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It was not difficult to project that the more knowledgeable one became, the less one would have in common with more and more people, to the extent that one would eventually become isolated. However my thinking at the time was that the knowledge was what was really important. In the end one can talk to others, but should not expect them to be able to talk back on one's own level. If one is interested equally in everything, it doesn't matter.
My biggest influences were the Tao Te Ching, perhaps Thoreau's Walden and Alan Watts. In that year there was a public television series called “Eastern Wisdom and Modern Life”, in which Watts introduced me to eastern concepts, like Buddhism, Zen and the I Ching. These concepts intrigued me and were a definite influence on my future thinking.
After a year I was becoming pretty unproductive. I was sleeping late and mostly watching TV. My favorite was Steve Allen out of Hollywood before it apparently became popular. Almost no one in the studio audience. He would bring on some pretty offbeat characters for those days, like the guy in a bathing suit with hair and beard down to his waist carrying a four foot long dead fish. Steve took the camera on occasion out on the street and next door to a pizza parlor. The most amazing thing was Steve Allen could laugh hysterically at almost anything.
My problem was I needed experience. I had run the gamut of myself. And since I was going to base all future knowledge on real experience, I would need to go out into the world. However I was not likely to do this on my own. It was not a part of my constitution.
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