If You Would Learn A Thing, Straightway

Like An Ox-cart Driver In Monsoon Season Or The Skipper Of A Grounded Ship, One Must Sometimes Go Forward By Going Back.

Somewhere In The World There Was A Young Woman With Such Splendid Understanding That She'd See Him Entire, Like A Poem Or Story, And Find His Words So Valuable After All That When He Confessed His Apprehensions She Would Explain Why They Were In Fact The Very Things That Made Him Precious To Her...and To Western Civilization! There Was No Such Girl, The Simple Truth Being.

You Don't Reach Serendib By Plotting A Course For It. You Have To Set Out In Good Faith For Elsewhere And Lose Your Bearings... Serendipitously.

You’re Probably Wasting Time On Things Like Eating And Sleeping. Cease That, And Read All Of Philosophy And All Of Literature. Also Art. Plus Politics And A Few Other Things. The History Of Everything.

Finally You Begin To Make Your Mistakes On The Highest Level-let's Say The Upper Slopes Of Slippery Parnassus-and It's At That Point You Need Coaching.