"I am even prepared to admit something else, something quite different. The experts never get to the end of anything. Its not only that they haven't got to the end of anything today. But they can't even picture the idea of their activities ever being complete. Perhaps they can't even wish it. Can one imagine, for instance, that man will still have a soul once he has learnt to understand it completely and manage it biologically and psychologically? And yet that is the state of things we are trying to achieve. There it is. Knowledge is an attitude, a passion. Actually an illicit attitude. For the compulsion to know is just like dipsomania, erotomania, and homicidal mania, in producing a character that is out of balance. It is not at all true that the scientist goes out after truth. It is out after him. It is something he suffers from. The truth is true and the fact is real without taking any noice of him. All he has is the passion for it. He is a dipsomaniac whose tipple is facts, and that leaves its mark on his character. And he doesn't care a damn whether what comes of his discoveries is something whole, human, perfect--or indeed what becomes of them! It's all full of contradictions and passive suffering and at the same time enormously active and energetic."
--from Man without Qualities
.Davo lifts a thermo-mug full of cold water: Here's to being imbalanced...
--Photo: Davo, Seattle, December 2007
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