to the 'compact majority' 2008

We were talking about tools....
Here is is another kind of tool used in opening the mind, a book seldom listed by cruisers in their onboard library.
It's a quote from the Introduction to the Wanderer, Sterling Hayden's autobiography.


"....
I have long been both dismayed and astonished by the disparity that exists between the world known in the dreams of youth and the world we find ourselves faced with. There was a time - it makes me laugh now - when I even thought I might be able in some infinitesimal way to make the world a better place....

Who knows about these things?

Better we should kick over the traces and take up drifting or wandering, secure in the irrefragable knowledge that if only there were enough enlightened wanderers around, this world would be a far better place, if not for the wanderer himself then for the compact majority. What was it Ibsen said 'The greatest enemy to truth and justice among us is the compact majority,'
......

'But I think he swaggered
So he could pretend
The other side of Nowhere
Led Somewhere in the end.' H. Sewall Bailey

And to all would-be wanderers..... Hail! Not farewell.
Sterling Hayden
On the road
Summertime 1977"

........;)