The Mind and the Senses

After several days of catching a chapter here and there on the bus, and then getting through quite a lot sitting in the hotel room in Memphis, I only had about a quarter of the book left tonight. It felt so good to just sit down and read for the sake of reading. And, even better, to read for the sake of reading a good book. Right up there with Lewis and Nabakov, Hesse is one of my favorite authors (admittedly, I've left Rand on my top shelf, but soon...).

I won't bother getting into a rating system of books, but let's just say I recommend this book for all those searching. It gets at the same point Steppenwolf does, the fact that each person has his or her own role to play out. It's not a destiny or fate, but a game of chess played between the demons in your own head. It's about what's necessary for the individual to find truth and wisdom; the type of truth and wisdom that can come from any undertaking, not just my personal path of philosophy. However, philosophy is the path I've chosen to reach this type of truth. In example, I was always the overly serious character of the mind, but what very few people understood was that I loved and enjoyed it. Though it occupies most of my waking thoughts (and I'm awake a lot), few people get to see me excited about ideas. But it is ideas that make me happy; observing the party or savoring a long, difficult read. Sure, I might not be smiling all the time and I'm obviously not as animated, but trust that I'm loving every minute of it. And the other reason I loved this book was that, where I saw myself in Narcissus, one of my best friends, JMD, was a Goldmund in our four years at Tulane. But to the point, given a certain depth and intensity of character, it didn't matter that the two characters had opposing personalities or lived completely different lives. Each found truth through their own path and, because of this truth, they could relate to eachother better than they could relate to others on their own path.

Anyways, that's my piece. I've already posted a couple quotes from the book, so I'll end with one, too;

Only now do I realize how many paths there are to knowledge and that the path of the mind is not the only one and perhaps not even the best one. It is my way, of course; and I'll stay on it. But I see that you, the opposite road, on the road of the senses, have seized the secret of being just as deeply...