5.06.2008
Tell Love, Not Facts
Thoreau's Journal: 06-May-1854
All that a man has to say or do that can possibly concern mankind, is in some shape or other to tell the story of his love,—to sing; and, if he is fortunate and keeps alive, he will be forever in love. This alone is to be alive to the extremities. It is a pity that this divine creature should ever suffer from cold feet; a still greater pity that the coldness so often reaches to his heart. I look over the report of the doings of a scientific association and am surprised that there is so little life to be reported; I am put off with a parcel of dry technical terms. Anything living is easily and naturally expressed in popular language. I cannot help suspecting that the life of these learned professors has been almost as inhuman and wooden as a rain-gauge or self-registering magnetic machine. They communicate no fact which rises to the temperature of blood-heat. It doesn’t amount to one rhyme.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Now THIS is why I love Thoreau so much.
Not that I want to see our sciences turn into feel-good communes, but he is so right that most scientists still have no skills in communicating what they do to the public, or even with each other.
It's all as dry as a desert and not nearly as alive, even when they talk about the most amazing things in the Universe!
Where is the next Thoreau, or Carl Sagan for that matter? Dare I say it is me?
Post a Comment