Hey Rub-a-dub-dub: A Book of the Mystery and Wonder and Terror of LifeDreiser, Theodore
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Hey Rub-a-dub-dub: A Book of the Mystery and Wonder and Terror of Life
Dreiser, Theodore
American essays -- 20th century
Nevertheless if it were possible in the face of the driving forces which
seem wholly to manipulate him to reach man and by a suggestion aid him,
it would be that in the face of so much confusion he no longer wastes
time on theories wholly unrelated to himself or his own material
welfare, his essential necessities here, but rather that he see to it
first of all, and clearly, that his life here is something which is to
be lived here and now to the utmost, in the best form for all--during
seventy years, if not longer--here, and not elsewhere, and that some
reasonable and concentrated effort be made to make it livable for man
here and now instead of elsewhere, however glittering or picturesque
that elsewhere may be, thin romance that it is. For is it not high time
that we all realized how essential it is to make life worth while for
all here, knowing as we now do that man is not a pet in Nature and that
if he makes anything of himself and his social as well as his mental
state here it must be with the full understanding that he can expect but
little if any aid from Nature or the forces directing him, certainly
none that would tend to ultimately enlarge his own mental clarity and
supremacy. To this end therefore it would seem advisable that man as a
whole throw over as swiftly as possible all his old-time religious and
moral conceptions, his restraining conventions, taboos and the like, and
re-examine for himself the data concerning which, accidentally or
otherwise, he now finds himself capable of cerebrating and according to
which he is now supposed to regulate his life. It may not be true that
he should limit himself as his present theories and ethics suggest. And
furthermore, his greatest problem being that of living longer, of being
stronger, happier, not so much the butt and jest of chance or the
willful or indifferent moods of the surrounding and stronger forces in
Nature, that he devote himself entirely to solving those problems.
Elsewhere I have indicated a possibly broader moral conception which may
be of value to this end. One of the greatest achievements, of course,
would be to rid the human mind of all vain illusion concerning things
spiritual, to get it to see, if it were possible, that man is not
necessarily an enduring spiritual creature endowed--for who can
know?--with an enduring and progressive soul, but rather that he is an
implement or tool in the hands of something else which is creating or
using him as, for example, the vine does the leaf, yet which itself may
be of no great import in Nature.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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