I've looked everywhere, and I'll be damned if I can find it, but I know I read that passage somewhere; I think in Kerouac; but I can't locate it now, so you'll just have to go along with me that it's there.
Would I lie to you?
It's a scene in which a young supplicant, an aspiring poet, somebody like that, seeks out this knowledgeable old philosopher -- kind of a Bukowski or Henry Miller figure -- in Paris or New York or somesuch bustling metropolitan situs . . . and the kid comes to the old guru in his ratty apartment, and he sorta kinda asks him that old saw about the meaning of life. Correction: LIFE. He squats there and says to the old man, "What's it all about? What's it mean? Huh?"
And the old man purses his lips and beetles his brow; he perceives the kid is really serious about this; it's not just jerk-off time. So he nods sagely, and clasps his hands behind his back, and he walks to the window and stares out at the deep city for a while, just sorta kinda ponders for a while. And finally, he turns to the kid and he says, with core seriousness, "You know, there's a lotta bastards out there."
Now that's pretty significant. I think. On the other hand, I have never made my residence in a stalactite-festooned cave high up on the northern massif of Chomolungma (Everest to you). I have never been sought out by fawning sycophants, whimpering to abase themselves before my wisdom, hungering to prostrate themselves and to offer ablations at the altar of my Delphic insights.
…
Harlan Ellison doesn’t fuck nonsense, go read …
via loopInsightDOTcom
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