as i was saying

.........and the reason I love those authors, and the recently sadly departed for another world Kurt Vonnegut too of course (how could I have forgotten Him!) is, apart from the fact that they write beautifully, that they are all looking for hidden meanings and questioning/probing reality. Well actually Dickens not so much, he's more into social justice and human frailty and compassion than questioning the nature of reality. On the other hand I suppose you could say that his books offer a kind of mirror reflecting the beauty and the ugliness of the human race and if you are into karma, for example, then its all relevant.

Talking of Karma, I'm sorry but it just does seem, as a friend who is a firm believer recently said it must do "to people down here..."a terribly callous philosophy. To say that people get what they deserve in the next life is pretty much what the Catholic church says. I can't see as to how its particularily revolutionary or way out. But it implies that the poor, the sick, the oppressed, the ugly, are that way because of their past wickedness. That of course is the justification that the Hindus have used for thousands of years for continuing to oppress the Harajans - Untouchables - they are the lowest caste and live in abject poverty despised by every other caste, and its their own fault! They should have behaved better in their previous incarnation.
And it lets dictators and monsters like Idi Amin, Hitler, Pinochet - just a to pull a few names out of a hat - completely off the hook.
Also it suggests that taking action to improve the lot of the suffering peoples of the earth is pointless and possibly counterproducitve, as it could work against the "higher power's" grand plan to place them in that situation in the first place.

Another beloved writer is Iris Murdoch (no relation to Rupert). Not reality challenging in the way of Phillip K. Dick or Vonnegut, but actually in amidst the complex characters and relationships of her books I often find myself washed over by a wave of the mystical.
It was in one of her books recently, Bruno's Dream, about an old man about to die coming to terms with his life and his death, and the people around him, that I was struck by the realisation that the most terrible thing of all must be to die knowing you missed the point of life, especailly if you did so deliberately and stubbornly. I don't know exactly what I mean by "the point" but to know that you have wasted something precious and something attainable! That must be terrible. And since reading that in Bruno's Dream I've noticed the same issue keeps cropping up all over the place, in factual and fictional works.

Which is part of the reason why I've stated writing this and why I seem to be so preoccupied, at present, with the metaphysical!

I believe in serendipity again, after a bit of a hiaitus feeling it was silly, and naive and over optimistic and also sort of bigheaded, to think that anything was looking out for me, offering a helping hand if only I would look and listen out for it. But actually I don't think it is naive. I think its perfectly reasonable to imagine that I myself am greater than my conscious self (which, lets face it, isn't particularily great) and that this greater part of me wants to communicate with the other part, and pass on some of its insight and understanding. As, for example, can happen in dreams. And maybe its not only my own greater self but the collective greater consciousness that wants to get in touch.