Following Your Own Authority

By: Charles Brooks

During my life, I have often rejected one authority only to accept another.  Underneath, I was afraid at the thought of living in a world where there was not someone, somewhat like myself, who knew.  But I have now come to feel that, to know what one is doing with life, it is no use to consult authorities.  It is precisely through the veils which authorities have spun for us that our own ears and eyes and nerves must begin to penetrate if our hands are to grasp the world and our hearts to feel it.  We must recover our own capacity to taste for ourselves.  Then we shall be able to judge also.