Page 37 - Big Idea

The Big Idea – Act 2

Yes: why am I here?
Why did I bother to climb up the hill
And get here on time?
Why have I placed myself amidst
All this hustle and bustle
And mystery and anticipation?

Just as well they didn’t ask:
I might have really scared them
And what good is doing that?

I might have told them
It’s not good enough just to purge
The symptoms of intelligence:
Thinking about things,
Talking to people,
Building shelters,
Making up stories.

No, because you can’t go back
To being like the animals.
Consciousness will come and go
Of its own accord
During the day and vanish all night long;
But it cannot cancel itself out indefinitely—

Sooner or later awareness returns
To the field upon which
It defeated the products of imagination.

And there it must face
An enemy it cannot defeat:

Boredom.

(DEFEATIST slouches back to rear of cave; INTELLECTUAL and
CLOWNS come forward, watching him go and shaking their heads)

INTELLECTUAL: Now, there goes a man who won’t use his head.

CLOWN 1: You think not? I rather think he’s used it too much.
Don’t you?
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