So I was going on to her about The Bhagavad Gita, and how Arjuna must fight, after gaining the perspective allowed by yoga, and how I might send a copy of my A Hero For Our Time to one of my old Amherst professors, a nice guy, who gave me a D for getting my Paradise Lost paper in late--I know this is piddly little shit to bother anyone about--and she looks at me and asks, "have you heard of recapitulation theory, in Freudian terms?"  I'd asked her why she was asking me why I would send it along to him.

Well, no, I haven't.  "I'll give you the case of the woman with the abusive father, who then goes out with a man just like her father, thinking she can change the result, all the way back to her father.  Going back to the same poisoned well and thinking the water will be different."

Huh.

As Einstein said, you cannot solve a problem by the same conscious terms by which the problem was conceived.  (It turns out to be a vague quote to track down.  The closest one scholar seems to find has to do with now that we as scientists have created the means of destruction, we must now change the level of consciousness, to make for peace.)

So why send along a copy of your book when the result will just be the same...

Yeah, but... The guy is an educator...

He didn't treat you very well back then;  why would he now?

But my book is consistent with the answer I'd been groping for, that when Adam and Eve are kicked out of the Garden paradise and all the wind is blowing and there's no way back, what do they turn to, but words.   And you get kicked out of the paradise of Amherst when you graduate, and out into the 'real world,' and what do you turn to, words.

But her point stuck with me.  Yeah, it would just be the same old thing.  Nice paper, but sorry, here's your D in life.  "Time to move on to a new well, I guess."


I think over my sins, sins of the body, sins of the flesh, sins of the blood type, of the brain blood barrier, of the senses.  I was born an O, not the responsible blood of my father and older brother.  Easily am I led astray.  Easily do I run late, tarrying with folks at the temple, the gathering, the party.  The time I've wasted, with companions...

The well with the poisoned water, is that what I must take away from my college experience, the blame just as much on me as anyone, because of who I inherently am, the same body that puts me where I am today doing what I am doing, a continuation of the tarrying at the temple...