Guilt feelings-
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fear that he finds anxiety. When he discovers that "the finite and limited character of human existence is more primordial than man."
OR, AS STEPHEN CRANE poetically explains: "When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples...
"Then, if there be no tangible thing to hoot, he feels, perhaps, the desire to confront a personification and indulge in pleas, bowed to one knee, and with hands supplicant, saying, 'Yes, but I love myself.'
"A high cold star on a winter's night is the word he feels that she says to him. Thereafter he knows the pathos of his situation."
AND PART OF THIS knowledge is the knowledge that man is alone. And a dying Hemingway hero, Harry Morgan, leaves his only legacy to the world: "No matter how a man alone ain't got no bloody chance."
So man must find something so that he is not so alone, or so that he seems less alone, and sees less of "Our nada which art in nada" within himself. His choices are two: death or commitment.
But it may take time to realize not only the choices, but even that a need to choose is present. That's one reason Fr. Tom Woodward, KU's Episcopal chaplain, is worried about narcotics and hallucinogenics. The use of which, he notices, has increased here.
"An awful lot of a kind of escape mechanism is around . . . like dope. It's dangerous. Even marijuana, which I understand is non-addictive, is still a signal that something's wrong.
"FOR SOMEBODY TO HAVE to get kicks this way, there must be an awful void within."
But that void can be covered, and remain somewhat unnoticed. Like one local new sound jazz buff and musician who said he's tried narcotics and hallucinogenics, "Man," he said, "this place is alive. Everything's happening. Oh, it's like a thousand kaleidoscopes."
And, in this man's world of paraphrased reality, the void that Fr. Woodward talks about may remain and be noticed, or may be covered over. Such drug use can be an attempt to escape or a bid for synthetic sanctity.
WILLIAM BURROUGHS, author of "Naked Lunch," was, for 15 years, addicted to "junk (a generic term for opium and/or its derivatives including all synthesies from demerol to palphum)."
In writing about the aloneness and debasement of himself through those years, he contrasts the narcotic with the hallucinogenic.
"All the hallucinogen drugs are considered sacred by those who use them—there are Peyote Cults and Bannisteria Cults, Hashish Cults and Mushroom Cults—the Sacred Mushrooms of Mexico enable a man to see God"—but no one ever suggested that junk is sacred."
And the mescaline mystic, Dr. Timothy Leary, has sideshowed LSD so far into the spotlight that psychiatrists working with the drug feel misuse and stringent laws arising from this may frustrate their efforts to understand its effects and therapeutic values.
BUT LEARY ASSERTS its spiritual character. "Throughout human history, men who have wanted to expand their consciousness, to find deeper meaning inside themselves, have been able to do it if they were willing to
commit the time and energy to do so.
"In other times," he comments, "men would walk barefooted 2,000 miles to find spiritual teachers who would turn them on to Budda, Mohammed or Ramakrishna."
And by saying that, he suggests that drugs have taken on something of a new meaning here. Nobody's saying that alcohol has.
"We rarely see someone we consider a confirmed alcoholic," said Dr. Sydney Schroeder, a psychiatrist and head of the student mental health center. They do, however, see it used heavily.
WHY? "TO SOOTH the anxiety that comes with conflict. Might say they use it in the way that we therapeutically suggest drugs."
He suggests that sometimes it is used for other reasons. "Sometimes when they use it that way (heavily) they do it to keep from letting others help them."
Something like the have-not soldier in Ernest Hemingway's "To Have and Have Not" who said, "... we are the desperate ones ... the ones with nothing to lose ... we have been beaten so far that the only solace is booze and the only pride is in being able to take it."
And "being able to take it" is an important point of the Hemingway code to which he committed himself as he committed himself to his work to attempt immortality.
"I am in rebellion with death," he once told actress Anita Ekberg.
IT WAS AN ACTIVE and conscious rebellion and one that was governed by a certain code of conduct. And this, suggests Fr.
Brendan Downey, Roman Catholic chaplain, that "the nothingness in Hemingway seems to be balanced by a great value of human work, courage, honor and integrity."
He finds the same true of William Faulkner.
"It seems to me," he said, "that Hemingway and Faulkner looked at the horror of human existence that they saw around them and found that, in spite of the agonies, it is worth being human to develop a high degree of integrity.
"MAYBE THEYRE NOT so very much different than Camus in that respect.
"And I don't see anything radically different with this view and the basic moral assumption of Christianity.
"Oh sure, you can interpret Faulkner and Hemingway as a kind of egotistic stoicism, but the egotist of Faulkner or Hemingway certainly isn't going to accomplish a Faulkner or Hemingway idea."
But of the writers that have written since these giants died, he notes a change. He sees none of this in Ayn Rand's work, in which the egotist can accomplish the ideal.
THE ESSENTIAL INTERPRETATION is that Faulkner and Hemingway were both believers in man's dignity and both committed to personal integrity.
There are many kinds of commitments, from Marx to Sartre to Hemingway to Christ.
And there are still many others, all personally made. And many people make them during their college years.
Vietnam meeting sets plans for interest gain
After what chairman Ham Salsich, St. Louis, Mo., graduate student, called an "incredibly silent" semester, the KU Vietnam committee sought "new ways of generating interest" at their 7:30 meeting last night in the Kansas Union.
Discussions of the draft, a demonstration innovation called the mail-in and money-making projects were among the suggestions for activities next semester.
THE GROUP INDICATED possible draft seminars, discussions, or debates involving faculty or student leaders and sympathizers.
A mail-in was suggested by Salsich as a Lawrence protest
movement. Protesters would probably march to the Lawrence Post Office with letters expressing their opposition to the war.
NO DEFINITE plans were made, but Salsich said the committee hopes to take a new direction in the coming term. He added, "This semester we have tried to work on the educational end of the peace movement. This has helped a great deal but we need to be more active."
Daily Kansan 5
Wednesday, January 18, 1967
Finals Fill Up
Chiliburger French Fries Milk or Coffee 75¢
The Pancake Man
1528 W. 23rd St.
Open 7 a.m.-8 p.m. Daily
Closed Monday
KU-Y sets plans for biennial meet
Thirty members of the KU-Y are expected to participate in the first YMCA Biennial Convention to be held in Kansas City, Mo., April 21 through 23.
Dave Dickensheets, Wellington junior and president of the KU-Y cabinet, James Perkins, Prairie Village senior, and Tom Moore, KU-Y executive secretary, have represented KU on convention planning committees since last spring.
ABOUT 6,000 are expected from the five-state YMCA West Central Area totaling 80 YMCA's, said Dickensheets. The states are Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Colorado and Wyoming.
The convention replaces the annual West Central Area Council meeting which was a legislative session. Under the new plan, Dickensheets said that these sessions will be held on alternate years.
National officials of the YMCA will be watching the results of the convention since a national YMCA 125th birthday convention is planned for 1969 in St. Louis, Mo.
PATRONIZE KANSAN ADVERTISERS
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