Chapter II: Part 2

You writers who are trying to write. You artists anywhere who are trying for art. You who may be successful but have not arrived. You who hold yourselves in a class apart and play the game of temperament. You fools, liars, ornamenters, hypocrites, prostitutes, of words. You who wouldn't sell your bodies but who sell your souls. You who have taken to the street for profit. You who hunger for flattery and thirst for fame. You betrayers of the people. You who put words on yourselves as chains. You who are goods to the highest bidder. All of you. I have something to say to you. You may have said it to yourself. But I'm going to say it anyhow. Both for your good and mine. Something serious. Something that goes to the root. I'll talk right out. For somehow you who might be are not. You to whom a trust is given have betrayed it. I believe in the sacredness of the word. I want words to be gods, paradises, service. I want words to live. I want words to be creators. Some writers are so vital they cant say and or the or but without thrilling you. There are some writers so dead they cant say immortality without a funeral. I want the living word. How can I get it? By using words instead of being used by words. By speaking out of my heart instead of out of books. By not trying to write. By living. Some authors write as if they never had been born. They say: I did my best. I say: Rather your worst. When you talk to me face to face you are worth every minute. When you talk to me on paper in a book you are a waste of time. What happens to a man in the period between what he feels and what he does? What catastrophe occurs? Why does he go to smash in the process? He is so alive in what he humanly and so dead in what he professionally says. What is the poison that comes between? Money? Prestige? Or is it some false principle of art? Do your words, do your colors, do your tones, take you away from rather than towards your inspiration? You try too hard. You shouldn't try at all. An artist's sketches are wonderful. His finished canvases are commonplace. His sketches are impromptu. His paintings are designed. He did the sketches. The paintings did him. He didn't try in the sketches. He was all try in the paintings. You writers who are trying to write. Are you trying to live? I admit your display. I admit your phrases. But you? Do I admit you? Yes. But not the you you get into your books. My words belong where my heart is. I am not willing to feel one thing and write another. Let me be the servant of my emotions. Down below all my words is all my life. Rooted in the soil. Established in the unalterable laws. Dedicated to the supreme inferences. If my words dont say that they lie about me. I am the fact the words are supposed to report. If they dont express me I go unrepresented. I dont try to be anything. I just let myself be whatever results. It would be as bad for me to force myself to be something as for me to force myself not to be something. There are so many artists and there is so little art. There are so many writers and there is so little writing. There is so much painting and there are so few pictures. We are overclothed. Our wardrobe is rich. We are jeweled. We are placed on thrones. But what are we anyhow? We are humbug kings. We are fraud citizens. What we are not we are. What we are we are not. The same thing which makes some men look for social prestige makes an author look for literary prestige. We give up the same things for it. We lie and duck and play sycophant for it. We fool people. We make black white and white black. We trifle away serious things. And we are serious over trifles. All for what? In order to appear to be what we are not. We are masqueraders. Words are the tools of our burglary. Words are the cant of our religion. Words are the sophistry of our law. Words are the fog we lose our way in. We'd be safe if it wasn't for words. Words are our peril. Words are the obstacles in the way. If you want to be understood dont talk. Whatever you have to say, dont trust it to words. Try not to try. Cut loose. Throw the reins on their necks. I see many books. And yet there is only one book. I see the broad highway and the countless journeyers. Where are they all going? The girl looks at herself in the glass. She wants to be pretty. A little paint and powder is added here and there. A few words are added here and there. It's all the same thing. You bribe, steal, seduce. You make use of words not for the purpose of being true but for the purpose of being beautiful. Show: that's what you want. Distinction: that's what you want. To be considered clever. To be a best seller. To go into many editions. To be invited to lecture in colleges. To be asked to write for the magazines. To be in demand. That's what you use words for. So as to be listed in the literary four hundred. So as to be set apart somehow. You want to be extraordinary. It has got so the writer stands above and condescends. He don't stand below and look up. He regards the people as pawns. He'll use them in the game. But he won't concede their equality. He plans for so much a year. He figures at receptions. The colleges give him titles. He dont want to be average. He wants to be exceptional. So he tries to write. He gives his writing little pulls and twists so as to adjust it to the market. He takes words off here and puts words on there because he wants his disguise to be complete and impressive. Go look at the books in libraries. They are the endless roster of the dead. Most men bury themselves in books. Only occasionally does a man resurrect himself in a book. He makes his writing the parade. It marches with brass bands. Everybody knows it's coming. And everybody knows of it after it's gone. But nothing can make it live. Active as it seems to be it's still a burial. You who have tried so hard and have not succeeded may yet learn that he only succeeds who dont try at all. When you try--that means that you're up against it. When you've got to engineer. When you've got to watch your ps and qs. When you're afraid you'll not know how to turn a sudden corner. Then you're no use. Then you're firing in the air. You're to discover how to win without caring whether you win or lose. You're to find out that you'll arrive without worrying over the process. He is surest who dont ask for pledges. Words are a fatality. You writers who are trying to write.

You writers who are trying to write. You who'd do anything rather than be thought of no importance. You who'd murder the language or rape it or rob it or do anything to it rather than not make your point. You: what have I to say to you? Just what I have been saying. Go on with your dance. Get what you can out of the disgraceful scramble. Poke your heads into the slop trough. Let me paraphrase the man who advised his boy to get money. Make books. Honestly if you can. But make books. Try for points. If you cant make them on the square make them on the foul. Try to write. Dont try to think. Dont try to love. Dont try to serve. Try to write. Get a reputation. Never mind your character. Do everything you can to convince everybody that you are what you know you are not. A man has to make a living. Therefore he has to do what he has to do to get it. So you have to be notorious. Therefore you have to do what you have to do to get notoriety. If you have to murder your mother to get success murder your mother. What's one mother to one success? If you have to starve children in factories to get success starve children. What are a few children out of so many? You are the spokesman of life and death. You can be hired for so much per to aid and abet the orthodoxies. Sell your soul. What is one soul, even if it's your soul, to one success? Your words. You can turn them into nugget values. You can set a high figure on them. And you can hypnotize the purchaser. Not a word without pay. This is a world and a time of bargain and sale. Make the world pay. Watch the market. See what it wants. Give it that. Try to conform. Try to write not your soul's words or your heart's words but trade's words. Give the verbal stock market all the preferences. Everybody else sells whatever he can. You have words. Words are your only treasure. Why shouldn't you sell words? And you will sell the words that are according to fashion not the words that are according to truth. Just as the rhyming lilting poets write the words not of faith but of formula. If the issue is between the rules and the exception the rule has to go. Write book words. And write pretty words. Even if the ugly word says more than the pretty word choose the pretty word. Be an artist. Work for the art result. Whatever you do, dont work for the human result. Keep your eye on alphabets and words and sentences. Dont let your eye wander off to life. If you give your spirit any liberties it's liable to play the bull in the china shop and smash your fine wares into a tragic litter. You want to know whether I'd seriously advise such treason. I say yes. Why not? You are an artist. You are not a man. You want me to price you by art standards. You dont want me to price you by human standards. The art standard might just as well be crooked as straight. It might just as well be a whore as a woman. It might just as well grovel and snuff and wallow as aspire and soar. The crook says: Dont judge me by the human standards. He wants to be judged by the crook standards. And from the crook standards why shouldn't a crook be a crook? The writer says: Dont judge me by the human standards. He wants to be judged by the writer standards. And from the writer standard why shouldn't a writer be a writer? Artist or crook. Crook or artist. It's the same. People think it wrong to steal money. But they dont think it wrong to steal words. The only word that belongs to the writer is the word that belongs where it's put. If it dont belong there then it's stolen. It's far worse to play false with words than to play false with money. Money? The next dollar may purify the money account. Words? Words may be prostituted forever. But dont let that discourage you. Make good even if you have to make bad. I cant see any other way out for you. Let the worst in you do its best for you. Dont be too squeamish. Remember that it's all dirty business anyway. Every step you take is a surrender. Down, down, into bottomless confusions you sink yourself. You haven't grown into art. You have built yourself into art. You haven't written out of people and life. You have written out of scholars and books. You have committed in words all the felonies of the calendar. But because they are words you haven't felt guilty. You say: They are only words. Why should a man be expected to be scrupulous with words? You might as well say of love: Love is only love. And you might as well ask: Why should a man be expected to be scrupulous with love? If the right word pays use it. But if it's more profitable to use the wrong word, use that. You express every horror of the white slave traffic. But what shall we say of the word slave traffic? There are houses of bondage. And there are books of bondage. Writers say words. But only a writer rare among writers says the word. Who is the criminal? The man who steals goods or the man who violates a thought. What are you doing with words? Giving them to life or giving them to death? Making them counterfeit or keeping them genuine? Not trying to get life from words? But rather giving life to words? You merchants in words. You traders of dreams. You who are always trying for art but who never try for love. You who always estheticise with the elect but refuse to fraternize with the crowd. You who go the way the wind blows. You who yield to art the tribute of life instead of exacting for life the tribute of art. You who are the climbers. You who would give up your souls for a phrase. You who would rather write a pretty sentence. You who would rather have a style. You who would rather be classified with the intellectuals. You who whatever you are beg, borrow or steal your way into eminence. You distorters of scripture. You criminals of words. You parricides of gospels. You executioners of discovery. You smotherers of freedom. You writers who are trying to write.

You writers who are trying to write. Stop trying to write. Then you can write. Live. Let the writing take care of itself. Trust yourselves to moods. Trust yourselves to words. Trust yourselves to what may happen. Then something worth while will turn up. The man who argues about his sins is sick. The artist who argues about his technique is sick. That accounts for all the dead books. A man who's busy telling a story is spending no time wondering how his English is. I wouldn't advise you to study to be an artist? No. I'd rather have you study not to be an artist. If you'll only let yourself alone your art will come. And if you'll only let your art alone your life will come. In that perfect result your spirit will triumph. But if you interfere with the fine balance either way you'll nullify the victory. Sometimes when I see all the liars of the world I wish all the books might have remained unwritten. But sometimes when I read a great book I see how even all the little books are excused. The man who tries to live generally dies. But the man who is indifferent to life becomes immortal. The super man is the man who's superior to life or death. The super book is the book that's superior to technique. The super merchant is the merchant who's superior to buying and selling. Super writing is the writing that's superior to authorship. You are not to be curious about writing. You are to just write. You are not to be curious about the reward. You are to just take what comes. If you're prosperous you're to ask: What's wrong with me? And if you're a failure you're to ask: Do I deserve such honor? You are not to say: I'll put a book into my life. You're to say: I'll put a life into my book. You are not to produce a work of art. You are to produce a work of life. You may have to give up your best adjectives. Or maybe your largest nouns. Or maybe a virile verb or two. To get what? To get life. You've got to give up everything to get life. The whole language if necessary. The whole fabric of delicate grace. All the flowers of speech. All the rhymes and lilts. All the niceties of manner and the assurances of routine. They must all go. All effort must go. You've not only got to be free of the alphabet. And not only free of the traditions. And not only free of the cliques. But you've got to be free of effort. You've got to cease trying. You've got to get where you have stopped caring or not caring. My call is for indifference. I say you are not to go round humble about what you dont do and proud about what you do do. Life dont call for arguers and hairsplitters. Do what you cant help doing. Refuse to do what you can help doing. Ease up on your nerves and your ambitions. Desire is richest in the absence of desire. A man's lungs dont ask any questions. They just breathe. His feet walk. His eyes open and shut. Shall a man's art do less? Shall it consume itself in quibbles? Shall it dress itself according to the mode? Or shall it stay in rags? You cant have both things. So which will you have? You cant advance and retreat at the same time. So which will you do? Can you imagine yourself neither alive nor dead? Can you see yourself neither anxious nor not anxious? Can you conceive of yourself as staking all and staking nothing on the survival of a book? No man can become an artist short of that. No artist can become a man short of that. Nirvana to technique. Oblivion to rules and traditions. Letting the soul retreat to nebula every time it wishes to advance to creation. Starting all over again with every word. Making every word again the first word. Are you to refrain from scheming? Yes. You are to let the waters flow unto their normal levels. You are to let the law take its course. The law of words. The law of books. A man may get into the way of looking too much into himself. A book may have a man's fault. It too may brood too much. Most every book that ever tried to be a book has gone bankrupt. And most every book that didn't worry whether it was a book or not has won a place in the human circle. It's an awful thing for a man to want to be good. It's as awful as for a man to want to be bad. It's an awful thing for a man's style to want to be a book. It's as awful for a man's book to want to be a style. It's terrible to want to be the worst man in the world. But it's far more terrible to want to be the best man in the world. You writers who try: you must keep on trying till you get beyond trying. The man who tries: he may sell out: he may go into the market with his equity. But the man who's got past trying: he's unshakably defiant. You fraud rhymers. You humbug versifiers. You dictionary hunters. You users of crooked words for straight. You professors and poets. I call on you to stop trying. I dont want to hear any more of your claims. I only want to hear of your love. I dont want you to waste your time naming yourselves. I dont care what you are called. I am only interested in what you are. You make me sick trying to be clever. Now make me well not trying to be dull. I'm as tired seeing you try to write as I'd be seeing you trying not to write. I want you to quit. I want you to get where you couldn't sell if there was a buyer and where no one else could buy if there was a seller. I want to see you who have been in verbal bond set spirit free. I want to see you who have given up all the life you know for words willing to give up every word you know for life. You writers who are trying to write.

Every seed counts in the harvest:

In the harvests of orchards and fields: in the harvests of bodies
and souls:

In the harvests of the topless years: in the harvests of the
bottomless spaces:

In the harvests of cruelty and war: in the harvests of fires and
frosts:

In the harvests we win in our love: in the harvests we lose in
our hate:

In the harvests that are swept into graves: in the harvests that
finish before they begin:

There is no better or worse in the harvests: all counts for all
in all:

Every seed counts in the harvest.

ALL THE ENGINEERS PERISHED

All the engineers perished. The ship went down. Some were saved. Some were lost. The rich were mostly saved. The poor were mostly lost. But the engineers: they all drowned. They all stuck to their posts. Not one of them lived to tell how the rest died. They had no chance to tell the world about each other. How heroic they were. How they nonchalantly smoked their pipes as they stood waist deep in water. How they cracked jokes to the last. They just stayed below. They took their medicine. They may have squealed. God knows. But they didn't run. They kept the lights burning as long as their hearts kept beating. Who has told their story? Let me tell it. While you are busy with the somebodies let me speak of the nobodies. While you are celebrating the people with names let me celebrate the people who have no names. While you are trying to estimate how much money went down in the cabin let me try to figure how much manhood went down in the engine room. While you are counting up the gods who are not men let me count up the men who are gods. It may be easy to die with the band playing and the world looking on. But to die in the stillness with no one looking on may be a bit more solemn. I'm not against dying. Dying has its points. Dying may be the surest way to life. Nor am I against living. Living too has things to be said for it. Living may be the noblest way to death. But I want to say things about these men and boys I never saw. I want to say things about all the men and boys I have never seen. The world over, everywhere, yellow or black or white; the men and boys. I want to call the attention of forgetful people to the crowd. The crowd itself forgets the crowd. It was sad to have the crew die. It was sad to have the steerage bunch die locked in a hole. But that wasn't half as sad as to have the crowd on shore more curious about the millionaires who died than about the paupers who died. I'm not drawing lines on heroes. I'm not worrying about heroes anyway. I'm thinking of people. My heart is drawn to people. It dont hurt what they wear. Let them wear velvet or canvas. Do you suppose I care whether they're bad or good? Rich or poor, they're people. Every man belongs somewhere in the crowd. Do you suppose I care whether he's at the top or the bottom? When the boat went to pot people went with it. Some because they had to. Some because they chose to. I cant separate the heroes from the cowards. So I accept them all as people. When I read of the fifty engineers that perished I felt as if fifty gods had been snuffed out. People talk of a man or two or of a few dozen men as if their death was only a soso bit of news. To me dying seems sense enough. I can see how we might get used to dying and enjoy it. But we shouldn't waste people. Our civilization is jealous of property and prodigal of people. I cant see such waste with equanimity. I want to save people. There's such use for people. They are so precious. They are our brothers. I want my brothers. I dont like you to drown them cruelly in the sea. I dont want you to destroy them in railroad disasters. I hate your wars. They rob me of my people. What do I care about your balance in bank? One man's life is worth all balances in bank. Even a mean man's life? Yes. Any man's life. I pass the derelicts on the street. They are thrown aside. They have no right in the stream. If they raise a protest they are called to order. The police tell them to move on. And the priests do too. And the statesmen. The stores and the factories say move on. There's no place for them to rest. They're hounded across the earth. So the engineers perished. No one said much about it. They took the engineers for granted. Did they take anyone else for granted? They always take the poor for granted. They expect them to be heroes. And they expect them to die without a growl. If they growl they are in a panic. If they say: You die too, they are ungrateful. If they refuse to die they are set down for cowards. Or maybe killed. They do die. They are sacrificed everywhere. They give up their lives for everybody and for each other. Trainmen. Sailors. Soldiers. They are all set up to be shot at or starved. The women who scrub the floors. The mothers who wash our clothes. They die for us. These engineers died for us. Fifty-three of them. Gods who kept a world moving. Gods who stood by the law. Laborers keep our world going. They're always dying for us. Dying for everybody. With no decoration. No medals or shoulder straps. Their names dont get into the papers. They get no hero badges. Poems are not written to them. No one says: He died like a gentleman. No. Laborers are so busy dying like men they have no time to die like gentlemen. They just get a little line or two when the time comes. All the engineers perished. That sort of a line. Just a statistical record without adjectives. Just a farewell without gunfire. Just a shrug of the shoulders. Three hundred nobodies were buried in a mine. Three hundred mere men. Three hundred dirty Italians perhaps. Three hundred nobodies the slaves of one somebody. Were they heroes? No one cares. No one even asks. The world is not curious. They take care of the world. Like the gods. They do everything. They are the providence of all alike loafers and workers. But they remain anonymous. They live a little while and die for good. They are not names. They are numbers. It's not John this or Stephen that or William the other. It's twelve men. The story dont list them. The story says: Twenty died. The next day the story says: Two more have died of their wounds. Nobodies. Died to save you and me. And yet they are despised. Not buried in consecrated ground. Though consecrating the ground they are buried in. Or the sea. The nondescript atoms of destiny. Lost in the cosmic shuffle. My brothers. My lovers. Given to the sea when it was not hungry and asked nothing. My darling comrades. Stolen from me when I had a right to them. I tried not to see the big letters in the paper. But it was too plain to be avoided. All the gods of the machine went down. All the engineers perished.

All the engineers perished. All the coal miners were choked to death. All the children took sick in the factories. All the girls in stores fainted and had to be sent home. While you've been looking for heroes I've been looking for women and men. Women and men are good enough for me. Being a man or a woman is far harder than being a hero. I can find you heroes but they are growing scarce. The heroes are not improving any. But the men and women are improving all the time. The heroes are on top. They dance on the roofs of the world. But the men and women are the foundations. They are not heroes. They are men and women. When things happen they are of course scared. All brave people are scared in danger. Only the cowards have no fear. Only the blind and deaf and loveless are heroes. A man has a right to be scared. And a woman. That dont mean that they run or do anything shameful or ridiculous. It only means that they know what they're up against. But they stay where they belong. They take care of things. Of this world. They remain in the shadows. Work on horror-struck in the darkness. Face death trying to beg off in the dead of the night. The men and women. Who are you who build on men and women? Who put your palaces on their backs? Who make them carry your burdens? Who suck them dry? You are heroes. You strut in spectacular places. You are heroes. But you rob them while they sleep. You are heroes. But you hit them in the back. You are heroes. But you lock them in the steerage and let them drown in a box. Yes, you lock them in the steerage. You have made the labor world a steerage. You have locked all the laborers in. They live and die without hope. They are jailed in your profits. Your incomes turn the key in the door. How can they get out? Your world is for the cabins. There are no boats for the steerage. The boats are for those who live without working not for those who work without living. No poor man has a right to live. Existing should satisfy him. This is not a world of live and let live. It's a world of live and let die. The heroes own the world that the people make. It takes time to be a hero. People have no time. They must work. How could the heroes be heroes if the people stopped working? So the people are not heroes. They're only men and women. They dont ornament the world. They just feed it. They just nurse it along through its sicknesses. They just do everything. Men and women are the ground the heroes walk over. They are the treasure all the incomes are drawn from. They are the ragtag and bobtail who are everything and count for nothing. The heroes got the band playing. No band plays for men and women. A princess in England had a baby. Parliament was about to congratulate her. Keir Hardie said: Yes, do it. But he also said: Let's condole with the widows and children of the miners who were blown to death to-day. Hardie had no taste. They all told him so. The papers told him so. And the em pees. And the priests of the church. And scholars in colleges. They agreed that Hardie had no sense of decorum. For they were congratulating a hero. A princess mother. But he was only condoling with men and women. What do a hundred mere men miners amount to compared with one titled baby hero? This world is not made for men and women. It's made for heroes. It's true it's made by men and women. But that's no matter. Making a world is one thing. I can see that. Letting the fellow who didn't make it possess himself of it. Dont you see that's another thing? Resisting his invasion would be treason. Every man can see that too. Dont you see it? If you fight for what dont belong to you you are a hero. If you fight for what does belong to you you are a coward. How could a bricklayer be a hero? Why, the very word is against it. Bricklayer. How could such a word describe a hero? But gentleman. Ah! that's a word now. That's the real thing. It's natural for a gentleman to be a hero. But no man could accomplish such a distinction. A man would first have to become a gentleman before he could in turn become a hero. So the men have given it up. And the women. They take a back seat. They retire before the grandeur of an impossible reputation. They just keep on doing what they have always done. They keep on working and dying. They go down in ships. They starve. They get maimed by machinery. They look heavy and stunned. They are stubborn. They make good in their jobs. But they are never mistaken for heroes. No one points them out on the street for heroes. They bob along like ordinary atoms. Like ordinary sunlight. Like ordinary air and water. They are not visited by the great or asked to serve on committees. They just stay ordinary. They just remain like ordinary food and shelter. Like ordinary love and hate. Like ordinary gods. And after a while they perish. They all perish. Like the engineers. Doing last what they did first. Keeping their appointments. They die ordinary just as they lived ordinary. Not even aspiring to be heroes. Not referred to as honorable misses and misters anybody at all. Not spoken of as though a man or a woman was dead. Spoken of as if a number was wiped off the slate. These men and women who perish being only men and women. Just as the engineers who perished were only engineers.

All the engineers perished. Did you ever meet a hero? I have met heroes. But they never wore medals or labels. Did you ever meet a martyr who was conscious of martyrdom? I have met martyrs. But they never knew who they were. And I never told them. Heroes dont hunt for you. You have to hunt for them. The hero is not the sun. The hero is an atom in the sun. If light was conscious of being light it would cease to be light. I know countless heroes. But they never say anything about heroism. Life is not heroism. Life is life. One man has more life than another man. He is not better than other men. He is only more alive. He weighs more. He looks farther. But he is no hero. A man is affronted if you call him a hero. He would rather just be a man. I think of a certain man. He was nonchalantly the most effective man I ever met. Was he a hero? He never went anywhere theatrically to do anything. He just stayed where he was and acted his part. The engineers just stayed where they were and acted their part. As the simplest workman does. As the scavengers do. Just acted their part. Can a god do more? Should a man do less? I don't say there are no heroes. I say they are countless. You see the hero in the exception. I see the hero in the rule. My hero never flourishes a whip. I see him serving. Let my hero stop serving and he abdicates. Dont believe anything the hero tells you about himself. Sure things dont insist on their reality. Every man has his place. Do you call a man a hero for staying in his place? If I heard anybody call me a hero I'd begin to suspect myself. I'd take my size and shape over again. I'd go forty days into the wilderness. I'd bury myself in the slums. I'd want to get away. To be where I'd escape the measurer. I see the heroes everywhere. But I see no hero. I see people in their places everywhere. Often most beautifully in hideous places. Often most hideously in beautiful places. Like the engineers they all serve. Like the engineers they will all finally perish. Like the engineers they will all reappear somewhere again. Heroes? The heroes work underground and overhead unheralded and unseen. The heroes make our shoes. They work in the trenches. They nurse babies. They take care of the world. They make it dirty. And they clean it up. They are its crowd. They are the mobs. They are the herd. They are the mass. They are all always called by all names but their real names. They are called dangerous. But if it was not for them nobody would be safe. They are called ugly. But if it was not for them nobody would be graceful. They are called stupid. But if it was not for them nobody would be enlightened. They are the eclipsed, the obscured, the submerged. But if it was not for them nobody would be a genius. And you sometimes speak of them as cowards. But if it was not for them nobody would be brave. You repeat it often enough as a matter of course that if it was not for the light there would be no shadow. Let me say it once for all the other way. That if it was not for the shadow there would be no light. I'm glad. I look everywhere. I discover no hero. I look everywhere. I never fail to discover heroes. All the engineers perished.

I dont know what it is: I dont know where it leads me: I go on
and on:

Whether along the common road or into the wilderness, I follow: I
go on and on:

The days are as mysterious as the nights: and the years: they
baffle me: I go on and on:

Something persuades me: something I like the feel of: it is
veiled but sure: I go on and on:

I dont know what it is: I dont know where it leads me: I go on
and on.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

What are you doing for the cause? Not for yourself. For all. Not to keep yourself going. To keep the race going. What are you doing for to-morrow that you didn't do yesterday for to-day? I dont say for what cause. I say for any cause. I dont ask you what you are doing with tasks I might set you. I ask what you are doing with tasks that you yourself set. I know what you do in eating and working at your trade and sleeping at night. You do that in order not to die. Everybody does that. I ask you what you are doing in order to live. I know what you say. I read what you write. I have heard your promises. But this is not enough. This hardly tells me what I want to learn. I know what you do with what you have to do. I want to know what you do with what you dont have to do. I can see how your pay may make you think. I want to know how you make your pay think. In short, I know what you do as a slave. What I want to find out is what you do as a master. Did I say master? Yes. Master of yourself. I never feel like accusing anybody. Like sitting in judgment on anybody. Down in my heart I acknowledge the last compassion. Rather anything than that I should forget your priority. Every man somehow belongs first to himself. Do I say that? Yes. Then I say something more. He also belongs first to the race. He stands for personality. There he's for himself. He stands for service and progress. There he stands for the race. I cant interpret his moods or his impulses. I can guess them. But their interior purport is beyond the reach of my vision. That is why I ask: What are you doing for the cause? And that is why I say: I shall not say what cause. The cause has done everything for you. What are you doing for it? In all the past it has been doing something for you. Now you have come. You have inherited its accumulations. What are you doing for it? I hear you say you dont see what you've got to be thankful for. I dont charge you with ingratitude. I only ask whether you are grateful. I dont even say you should do anything for the cause. I only remind you of what the cause has done for you. I dont ask you whether you have done your duty. I only ask you whether you feel that you have a duty. I'm not presenting a bill to you. I only ask whether you owe a bill. The cause has run an account with you. Do you run an account with the cause? Again you ask: What cause? And again I say: I wont name the cause. That which is the holy of holies to you. That is your cause. That which you say must come before what you put into your belly and on your back. That is your cause. That which demands sacrifice. That which insists upon its initial sanctity. That which persuades you more than anything else. That is the cause. I dont suggest the cause to you. You suggest it to me. Therefore I have the right to ask you that question which your own confession leads up to. You dont have to answer to me for it. You have to answer to your life for it. There's no appeal from the cause. It's the last court. It says the closing word. What can you say when you have defaulted? When you have done nothing for the cause? When you have simply existed and not lived? No man owes anything to a world to which he cant feel related. If you are an alien. If you are a cosmic vagrant. If you are lost. If you think of yourself as debris. Then you are not responsible. Then I dont wonder that you deny your heritage. But if in any rapt moment of inspiration you but once catch the face between the clouds you are from that time the servant of the eternal. Then there's no excuse for pettifogging. Then you can no longer disavow your responsibility. What are you doing for the cause? For the beyond? For the next step? Are you giving up anything for it? Or are you asking it to give up something for you? Do you pray to it for favors? Do you want cash down? Or are you willing your grandchildren should collect? Do you sell the cause like you sell goods? And if it's profitable do you bless it? And if it's profitless do you curse it? When I ask: What have you done for the cause? I dont refer to anything that you've had visible pay for. I refer to something that there'll never be any visible pay for. The cause is always in the darkness ahead. It's always the path unbroken. It's always the rough of fate. It's always the veil. Always the curtain. Always the shrouding mystery. Do you serve it for pay or work for it with love? Do you want to get life from it or do you give life to get it? One man says God. Another man says Cause. Any name might be any other name so it means the same thing. When I see what you do or dont do I know whether you are only a boarder on the earth or whether the earth is your home. I know whether you are a brother among comrades or a chance acquaintance among enemies. What are you doing for the cause?

You are doing nothing for the cause. You are making a living. But you are not making life. You are personal. You have not surcharged yourself with the general inspirations. Your motive is profit not service. You want to get ahead no matter how. You dont want to stay behind no matter why. Let anybody suffer. You mean to rejoice. You dont make way for the world. The world makes way for you. Service is not master. Profit is master. Downing someone else. Making good because someone else makes bad. That is your code. Staying alive no matter who goes dead. Sponging on life. Loafing on others. Taking anything you can any way you can get it. Accepting none of the odium of the cause. Shrinking from anathema. Avoiding unpopular opinions. Letting anyone do the work of progress. You doing nothing. That's the code. Others queer themselves for an idea. Do you? Anything but that. You pat them on the back. But you sneak the price. You encourage them to go on. But you dont go on with them. You scab on the revolution. They put up their lives. You put up nothing. They die that you may live. You live that they may die. It's bad enough to scab on the body. But it's infinitely worse to scab on the soul. You are strike breakers. You undersell. Just as you undertalk. Just as you underspend. Just as you underact. You hear the cause defamed and say nothing. When the battle is on you are nowhere to be found. You dont even carry water. You scab on your brother. You scab on your age. You are the revolutionist gone to wood. There's no flower on your stem. You let the others do the fighting. But you claim your share of the spoils. You say: These theories will be all right some time. But that some time will never be your time. My ears know your voice. I can tell when you are around though you say nothing. Little as you know it, I follow you through all the intricacies of your psychic retreats. Do you think you can cover your tracks? Right or left, up or down, in or out, across or around: wherever you go I tally you. Every step you take is within my horizon. Do you resent my inevitable attendance? You say: I mean the same thing you do. And you say: I am with you, only not so fast. You say: You can count on me, too, but not too soon. You say: You can depend upon my good will, but not too far. You've always some reason for holding back. Some reason for not putting up money or service. Some reason for withholding your confession. Somebody is always too violent for you. Too extreme. Too exacting. Too inevitable. You want at the same time to be and not to be. You let other men queer themselves for you. You see them lose their reputations. You know they put their livings in the scale for the cause. But you dont raise a finger to help them. You hug your poor life as if it was rich. You husband your prostituted treasure as if it was righteous. You let them work for all while you work for yourself. You are the master scab. You are the scab left over after all the other scabs have been beaten. And you not only scab on your contemporaries. You scab on your grandchildren. You scab on the future. You are sold out. You are pinkertoned. You have betrayed the crowd. You are one thing when you think and another thing when you live. You are one thing in what the world knows you for and another thing in what you know yourself for. You are the shot from the rear. Our enemies challenge us face to face. But you knife us in the dark. You are the margin of faithless revolution. You are the interior force which flings us into the clutches of reaction. I meet you every day I live. You pat me on the back. You congratulate me. You do everything but avow me. You are half a revolutionist minus a whole revolutionist. You dont scab the labor market. You scab civilization. You scab the army on the march. You create the panic of battle. You put the poison in the soup. You take all and give nothing. You beg what you cant borrow. You borrow what you dont want to steal. You steal what you dont mean to work for. You are the scab of the revolution. You do nothing for the cause.