“I’ll tell you a secret—my things could never be popular… they are only for the few who desire and look out for that kind of thing, and are doing something like it themselves.”—Goethe, from Emil Ludwig’s Goethe, The History of a Man

Those are immortal words from one who lived in the remotest regions atop the mountain. Not precisely by choice, mind you.

For who in all truth would make such an arduously solitary journey to such uninhabited precincts willingly, knowingly?

It, for want of a better way of phrasing it, is thrust upon him. He is born with a burning drive to spare himself nothing in his quest. To deny that scorching drive, to turn from one’s allotted path… ah, that is what is depicted or signified by that old Biblical tale of Jonah in the whale’s belly.

But to follow one’s allotted path, to embrace it come Hell or high water… that is Heaven, paradise, nirvana, the Way of the Buddha, whatever you want to call it.

That is Life!

And here at the Omphalos Cafe…

Life is ALL there is.