Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company is a blog devoted to my very favorite author, Henry Miller, and yesterday’s post reminded me how much I love Miller’s Black Spring. The final chapter is called “Megalopolitan Maniac”, a riff on Miller’s struggle to find humanity within the crush of modern city life.
“Never more loneliness than in the teeming crowd, the lonely man of the city surrounded by his inventions, the lost seeker drowning in the common identity”.
To me, Miller’s writing is–among other things–about transcendence through creativity and self-knowledge. He ends “Megalopolitan Maniac” with these words:
“Tomorrow you may bring about the destruction of your world. Tomorrow you may sing in Paradise above the smoking ruins of your world-cities. But tonight I would like to think of one man, a lone individual, a man without name or country, a man whom I respect because he has absolutely nothing in common with you—MYSELF. Tonight I shall meditate upon that which I am.”
Word.