behold; yet I began to feel myself mysteriously drawn to him."—So they smoked together and held each other close. Their friendship was finally solidified when Ishmael made a sacrifice to Queequeg's little idol, Gogo.

"I was a good Christian, raised in the heart of the infallible Presbyterian Church. So how could I join the idolater in worshiping his piece of wood? But what is worship?—to do the will of God—that is worship. And what is the will of God?—to treat my fellow man the way I want to be treated—that is the will of God."—Which sounds like Benjamin Franklin, and is completely misguided theology. But it reflects real American reasoning. "Now Queequeg is my fellow man. And what do I want this Queequeg to do for me? Well, to join me in my specific Presbyterian way of worship. Therefore, I must join him; thus, I must turn idolater. So I lit the shavings; helped support the innocent little idol; shared burnt biscuit with Queequeg; bowed before him two or three times; kissed his nose; and once that was done, we undressed and went to bed, at peace with our own consciences and the entire world. But we didn't go to sleep without a little chat. I don’t know how it is, but there’s no place like bed for sharing secrets between friends. It’s said that man and wife open the deepest parts of their souls to each other; and some old couples often lie and reminisce until nearly morning. So there I was, laying with Queequeg—a cozy, loving pair——"

You might think this relationship with Queequeg meant something to Ishmael. But it doesn’t. Queequeg is forgotten like yesterday’s newspaper. Human connections are just temporary thrills or distractions for American Ishmael. Ishmael, the hunted. But even more so, Ishmael the hunter. What’s a Queequeg? What’s a wife? The white whale has to be tracked down. Queequeg just needs to be “KNOWN,” then thrown into oblivion.

And what on earth is the white whale?

Elsewhere, Ishmael says he loved Queequeg's eyes: "large, deep eyes, fiery black and bold." No doubt, like Poe, he wanted to figure them out. That was all.

The two men travel from New Bedford to Nantucket, where they sign on with the Quaker whaling ship, the Pequod. It’s all oddly surreal, almost like a dream. The journey of the soul. Yet it’s also a very real whaling expedition. We find ourselves in the middle of the ocean with this bizarre ship and its unbelievable crew. The Argonauts look like gentle lambs by comparison. And Ulysses faced off against Circe and conquered the wicked temptresses of the islands. But the crew of the Pequod is a bunch of fanatics obsessively hunting a solitary, harmless white whale.

As a tale of the human experience, it’s frustrating. As a maritime story, it’s incredible: there’s always something a little exaggerated in sea stories. It’s part of the charm. But sometimes, the way real sailors' experiences are wrapped up in grand, mystical language can be irritating. And as a depiction of fate, the book feels too heavy, even for sadness. It's deeply profound, beyond any feelings one might have.

You have to wait a while before you can meet the captain, Ahab: the mysterious Quaker. Oh, it’s a religious Quaker ship.

Ahab, the captain. The captain of the spirit.

"I shape my future."
"I take charge of my spirit!"

Ahab!

"Oh, captain, my captain, our difficult journey is over."

The thin Ahab, a Quaker and a mysterious figure, only reveals himself after several days at sea. Is there a secret about him? What could it be?

Oh, he's a significant person. He stomps around on an ivory prosthetic made from whale ivory. Moby Dick, the great white whale, bit off Ahab's leg at the knee when Ahab was trying to catch him.

Quite right, too. Should have taken off both his legs, and a bit more besides.

But Ahab doesn’t agree. Ahab is now consumed by one obsession. Moby Dick is his obsession. Moby Dick must DIE, or Ahab can’t live any longer. Ahab is an atheist because of this.

Alright.

This Pequod, the ship of the American spirit, has three mates.

1. Starbuck: Quaker, from Nantucket, a good, responsible, reasonable guy, someone who thinks ahead and is courageous; what you’d call a dependable person. Deep down, he's scared.

2. Stubb: "Fearless like fire, and just as mechanical." He insists on being reckless and cheerful all the time. He must be afraid too, deep down.

3. Flask: Stubborn, headstrong, and lacking creativity. To him, "the amazing whale was just a bigger version of a mouse or a water rat——"

There you have it: a crazy captain and his three mates, three amazing sailors, impressive whalers, top-notch professionals at what they do.

USA!

It’s somewhat like Mr. Wilson and his impressive, “efficient” team at the Peace Conference. The only difference is that none of the Pequodders brought their wives along.

A crazy captain of the soul and three highly practical crew members.

USA!

Then there was such a crew. Outlaws, outcasts, cannibals: Ishmael, Quakers.

USA!

Three giant harpooners, ready to hunt the great white whale.

1. Queequeg, the South Sea Islander, all tattooed, large and strong.

2. Tashtego, the Native American from the coast, where the land meets the ocean.

3. Daggoo, the massive Black man.

There you have it, three fierce races, under the American flag, the crazy captain, with their sharp harpoons, ready to hunt the White whale.

And only after many days at sea does Ahab's own crew finally show up on deck. They are strange, silent, secretive, and dressed in black: fire-worshipping Parsees. These are the ones who will man Ahab's boat when it charges after that whale.

What do you think of the ship Pequod, the ship that represents the spirit of America?

Many races, many cultures, many nations, under the Stars and Stripes. Beaten with many stripes.

Seeing stars occasionally.

And on a crazy ship, with a crazy captain, on a wild, fanatic's chase.

For what reason?

For Moby Dick, the massive white whale.

But it was handled really well. Three amazing friends. The whole thing was practical, very practical in how it worked. American industry!

And all this practicality is directed toward a crazy, wild pursuit.

Melville successfully depicts a true whaling ship on a genuine voyage, despite all the fantastical elements. It's an incredible, incredible journey. The beauty is so striking mainly due to the author's struggles in mystical depths. He aimed for a profound metaphysical exploration and ended up diving deeper than metaphysics. It's an extremely beautiful book, with a heavy meaning and unsettling moments.

It’s interesting to compare Melville with Dana regarding the albatross. Melville is a bit preachy. “I remember the first albatross I ever saw. It was during a long storm in waters close to the Antarctic seas. From my morning watch below, I went up to the crowded deck, and there, tied down on the main hatches, I saw a majestic bird with pure white feathers and an impressive hooked bill. Periodically, it stretched out its enormous, archangel wings—its body shook with wondrous throbbing and fluttering. Although physically unharmed, it cried out like some king’s ghost in supernatural agony. Through its incredibly strange eyes, I felt like I was peeking into secrets beyond the heavens—the bird was so white, its wings so vast, and in those forever isolated waters, I had forgotten the miserable, warped memories of traditions and towns. I therefore claim that the amazing bodily whiteness of the bird holds the key to the spell..."

Melville's albatross is trapped, caught by bait on a hook.

Well, I have seen an albatross, too: following us in waters close to the Antarctic, south of Australia. And in the Southern winter. And the ship, a P. and O. boat, nearly empty. And the lascar crew shivering.

The bird with its long wings follows us, then leaves. No one knows until they’ve experienced it, how lost and lonely those Southern waters are. And there are glimpses of the Australian coast.

It makes you feel like today is just a single day. That in the darkness of the night ahead, other days are stirring and full of life, even when we have slipped from existence.

Who knows how completely we're going to fall apart.

But Melville continues his discussion about "whiteness." The great abstract intrigued him. The abstract where we finish and stop existing. White or black. Our white, abstract end!

Then again, it’s wonderful to be at sea on the Pequod, with not a trace of land around us.

"It was a cloudy, humid afternoon; the sailors were lazily hanging around the decks or blankly staring into the gray waters. Queequeg and I were casually working on weaving what’s called a sword-mat, to add an extra lashing to our boat. The entire scene felt so calm and quiet, yet somehow it seemed to suggest something was about to happen, and there was an enchanting sense of daydreaming in the air that each silent sailor seemed absorbed in his own thoughts."

In the middle of this quiet build-up, the first shout rang out: "There she is! Over there! Look! She’s blowing!"—And then the first pursuit begins, an amazing example of authentic sea storytelling, the ocean, and real sea life in the hunt, ocean creatures being chased. There’s hardly a hint of land—just pure ocean action.

"'Make way, everyone,' whispered Starbuck, pulling the sheet of his sail back even further. 'We still have time to catch some fish before the squall hits. There's white water again!—Close by!—Get ready!' Soon after, two shouts from either side of us indicated that the other boats had hooked their catches; but just as those cries were heard, Starbuck urgently said, 'Stand up!' and Queequeg jumped to his feet with his harpoon in hand. Even though none of the rowers were facing the life-and-death danger right in front of them, they could see the intense expression on the mate's face at the front of the boat and understood that the critical moment had arrived; they also heard an enormous wallowing sound, like fifty elephants shifting in their bedding. Meanwhile, the boat was still slicing through the mist, with waves curling and hissing around us like the raised crests of angry snakes.

"'That's his hump. There! Give it to him!' whispered Starbuck. A short rushing sound came from the boat; it was Queequeg's darted iron. Then, all at once, there was a push from behind, while the boat seemed to hit a ledge up ahead; the sail collapsed and burst; a rush of scalding steam shot up nearby; something rolled and tumbled like an earthquake beneath us. The whole crew was half-suffocated as they were tossed around in the white, swirling chaos of the squall. The squall, whale, and harpoon had all merged together, and the whale, just grazed by the iron, got away——"

Melville is a master of intense, chaotic motion; he can maintain an entire wild chase flawlessly. He’s equally skilled at creating stillness. The ship is sailing on the Carrol Ground, south of St. Helena. —"It was while gliding through these waters on a calm, moonlit night, when all the waves rolled by like scrolls of silver; and with their gentle, soothing ripples made what felt like a silvery silence, not a solitude; on such a quiet night, a silvery jet was spotted far ahead of the white bubbles at the bow——"

Then there’s the description of brit. "Steering northeast from the Crozello, we came across vast meadows of brit, the tiny yellow substance that the right whale primarily feeds on. For miles and miles, it undulated around us, making it feel like we were sailing through endless fields of ripe, golden wheat. On the second day, we spotted several right whales, safe from being hunted by a sperm whaler like the Pequod. They swam slowly with their mouths open through the brit, which clung to the fringed fibers of their incredible mouth structure, separating it from the water that flowed out at their lips. Just like mowers working side by side, slowly pushing their scythes through the long, wet grass of the marshy meadows; these giants swam, creating a strange, grassy cutting sound and leaving behind endless trails of blue on the yellow sea. But the only sound that reminded anyone of mowers was the noise they made as they pushed through the brit. From the masthead, particularly when they paused and floated still for a moment, their massive black shapes looked more like boulders than anything else——"

This beautiful passage introduces us to the appearance of the squid.

"Slowly making her way through the fields of brit, the Pequod continued northeast towards the island of Java; a gentle breeze pushing her along, so that in the calm surroundings her three tall, slender masts softly swayed to the lazy wind, like three gentle palms on a plain. And still, at wide intervals, in the silvery night, that lonely, inviting jet could be seen."

"But one clear blue morning, when an unnatural stillness settled over the sea, but without any stagnant calm; when the long shiny sunlit path on the water looked like a golden finger resting on it, urging silence; when all the gentle waves whispered softly to each other as they flowed; in this deep quiet of the visible world, Daggoo saw a strange figure from the top of the mainmast."

"In the distance, a huge white shape slowly appeared, rising higher and higher, breaking free from the blue sky, and finally shining before us like fresh snow sliding down from the hills. Glimmering for a moment as it gradually faded away and sank, it then reappeared and silently shone again. It didn't look like a whale; and yet, could this be Moby Dick? Daggoo wondered——"

The boats were lowered and brought to the scene.

"In the same place where it sank, it slowly rose again. For a moment, almost forgetting all thoughts of Moby Dick, we stared at the most incredible sight that the mysterious seas have ever shown us. A huge, soft mass, stretching for miles in length and width, floated on the water, with countless long arms extending from its center, curling and twisting like a tangle of snakes, as if trying to grab any unfortunate object within reach. It had no visible face or front; no sign of sensation or instinct; it just undulated on the waves, an otherworldly, formless, chance-like manifestation of life. Then, with a soft sucking sound, it slowly disappeared once more."

The following chapters, detailing whale hunts, the killing, the processing, and the butchering, are amazing records of real events. Next is the strange story about the encounter with the Jereboam, a whaler met at sea, whose crew was all under the influence of a religious fanatic among the ship's crew. There are thorough descriptions of extracting sperm oil from a whale's head. Reflecting on the small size of a sperm whale's brain, Melville notably states—"for I believe that much of a man's character will be found reflected in his backbone. I would rather feel your spine than your skull, no matter who you are—" And about the whale, he adds:

"For, seen this way, the surprisingly small size of his actual brain is more than balanced by the surprisingly large size of his spinal cord."

Amid the chaos of terrible, awful hunts, there are moments of pure beauty.

"As the three boats floated on the gently rolling sea, staring into its endless blue at noon; and as not a single groan or cry of any kind, not even a ripple or a thought, emerged from its depths; what land-dweller would have imagined that beneath all that silence and calm the greatest monster of the seas was twisting and thrashing in pain!"

Perhaps the most incredible chapter is the one called The Grand Armada, at the beginning of Volume III. The Pequod was sailing through the Sunda Straits towards Java when it encountered a massive group of sperm whales. "Broad on both sides, a couple of miles away, forming a large semi-circle that took up half the visible horizon, a continuous line of whale sprays danced and sparkled in the midday air." As they pursued this great herd, passing through the Straits of Sunda and being chased by Javan pirates, the whalers rushed on. Then the boats were lowered. Eventually, a curious state of sluggish uncertainty hit the whalers, and as the sailors say, they got flustered. Instead of moving forward in an organized formation, they swam wildly all over the place, a churning sea of whales that were no longer advancing. Starbuck's boat, attached to a whale, was pulled into the midst of this chaotic sea of giants. In a wild dash, it surged through the boiling tide of monsters until it reached a clear lagoon right in the center of the vast, chaotic, frightened herd. There was a smooth, peaceful calm. The females swam without a care, and the young whales approached the boat curiously, like dogs. And there, the amazed sailors watched the courtship of these incredible creatures, mammals now engaging in their mating season far beneath the sea.—"But far below this amazing world on the surface, another, even stranger world met our eyes as we peered over the edge. For suspended in these watery depths were the forms of nursing whale mothers and those whose massive size indicated they would soon become mothers. The lagoon, as I mentioned, was remarkably clear at considerable depths; and just as human infants, while nursing, will calmly and intently gaze away from the breast, as if living two separate lives at once; while still drawing nourishment, they appear to be spiritually lost in some otherworldly memory, the young whales seemed to look up at us, but not at us, as if we were just a piece of floating seaweed in their newborn vision. Floating on their sides, the mothers also seemed to be quietly observing us.—Some of the most subtle secrets of the seas appeared to be revealed to us in this magical pond. We witnessed young Leviathan romances in the depths. And so, even while surrounded by circles of astonishment and fear, these mysterious creatures at the center indulged freely and fearlessly in all peaceful matters; yes, they serenely reveled in affection and joy——"

There’s something truly overwhelming about these whale hunts, almost superhuman or inhuman, larger than life, more intense than any human activity. The same goes for the chapter on ambergris: it’s so fascinating, so real, yet so otherworldly. And once again in the chapter titled The Cassock—definitely the oldest example of phallicism in all of world literature.

After this comes the incredible story of the Try-works, where the ship transforms into a sooty, oily factory in the middle of the ocean, extracting oil from the blubber. One night, with the red furnace burning on deck at sea, Melville has a shocking experience of reversal. He's at the helm but turns to watch the fire when suddenly he feels the ship rushing away from him, in a mystical reversal. —"The main impression was that whatever swift, rushing thing I was standing on was not heading toward any destination ahead but was fleeing from all the places behind me. A stark, bewildered feeling, like death, washed over me. My hands gripped the tiller convulsively, but with this crazy notion that the tiller was somehow, in some enchanted way, upside down. My God! What's wrong with me, I thought!"

This dream experience is a true soul experience. He concludes with a warning to everyone not to stare at the red fire when its brightness makes everything look terrifying. It seems to him that looking at the fire has triggered this horrific feeling of going backwards, of undoing.

Perhaps it had. He was born from water.

After some grueling work on the ship, Queequeg caught a fever and was on the verge of dying. “He wasted away during those long, drawn-out days until it seemed like there was hardly anything left of him except for his body and tattoos. But even as everything else in him diminished, and his cheekbones became more pronounced, his eyes appeared to be growing fuller and fuller; they took on a strange brightness; and gently yet profoundly looked at you from his illness, a remarkable testament to that enduring health within him that couldn’t die or be weakened. And like ripples on water, which fade as they expand, his eyes seemed to be rounding more and more, like the circles of Eternity. An indescribable awe would wash over you as you sat by the side of this fading savage——”

But Queequeg didn’t die—and the Pequod comes out of the Eastern Straits into the open Pacific. "To my thoughtful Magian traveler, this calm Pacific that he once saw must always be the sea he belongs to. It carries the deepest waters of the world——"

In this Pacific, the battles continue.—"It was late in the afternoon; when all the intense moments of the crimson fight were over; and as the sun and whale both quietly faded in the beautiful sunset sea and sky, a sweetness and a sadness wrapped up in prayers rose in that rosy air, making it feel almost like the land-breeze from the lush green valleys of the Manila islands had come to sea, carrying those evening hymns.—Ahab, calmed again but only to a deeper gloom, who had steered away from the whale, intensely watched its final moments from the now peaceful boat. For that strange sight, common to all dying sperm whales—their heads turning toward the sun as they die—that unusual sight, seen on such a calm evening, somehow felt to Ahab wondrous in a way he had never experienced before. ‘He turns and turns to it; so slowly, yet so steadily, with his last movements, he is reaching out and calling to his home. He too worships fire;...'"

So Ahab thinks out loud: and so the warm-blooded whale turns for the last time to the sun, which created him in the waters.

But as we see in the next chapter, it's really the Thunder-fire that Ahab worships: that living, tearing fire that brands him from head to toe. It’s the storm, the electric storm of the Pequod, when the corposants burn in high, tapering flames of supernatural pale on the masthead, and when the compass goes haywire. After this, everything is fate. Life itself seems to be mystically inverted. In these hunters of Moby Dick, there's nothing but madness and obsession. The captain, Ahab, walks alongside the poor, mentally impaired black boy, Pip, who has been cruelly driven to madness, left swimming alone in the vast sea. It’s the simple child of the sun walking hand in hand with the northern monomaniac, captain and master.

The journey continues. They encounter one ship after another. It’s all part of the daily routine, yet there’s an undercurrent of sheer madness and horror, the looming terror of the final battle. "Here and there, up high, glided the snow-white wings of small, unblemished birds; these represented the gentle thoughts of the feminine air; but in the depths, far down in the endless blue, powerful leviathans, swordfish, and sharks rushed about; these were the intense, chaotic, murderous thoughts of the masculine sea—" On this day, Ahab admits his exhaustion, the weariness of his burden. "But do I look very old, so very, very old, Starbuck? I feel utterly drained, slumped, and hunched, as if I were Adam struggling under the weight of the centuries since Paradise—" This is Ahab’s Gethsemane before the final battle: the Gethsemane of the human soul seeking ultimate self-mastery, the final achievement of expanded consciousness—infinite consciousness.

At last, they spot the whale. Ahab sees it from his elevated position at the masthead. —"From this height, the whale was now visible about a mile ahead, revealing its high, sparkling hump with every roll of the sea, and regularly shooting its silent spout into the air."

The boats are lowered to get closer to the white whale. "Eventually, the breathless hunter got so close to his seemingly unsuspecting prey that the entire dazzling hump was clearly visible, gliding along the sea like a solitary object, surrounded by a swirling ring of fine, fluffy, greenish foam. He could see the large, intricate wrinkles of its slightly protruding head in the distance. Out on the soft, rough waters, the glimmering white shadow from his broad, milky forehead stretched far away, accompanied by a playful, musical ripple; and behind, the blue waters flowed over the moving valley of his steady wake, with bright bubbles rising and dancing beside him. But these were interrupted by the light feet of hundreds of colorful birds softly touching the sea, alternating with their sporadic flights; and like a flagpole rising from the pointed hull of a merchant ship, the tall but broken pole of a recent harpoon stuck out from the white whale's back; at intervals, one of the groups of soft-footed birds hovering above, shimmering like a canopy over the fish, silently perched and rocked on this pole, their long tail feathers streaming like banners."

"A gentle joy—a powerful calmness of restfulness in motion, surrounded the gliding whale—"

The battle with the whale is both incredible and terrifying to quote outside of the book. It went on for three days. On the third day, the horrifying sight of the mutilated body of the Parsee harpooner, lost the previous day, is now seen tied to the sides of the white whale by the tangled harpoon lines, creating a surreal nightmare. The monstrous and enraged whale turns on the ship, a symbol of our civilized world. It strikes her with a powerful blow. Moments later, from the last of the fighting whale boats comes the cry: "'The ship! Great God, where is the ship?'—Soon they, through the dim, puzzling haze, saw her ghostly form fading away, like in a hazy mirage; only the highest masts were above water; and the pagan harpooners, fixed by obsession, loyalty, or fate, still kept their watch from their once lofty perches, gazing at the sea. Now, concentric circles engulfed the lone boat, its entire crew, each floating oar, every lance-pole, and everything, both living and not, swirling in one vortex, taking the smallest piece of the Pequod out of sight——"

The bird of heaven, the eagle, St. John's bird, the Red Indian bird, the American, goes down with the ship, nailed by Tastego's hammer, the hammer of the American Indian. The eagle of the spirit. Sunk!

"Now small birds flew screeching over the still-open chasm; a gloomy white surf crashed against its steep edges; then everything fell apart; and then the vast cover of the sea moved on just as it did five thousand years ago."

So ends one of the strangest and most amazing books in the world, wrapping up its mystery and complicated symbolism. It's an epic of the sea that no one has matched; it's also a book filled with public symbolism that carries deep meaning, though it can be quite exhausting to read.

But it is an amazing book, a truly incredible book, the best book about the sea that's ever been written. It stirs deep feelings in the soul.

The tragic death.

Death.

Doom.

Doom! Doom! Doom! It feels like something is whispering it in the deep, dark trees of America. Doom!

Doom of what now?

Doom of our bright day. We are doomed, doomed. And the doom is in America. The doom of our bright day.

Ah, well, if my day is doomed and I’m doomed along with it, it’s something bigger than me that’s dooming me, so I accept my fate as a sign of the greatness that is beyond me.

Melville knew. He knew his race was doomed. His white soul, doomed. His great white era, doomed. Himself, doomed. The idealist, doomed. The spirit, doomed.

The reversion. "Not so much headed towards a safe port ahead, as escaping from all the ports behind."

That huge fear of ours! It's our civilization speeding away from all safe harbors behind us.

The final terrifying hunt. The White Whale.

What then is Moby Dick?—He is the most profound essence of the white race. He represents our most fundamental nature.

And he is chased, chased, chased by the insane obsession of our white mental awareness. We want to catch him. To impose our will on him. And in this frenzied pursuit of ourselves, we enlist dark races and pale ones to assist us, red, yellow, and black, from east and west, Quaker and fire-worshipper; we rally them all to join us in this terrible, mad hunt that leads to our doom and our downfall.

The last symbol of masculinity in white men. Driven to the end of higher awareness and the ideal desire. Our true selves controlled by our own will. Our awareness diminished by a draining mental or ideal consciousness.

Hot-headed, ocean-born Moby Dick. Chased by obsessive idea-driven hunters.