Seeking Wisdom

I just finished reading Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge. In the novel, Larry is seeking knowledge, truth, something bigger than himself, and he discovers the Absolute, which is eternal because of its completeness and perfection unrelated to time. It is truth and freedom. God is within or nowhere. He finds a Guru who “taught that we are all greater than we know and that wisdom is the means to freedom. He taught that it is not essential to salvation to retire from the world, but only to renounce the self. He taught that work done with no selfish interest purifies the mind and that duties are opportunities afforded to man to sink his separate self and become one with the universal self.” Although the writer decries worship of God, we hear similar messages in traditional Christianity--we must be selfish and we must serve, and we're part of the One. Larry discovers selflessness, and he finds happiness.

“The only obligation any artist can have is to himself. His work means nothing, otherwise. It has no meaning,” Truman Capote's good advice for any writer.

“Writing is one way of discovering sequence in experience . . . connections slowly emerge. Like distant landmarks you are approaching, cause and effect begin to align themselves . . . experiences . . . connect and are identified as a larger shape.”  - Eudora Welty