The Colossus of Maroussi by Henry Miller

Murder is the apex of the broad pyramid whose base is the self. There will be no peace until murder is eliminated from the heart and mind. There are people who want to fight to bring about peace-the most deluded souls of all. “I hear people talking about peace and their faces are clouded with anger or with hatred or with scorn and disdain, with pride and arrogance. ― Henry Miller, quote from The Colossus of Maroussi We might learn to do without telephones and radios and newspapers, without machines of any kind, without factories, without mills, without mines, without explosives, without battleships, without politicians, without lawyers, without canned goods, without gadgets, without razor blades even or cellophane or cigarettes or money. If we could all go on strike and honestly disavow all interest in what our neighbor is doing we might get a new lease on life. We don't need the truth as it is dished up to us in the daily papers. Newspapers engender lies, hatred, greed, envy, suspicion, fear, malice. If we could just eliminate newspapers a great advance would be made, I am sure of it.

The absence of newspapers, the absence of news about what men are doing in different parts of the world to make life more livable or unlivable is the greatest single boon.

When you're right with yourself it doesn't matter which flag is flying over your head or who owns what or whether you speak English or Monongahela. The book-learning gradually dribbles away problems melt and dissolve ties are gently severed thinking, when you deign to indulge in it, becomes very primitive the body becomes a new and wonderful instrument you look at plants or stones or fish with different eyes you wonder what people are struggling to accomplish with their frenzied activities you know there is a war on but you haven't the faintest idea what it's about or why people should enjoy killing one another you look at a place like Albania-it was constantly staring me in the eyes-and you say to yourself, yesterday it was Greek, to-day it's Italian, to-morrow it may be German or Japanese, and you let it be anything it chooses to be. To be silent the whole day long, see no newspaper, hear no radio, listen to no gossip, be thoroughly and completely lazy, thoroughly and completely indifferent to the fate of the world is the finest medicine a man can give himself. To keep the mind empty is a feat, a very healthful feat too. For hours at a stretch I would lie in the sun doing nothing, thinking of nothing. “I was like Robinson Crusoe on the island of Tobago.

The Colossus of Maroussi by Henry Miller