Ur-Texts: One Man's Meat II

I: Quotes

I may run afoul of copyright lawyers for posting this many excerpts from this book, but it seems the only way to communicate the charm of these essays is by quoting them.

From "Compost," the most disjointed of the essays:

On joining a "Friends of the Land" club:

"I suspect I joined my club only because I was rattled. When I am composed I feel no need of affiliating myself with anybody. There is a lot of the cat in me, and cats are not joiners."

On learning that old clothes are in fashion among the elite:

"It must raise the spirits of the millions to whom old clothes come naturally and inevitably to learn how blue their blood has been these many years."

On the ideal army:
"They will be imaginative, bold, and alive, but their minds will not be on conquest nor will they confuse raw materials with the good life. They will be trained to attack today's injustice rather than to repel tomorrow's invasion."

Following immediately after "Compost" is "Freedom," another of my favorites:

"If it is boyish to believe that a human being should live free, then I'll gladly arrest my development and let the rest of the world grow up."


"For as long as I can remember I have had a sense of living somewhat freely in a natural world. I don't mean I enjoyed freedom of action, but my existence seemed to have the quality of freeness. I traveled with secret papers pertaining to a divine conspiracy."


II: Formative Words

Coming from a program in media studies, it is hard for me to remember that, in this Ur-Texts project, I am writing about formative texts and not favorite texts. My experiences in media studies classes remind me that, as a member of the audience, my preferences (that is, favorites) matter; what they do not remind me is that I have been formed by these texts.

The above quotes, while certainly among my favorites in this book, were selected because they are ideas that rang entirely true with me when I first read this book. In contrast with my re-reading of The Dharma Bums, I find myself not re-evaluating this book as much as remembering it. These phrases are phrases I had, at various points, memorized, and used to direct my actions. Some of them, in particular the last quote from "Freedom," still strike me as beautiful and noble ideas that should be better integrated into my life.