Life Is Hell, But At Least There

Writing An Autobiography, Usually Thought Of As A Looking Back, Can Just As Well Be A Looking Across Or Through, With The Passing Of Time Giving An X-ray Quality To The Eye.

Everything Is Always A Story, But The Loveliest Ones Are Those That Get Written And Are Not Torn Up And Are Taken To A Friend As Payment For Listening, For Putting A Wise Keyhole To The Ear Of My Mind

The Sooner You 'settle' The Sooner You'll Be Allowed Home" Was The Ruling Logic; And "if You Can't Adapt Yourself To Living In A Mental Hospital How Do You Expect To Be Able To Live 'out In The World'?" How Indeed?

People Dread Silence Because It Is Transparent; Like Clear Water, Which Reveals Every Obstacle—the Used, The Dead, The Drowned, Silence Reveals The Cast-off Words And Thoughts Dropped In To Obscure Its Clear Stream. And When People Stare Too Close To Silence They Sometimes Face Their Own Reflections, Their Magnified Shadows In The Depths, And That Frightens Them. I Know; I Know.

The Idea Was To Have A Basin Inverted On His Head And His Hair Cut To The Shape Of It. Skill And Money Were Not Needed. Then The Idea Grew That It Was More Convenient To Leave The Basin On His Head. Stray Thoughts Were Trimmed Along With Stray Hair; Brain-vines, Tentacles Of Thought, Were Not Encouraged To Wander. Then, In The Interests Of Human Economy, The Head Of Adaptable Man Became A Basin Of Uniform Shape—a Basin, A Crash Helmet. Safe At Last; No More Thought-cuts.