Advice - Unknown author It is time for you to stop trying to be so smart. It is time to abandon those plans for aqueducts, canals, sewers. It is time to burn your boats, to jump into the next free dinghy, to run yourself aground on foreign land. It is time to smash every inhibition on the shores of progress, then loll in the rubble, flinging shards of ship at gulls as you build empires in the sand beneath a beach umbrella. Basically, it is time to stop trying so hard. Instead, lie back and listen to the waves smashing shells to bits. Think of it as a chorus goading you to greater heights or as wild beasts begging to be caged. Basically, it is time for you to be heard. Remember to enunciate. Pay attention to vowels, the way they seduce regardless of the words they inhabit. Recognize how the names of things slide off their thingness like fried fish from an oily plate. Smell the fishy fragrance, injected into the steamy air by the mere mention of dinner. Fondle your imaginary skillet. How hard and dark and hot it is. This is just the beginning of your power. You will find new oceans, you will reside in a do-or-die mode. This is not necessarily a problem and thus the ironic, absurdist tone you have become accustomed to must also be abandoned. You must be patient. You must quietly await your one authentic voice. As Pound said, quoting Beardsley: Beauty is slow. For me, on the other hand, it is over, politically, and as a human being. I will never talk about myself again. I will be taciturn, modest. You will continue to look at me from the outside and not know what I have suffered. Still, it may be difficult to forget that I have been your leader. It is this indebtedness that will define you as my greatest joy.