I call this the Legend. Across this triple stage, between Life, the Cafe Limbo and the Legend, a drama is endlessly presented. Those who belong exclusively or predominantly to Life are saints, mystics and artists. Those who belong exclusively or predominantly to the Legend are power-maniacs, rulers, heroes, demagogues and liberators. Most of us spend the greater part of our time in the Cafe Limbo, casting an occasional glance in the direction of Life, and more than an occasional one in the direction of the Legend.
Laughter is our best recourse, with the bar to provide a fillip as and when required.
The Cafe Limbo is licensed. This same pattern may be traced more particularly and tragically in a single countenance, as anyone will be aware who has had occasion to watch over a loved face hovering between sanity and madness. You study the loved, distracted face as a scholar might study some ancient manuscript, looking for a key to its incomprehensibility. What you see is a fight to the death between the Will and the Imagination. I am well aware that, psychiatrically speaking, this is nonsensical.