Virginia Woolf believed her novel was one of her finest ever. As it turns out, it was also one of ours.

Does consciousness work like that? I suppose many view the random disparate thoughts as the true unstable ground upon which human interaction must be built, upon which we struggle in vain to barely discern and piece together what our neighbors, our friends, family, our enemies truly believe at any one moment in time in a hopeless attempt to patch together a stable, coherent landscape. Worse, for what do we ourselves truly believe from moment to moment? Inconsistent, contradictory feelings pull us first in that direction and then in another. Indeed, a great deal of human communication lies just below this surface of tumult. The struggle then is to find the light, a permanent ground upon which to mark our path and return home safely.

I take a reserved position towards my thoughts, neither investing them with any great symbolic meaning, nor bothered by the rambling, tumbling nature they sometimes possess. The struggle is not that we are cut off from one another, like atoms inside a molecule. The struggle is that we cannot be cut off, the impossibility of a thought that is not mitigated through human connectivity. Language asserts itself, superposes itself on thought. The true struggle is thought’s resistance to the rigid structure of language.

In light of this, there is always a good chance of having an evil thought because human existence is full of evil. A garbage thought for a garbage world. The struggle is to break free from the confines of malice, depression, self-doubt, pity, pathos – enough. Enlightenment? Yes, more of that please. But didn’t the Enlightenment program fail? Fail? It has barely begun.