“It is to obey the command of life that reason finally comes, not through cowardice, but through courage, to a new mysticism. It is in vain that pure science advances; it thrusts back the mystery, it does not destroy it. Once the threshold of mystery is crossed, art regains its whole dominion.”—Elie Faure, the History of Art, volume iv, Modern Art

  I’ve returned. 

  Returned to the city of my birth, schooling, and upbringing. Like most others, all others I’d even say these days, it was a schooling in reason and science. It was little more than a trade school for a career squarely in the middle to upper middle class. Amongst the white collar managerial ranks and perhaps the odd ‘entrepreneur’ here and there. 

  It promised comfort, security, and above all, conventionality. 

  But towards my last year of Mechanical Engineering at University I slid off track, and what’s worse, began to read. On my own, without guidance, mentorship, or a ‘teacher’ to inform me of the canon, of what is acceptable in our ‘polite’ society and what is not. There was the usual early fare: Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway, even Dostoyevsky; but what really kindled enthusiasm in my craving soul was Henry Miller. And through Miller I discovered Oswald Spengler and Elie Faure. One German, one French, but two kindred souls imbued with the instinct of Life! 

  Who reads them these days? 

  No matter. 

  “It is to obey the command of life that reason finally comes, not through cowardice, but through courage, to a new mysticism.”

  What a profoundly beautiful message. 

  For today.