Friday, February 5, 2016

SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE EARLY HOURS OF UNREASON




FIVE-O-CLOCK RAMBLING
A THREE PIPE PROBLEM





I have been a Sherlock Holmes devotee since my earliest teen years.    I have read and reread the stories many times, and am still today fascinated anew.

I woke up this morning about four a.m. with an annoying headache.  I tossed and turned and tried to get back to sleep.  I coughed and sniffled and lay awake for about an hour; all the time my monkey mind running random thoughts through my conscious/subconscious.  

I recently read an article about the life of Arthur Conan Doyle.   I find it strange that the man who penned the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the epitome of logic, would spend the last thirteen years of his life proclaiming the existence of fairies, ghost, an afterlife and communication with the dead.    

As Sherlock Holmes said in The Read-Headed League; this is a three pipe problem.

I see this as an example of the so called atheist in the fox hole – where some people approaching the end of life, and unable to accept the reality of death, cast about for any assurance that their life will not end.

This was totally illogical from an otherwise logical mind – a ‘want’ to confer the existence of magic over logic.   Immortality: the same thing that religions have been peddling to the punters from the earliest times. 

When the hour is early, the house is quiet, my wife and the cats are asleep; to stop the cacophony of the idiot monkeys I find it easier to take a single thought to a conclusion – in writing. 

the Ol’Buzzard


3 comments:

  1. How interesting about Conan Doyle. We appreciate your sharing your early a.m. musing with us (and I'm sure your wife & cats do, too!)

    ReplyDelete
  2. The monkeys are always their wildest at night when it's quiet. They will make you crazy if you let them.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Realizing one is mortal has an astounding affect on one's ability to sleep, wondering how far we are from the edge of the abyss.

    ReplyDelete

COMMENT: Ben Franklin said, "I imagine a man must have a good deal of vanity who believes, and a good deal of boldness who affirms, that all doctrines he holds are true, and all he rejects are false."