There was an incredible sensitivity reflected in the writing and personality of the romantics of the nineteenth century; Goethe, Schiller, Novalis, Wagner, Nietzsche, Van Gogh, and others. Did you know that Nietzsche went insane? All of them were men of genius and mood swings. All of them had or felt they had insight. Camus said that "greatness" lies in man's will to be "stronger than his condition." Without that will, therein lies failure. An emotional short-circuit is loss of will to be stronger than our condition. Colin Wilson stated it this way; "If you allow the will to remain passive for long periods, it has the same effect as leaving your car in the garage for the winter. The batteries go flat."

We all need direction, a goal, purpose, something to look forward to. Besides making us happy, it exercises the will. It is an activity for the mind. It is a dream that has the chance for fulfillment. It is hope.

And it is power of the mind. Remember Arthur Koestler? Like Chet Baker, he took his own life in a hotel room in Paris. He believed that everything we do is based on elementary animal responses. They call this application of psychology, "reductionism." Some call it an oversimplification. But is it really? Aren't we really just animals that have evolved some higher state of consciousness?

But do animals have the problem of reconciling their emotions with a civilization that is not healthy. When then is society really neurotic and is the state of being abnormal really the norm? Perhaps animal instincts get in the way of our human instincts, which are to be adaptive in an abnormal environment? What value judgements are really valid in a world that is insane?

Rene Descartes provides at least one answer when he posed the question: What do we know for certain? He advanced the theory, the principle that we must doubt everything. Are we even here? What is existence? Is this a dream? Isn't life too incredible to be real?

Our conception of life evolves and is reflected in our culture (with all it's faults) and has been conceptualized by the philosophers.

Our own period is perhaps the most interesting. The seeds of enlightenment were sown and now the answers, at least according to ZEN, can be found within ourselves.

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    There is an old proverb that says, 
    "Living is like licking honey off a thorn." 

             TRANQUILITY

   I do not think there shall ever be
   A moment as lovely as a poem 
   Unless that moment is also a song
   To still the current in my blood
   To rush the wind in my hair, cool the air 
   And warm the breeze. I hear that song 
   In my heart that speaks to me 
   In my head. It speaks to me of peace 
   Tranquility is a rainbow and the rain, the wind 
   The silent calm. It is to sit on the 
   Highest mountain and see the heavens glow
   It is to swim in cool blue depths of 
   A single day's gentle flow

                TheGolem