Andy451 on 2015-04-20 12:24:57
Here was
a writer who refuted the hippie quest to find "the answer" to the
meaning of life, and all the large and small riddles of existence, in the
roaring twenties with her ex pat friends in Paris, forty years before there
were hippies. After the Beatles went to India to seek "the answer"
from the Maharishi, hippies everywhere sought out gurus to find the answer to
life's persistent questions. Some people used drugs, some went on pilgrimages,
some lived on communes, some joined Vista or the Peace Corps, some practiced
meditation, or attempted to live closer to nature in order to find "the
answer." They went to Yasgur's farm in Woodstock, New York for example.
Wittgenstein and Nietzsche would agree with Gertrude Stein, being philosophical
boyos who hated rigid and orthodox systems of thinking or feeling. Voltaire
would disagree. And his answer? No, it was not to go on a wild goose chase for
the Holy Grail like the brave and bold knights of Monty Python. A friend of
mine saw Voltaire once at a Whole Foods market in Queens one time. He was
hurling pesticide free Gala apples, free range chickens, and locally grown
heirloom tomatoes and corn on the cob picked that day at upper management types
and ordinary customers. "Plant your own garden!", he yelled at the
people in a jaunty French. Of course, it could be that he was just swearing at
people, and this platitude is only a polite malapropism for what he really said.
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