"Much of the restlessness and uncertainty so charateristic of our time is probaly due to the chronic source of unappeased desires from which men, naturally religious, but condemned by circumstances to have no religion, are bound to suffer." - Aldous Huxley

That was Huxley's time perhaps. Not that I'm saying our time is in anyway different... but.

I guess there is by no means an accurate measure of what one's 'time' is like, and philosophers are perhaps the last people to ever have credentials to critique on it since they never do grasp the naunces behind that the psychologists, scientists and politicians are capable of wielding to some extent. Still, this guy's Brave New World drew circumstances of the 'future' - prophetic in essence - of how man has discovered the way out of this suffering. By themselves of course.

Huxely does indicate disapproval of it... through the 3 levels of 'loneliness' that I attempted to describe during a literature class - Bernard the miserable. Helmoltz the distant. John the alien. Implictly, he agrees - as strongly as he has shown his view to be in this statement, that mere distractions are pointlessly painful. They remove the drive towards transcendence and the search of the ultimate reality and ultimate value - plunging man into the depths of his own arrogant constructions, folding him into a simple mechanism that thrives for the society it seeks so much from.

Our time - Its not the soma, the conditioning, the simple gratifications, the reduction of the individuality so much so that it doesn't matter.
Its the achieving, the learning, the desires, the elevation of the self so much so that it doesn't matter.

But you know. It does.

And it would probaly take a Savage to understand that.

Labels: muse

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