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practiced so long and so hard suppressing your emotions that now you can't let them go when you
want to. . . ."
There was more of the same, much of which I had already figured out for myself. That part
was fine; no disagreement. But what to do about it? I learned that the chances of improvement by
psychoanalytical or similar treatment go down rapidly after the age of thirty, and over forty it
is so small as hardly to be worth bothering
with. After a year of spending the psychiatrist's time and my money, we gave up.
I had kept my house all this time. I had in fact adapted myself intelligently to living in
a house, and I had accumulated such masses of scientific books, magazines, pamphlets, and other
printed matter that I could no longer have got into an ordinary apartment. I had a maid, old and
ugly enough so that sex should not raise its head. Otherwise I spent my time away from the office
alone in my house. I learned to plant the lot with ground cover that required no mowing and to
hire a gardener a few times a year so as not to outrage the neighbors too much.
Then I got a better job here. I sold my house on Long Island and bought another here,
which I have run in the same style as the last one. I let the neighbors strictly alone. If they
had done likewise I might have had an easier time deciding what to do with my discov. cry. As it
is, many suburbanites seem to think that if a man lives alone and doesn't wish to be bothered, he
must be some sort of ogre.
If I write up the chain reaction, the news will probably get out. No amount of security
regulations will stop people from talking about the impending end of the world. Once having done
so, the knowledge will probably cause the blowing-up of the earth-not right away, but in a decade
or two. I shall probably not live to see it, but it wouldn't displease me if it did go off in my
lifetime. It would not deprive me of much.
I'm fifty-three and look older. My doctor tells me I'm not in good shape. My heart is not
good; my blood pressure is too high; I sleep badly and have headaches. The doctor tells me to cut
down on coffee, to stop this and stop that. But even if I do, he can't assure me a full decade
more. There is nothing simple wrong with me that an operation would help; just a poor weak body
further abused by too intensive mental work over most of my life.
The thought of dying does not much affect me. I have never got much fun out of life, and
such pleasures as there are have turned sour in recent years. I find myself getting more and more
indifferent to everything but physics, and even that is becoming a bore.
The one genuine emotion I have left is hatred. I hate mankind in general in a mild,
moderate way. I hate the male half of mankind more intensely, and the class of boys most bitterly
of all. I should
love to see the severed heads of all the boys in the world stuck on spikes.
Of course I am objective enough to know why I feel this way. But knowing the reason for
the feeling doesn't change the feeling, at least not in a hardened old character like me.
I also know that to wipe out all mankind would not be just. It would kill millions who
have never harmed me or, for that matter, harmed anybody else.
But why in hell should I be just? When have these glabrous primates been just to me? The
headshrinker tried to tell me to let my emotions go, and then perhaps I could learn to be happy.
Well, I have just one real emotion. If I let it go, that's the end of the world.
On the other hand, I should destroy not only all the billions of bullies and sadists, but
the few victims like myself. I have sympathized with Negroes and other downtrodden people because
I knew how they felt. If there were some way to save them while destroying the rest. . . But my
sympathy is probably wasted; most of the downtrodden would persecute others too if they had the
power.
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