It was around the age of 14 that I discovered the Indian thinker
J. Krishnamurti. He is the Doubters 'guru' and was a refreshing contrast to the Jesuit indoctrination I was receiving at school. What attracted me to Krishnmurti was that he seemed to hone in on the central human problem before that problem seeks escapist solutions in religion and metaphysics. As with the core philosophy of the Buddha, Krishnamurti was concerned with the malaise of the human psych which leads to confusion, delusion and suffering. While Krishnamurti would have disavowed it, I suggest that by some process of osmosis he spoke a variant of the language of the Buddha. In other words how the psych in encountering reality never really sees clearly in the present moment but is interpreting through the accumulations or the conditioning of experience which is formed by fear and attraction, our persistent craving and desire for permanence. But K was not one for meditation or rituals or elaborate canons of scripture all of which just create more conditioning. He eschewed followers or devotees. Having said this neither Krishnmurti nor the myriad of charismatic sages make much of another stumbling block to the cure of the ills of the individual and that is that a large proportion inherit neurotic complexes; these sit in the psych and emerge at inappropriate moments to cause havoc. For these folk it is one thing to know the source of the problem another to effect the change necessary. But it is always better to know where you stand in the neurotic scale than be ignorant. We all know those people who pass through life causing a trail of destruction thinking that all this is normal and they are merely being true to themselves.
At the Lifeline Bookfair I picked up a copy of The Morrow Anthology of Younger American Poets (published 1985). It cost all of $3, a knock down price but some of the pages are falling out. As the title suggests, the poets are young and fresh in the promising stage of their poetic careers. There is a section for each poet and photographic portrait. I have got into the way of looking up the poets by doing an on-line search. It is interesting to see that so many took the literary studies path, moved into academia and are now hallowed figures in American college settings. Of course they no longer look like their photographs and it is sad to see how quickly the bloom of youth fades into the nondescript blur of middle age. Now they are seasoned college staff with slight to significant reputations and books of poetry to their credit. Some have branched out to short stories and novels. You can see they have become part of a literary establishment. One supposes the rage has gone out of them. Life must be sweet with a captive audience of students, speaking events, visiting positions and levers upon the grail of publishing. I tend to think that what is good for poetry is the precarious and simple life close to the common run of men and women. It is better to be a low-ranked colonial public servant like C. P. Cavafy or public revenue collector like the William Wordsworth, or, perhaps, just starving in a proverbial garret (but not mad was Chatterton). The artificiality of academe, the aura of respectability, the dreary round of campus life must be deadening to the muse.
Here is a quotation from my commonplace book:
'In the end one comes back to the most obstinate question of all. Isn't there a certain basic antagonism between the very nature of a university and the very spirit of literature? The academic mind is cautious, tightly organised, fault-finding, competitive -- and above all, aware of other academic minds. Think of the atmosphere of suspicion implied by the habit of fitting out the most trivial quotation with a reference, as though it were applying for a job. Think of the whole idea of regarding literature as a discipline. Literature can be strenuous or difficult or deeply disturbing; it can be a hundred things -- but a discipline is not one of them. Discipline means compulsion, and an interest in literature thrives on spontaneity, eager curiosity, the anticipation of pleasure; it is unlikely that a reader who comes to a book under duress, or weighed down with a sense of duty, will ever really read it at all, however much he may learn about it. Even the most intensely serious literature needs to be approached with a certain lightness of heart, if it is to yield it full intensity.'
John Cross
The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters
