19.

Young men who seek wisdom and the yoke of the sages come to them hoping beyond hope that there is something significant out there for them to discover after all, having a tentative faith that there is something amazing and profound in this life. They hope against hope--for deep down there is within them that thought--"No, I have no great innovation to offer the world, everything shall be explained by a prosaic science, the mystic is a foolish stargazer and there is no secret mystery in this world at all." But we communicate by means of analogy, and live in a common world by means of approximation. For if I said to you, "A man walking down the street looked to the clouds and thought, 'Perhaps there will be rain today,' " you know what I mean, though my words are not precisely the truth of the matter. And this man has had this thought, but he has not quite had it, but only by analogy; and he has truly walked down the street only by means of an approximation. Unconsciously we match the fuzzy outlines of language to the event--though the event itself is forever ineffable, as incommunicable as the flavor of a bitter apple. And when we taste the strong bite of the bitter apple, and then look to the black squiggles of letters printed on a page that are supposed to describe it, we realize an incompatibility between the two; and understand finally that the answer to everything is, "Sort of, kind of, somewhat"--and this is proof that young men need not to seek any sage to find the magical here on earth.