Disorder

It’s funny that whenever I write to you nothing seems to sound right due to the fact that I keep imagining you saying, ‘But why? why is he saying that? what is the meaning of all this? what is it for?’ Do you know, that sounds like Martin Spencer Lyons, big philosopher. Says, ‘What are you doing?’ and you say: ‘Writing a novel’ and [he] says: ‘WHY?’—with the voice of Gabriel, supposed to lay you flat under the why-and-wherefore of the universe. I tell you, man, a guy like Martin Spencer Lyons has been into the house of doubt-and-why and had to sneak out the back way, whereas you take me—I’ve been in that house and I wandered around all the rooms and I came out the way I came in. Ask me about the whys and wherefores of doing anything, or about the insanity of unconsciously contrived action, and I will say to you in my cardiest Mark Twain tone, ‘Shit, I even know the wall-termites in the house of why-and-wherefore by their first names.’ Good, hey? All of which is supposed to mean that one shouldn’t ask why all the time, and therefore don’t ask why I’m writing you this letter.