Another letter about our need for people

Well, of course, on social terms there can’t be any reason for attempting to do something that society will make as difficult as possible, in which the rewards are distant and almost unreachable, if it is open to someone to do something for which society provides some facilitation and reward.

But an idealistic person might see something in doing something against the prevailing ideology, which is badly in need of a counterblast, and proceeds on its juggernautish track without a breath of opposition.

Or an idealistic person might see something in helping people of high ability to become productive so that they can contribute to the advancement of science, to prevent their lives being completely wasted in agonising frustration.

I know that these considerations very rarely have any weighting in people’s minds, but it is not absolutely impossible for them to do so.

Christine, for example, always had an ambition to help a genius. This certainly was not suggested to her by the prevailing ideology, and her family disapproved of the idea, telling her that geniuses were all mad and she would not like it if she met one. But she read The Human Evasion, inferred from what was said in it that I needed help, and came.

If I were not tied down hand and foot (the image of Gulliver immobilised by the Lilliputians comes to mind) I would be making progress of a kind which no-one else is likely to make, one ‘breakthrough’ (as they call it) leading to others, all getting closer to significant issues.

As it is, all I can do is work towards a position in which I can start research on the smallest scale aimed in the direction of the major breakthoughs which I strongly intuit are there. (Even if they are not, the research I will do when I can will break very important new ground and significantly extend the territory of science.)

Even if I am the only one to do so, I find it intolerable that I should not be able to do this research before I die. When I am dead the window of possibility created by my ability and the discoveries I have already made will be closed.