One who lived alone and who was very talented had shown how
the niceties of procedure govern the making of decisions and
recei ved a prize. Then his mother lost all sense of decision in
such a way as to render him incapable of properly deciding
anything. He did decide to take off his clothes on a railway
platform, and when those who gave him the prize learnt of this
they were ashamed. So they took from him all the means of
living that went with the prize. Then this talented man started to
travel up and down in his emotions: he worked slowly when he
was down and was always fired when he went up. He was not at
all strong but he was very large indeed. And he would walk in
the streets being hit by people. He said that if he hit back the
police would lock him up forever, considering him as dangerous
as he was large. He went on going up and down and up and
down, and then we learnt that the electric fire had set light to his
bedding and he had burnt.
There is one married
to
a man of considerable talent who is the
sister of another man of even greater talent, but she is not
talented herself, although acute. Her husband would not
discourage her from publishing her thoughts in the market
where his own thoughts are already published and where her
brother expected to publish his thoughts also. But when she
began to publish, her brother started to consider that market
cheapened, and he went looking for discoveries other than his
thought and in no way suited to his talent. He tested his talent
against drugs that might take away the memory of being
talented. The drugs have eaten into his thoughts and all but
destroyed his talent and utterly destroyed his chances of
publishing anything in any market.
