In the end, what has a man but his thoughts? I would postulate further, what has a man to stand for, but his thoughts? His actions, perhaps? I know precious little of actions. Lions, donkeys, hyenas. They all act. So is that what we are? No. We are more and less than the beasts. We are thoughts. We are actions and the reflections upon those actions. Yet, we are also not merely reflections. We are not mirrors.
That is the preserve of spirits, of the gods. We are actions and the thoughts upon actions. Neither one nor other. We are free neither from action, nor from thought. Our humanity can only be understood if we embrace both the animal and the god within us. As humans, we must nourish both, yet America is a land of action. A place fixated not on ideas, not on the redemptive power of thought but on the obliteration of the intellect.
It is a place wherein mankind has attempted to deny half of his being, and in pursuing freedom has attempted to split himself. Much like the
