the pursuit of pleasure

It occurs to me that the question ‘why do i feel?’ is answered through an exploration of that feeling, through an indulgence in the substrate of that question. To unrestrainedly debauch oneself in abeyance to the ultimate ‘why?’ is the path of the true seeker of love and of sorrow. Only through complete immersion in that feeling can we hope to approach some understanding of it, using only the organ of the heart.

death of chatterton

This is why those who are only interested in the ‘how’ cannot understand the scented language of languid drooping flowers or secret opiate pathways traversed by the mystic poet.

I have been reading Coleridge’s letters. He really didn’t like Scott. He talks about addiction to Laudanum – “a species of madness, only that it is a derangement, an utter impotence of the Volition, & not of the intellectual Faculties-” and about his rift with Wordsworth. He despaired that people seemed content to be more or less enslaved in their own country – I think Australia is just like that. I am tired of tyranny and want a revolution.