“If men cease to believe that they will one day become gods then they will surely become worms.”
70 years ago, Henry Miller published those words in his book about Greece, a book Miller said was the finest he had ever written. Entitled The Colossus of Maroussi, the story follows Miller in 1939 as he travels the width and breadth of the ancient land, in the shadow of advancing fascism in Europe, in search of spiritual rejuvenation. And as he opened himself up, to his fellow man but also his own self, epiphany followed epiphany.
Greece is back in the news, as its debt ranks as the highest among European Union members and requiring $175 billion in bailout money to repay its creditors. And in America, there are signs that citizens are now in their own beginning stages of epiphany with protests, in various forms and efficiencies, springing up from Yemen to UC-Davis. The Occupy Wall Street protests, in fact, are being treated with a similar disdain that greeted the hippies, who largely took their inspiration from the generation of the Beat writers (especially Kerouac), who were themselves influenced by books like Tropic of Cancer, Black Spring, and Tropic of Capricorn. But Henry Miller knew that there are no political solutions to nationalist conflict or capitalist profiteering. The only lasting solutions come from within the self.
What to do? Back to Miller for this one: “Let every man search his own heart.”
