“Never mind studying contemporaries and those who strive with you; study the great men of the past, whose works have maintained their value and stature for centuries. A truly gifted man will naturally so incline, and the desire to delve into the great precursors is the very mark of a higher endowment.”—Goethe, from Will Durant’s Rousseau and Revolution

  After dropping out of Mechanical Engineering in my last year I took to reading with a vengeance. History, philosophy, literature, art, you name it: I devoured it. I was insatiable. 

  Having found what I wanted to do I decided to sign up for the Humanities at the Liberal Arts College at my local university. Immediately I felt like I had put myself in harness again. The reading list was fed to us and the professors stood up, or sat down, in the class and droned on for an hour or so while we diligently took notes. 

  “Who is this guy?” I began to ask after a few short weeks, “What gives him the right to stand up there and teach at me? What has he accomplished and why have I apprenticed myself to him?” 

  What’s more I no longer had time to spend with the Giants that had been firing my imagination and feeding my soul. 

  It wasn’t long before I left academia for the last time. 

  Simply put I had already discovered that Goethe’s “great men of the past, whose works have maintained their value and stature for centuries,” were readily available in decently stocked libraries and the many used books stores scattered around my city. What need did I have for someone to interpret them for me, when and if we got around to them? 

  In the end here’s the truth school and those hungry for Truth who sign up for degrees purportedly aimed at It overlook: the trial and experience of discovering the Giants, of encountering them on your own and delving into the depths of Wisdom contained within them is the all in all. 

  There are no shortcuts. 

  The journey IS the destination…

  Anyway, the Omphalos Cafe as sparsely read as it is is the fruit of forty years spent in the company of Goethe’s ‘great men of the past,’ or as I like to refer to them, ‘Giants of the Human Spirit.’ 

  Thank you for reading…

  And I hope you derive something from it…

  Not about me…

  But about them….!