Confession: I just went through and made four or five blog entries private. Not because they were secrets but because I didn’t like the way I wrote them. They felt dishonest and old and embarrassed me a little. I’ll be gradually letting people read this, and I don’t particularly want them to read those ones. My apologies.
I’ve been reading Island by Aldous Huxley. I read Brave New World in High School and loved it. And after reading it, I remember thinking, “Wow, this guy just might be my favorite author”, but, until now, I hadn’t read any of his other books. I still haven’t read enough to make that decision but I’m still thinking, “Wow, this guy just might be my favorite author”. His writing is practical and honest, without sacrificing descriptive imagery. His superior intelligence is apparent, but somehow not pretentious. His utopias and dystopias are fascinating, chilling, and wonderfully innovative.
On religion (how it is presented in Pala, the fictional island):
“We neither encourage nor discourage. We accept it. Accept it as we accept that spider web up there on the cornice. Given the nature of spiders, webs are inevitable. And given the nature of human beings, so are religions. Spiders can’t help making flytraps, and men can’t help making symbols. That’s what the human brain is there for–to turn the chaos of given experience into a set of manageable symbols.”
