The Glass Bead Game

To study history means submitting to chaos
and nevertheless retaining faith in order and meaning.

HERMANN HESSE, The Glass Bead Game



The first thing you have to do is connect,
You’ve got to make yourself easy,
Like a beast that lives up in the hills,
Or a monk in a yellow robe with a wooden bowl,
Then you have to play the Game,
The best way is to dream the Game,
Play it the way you want the other players to play,
Your play can’t just be based on histrionics,
You have to feel it,
Like something that is about to carry you away
To someplace that doesn’t exist,
Except in your dream,
Where you can be behind in the race,
Then gain momentum to take the lead,
But when you look back,
You find yourself suddenly backed into a corner
Where the only thing you can do is to take off and fly,
To the top of the hill to look down upon your own intellect,
You’ve got to connect to what you don’t know
In order to be able to walk off the deep end,
To jump into the abyss,
Never to return.