Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's deal with the Devil

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was actually a rather fine writer, perhaps not quite at the top level of all English writers, but, fairly close. Say, at the level of his fellow doctor-writer Somerset Maugham, if not a Shakespeare or a Charles Dickens. However, the fine writing we can see in his historical novel "The White Company", or his superb ghost story "The Captain of the Polestar", simply didn't earn him as good a living as he wished to have. In these, his more "literary" works, which he much preferred writing of course, because of their variety and subtlety, Conan Doyle manifests his real personality and understanding of the world as it actually is. And, the world is not a simple place, at all. The world is not a simple place morally, it is not a simple place materially, people are not simple psychologically, and cannot easily be classified into "good", and "bad". Put simply, we really almost never know exactly what is happening, or why, around us, ever. And, people always find this very frustrating, and unsatisfying. And, Conan Doyle understood this very well indeed, much better than most, I should say. And, this brings us to the world of the Sherlock Holmes novels. Because, this, most certainly, is not the real world, at all. And, Conan Doyle certainly knew this better than anyone, much better than he would have liked to, no doubt, referring to by far his most popular creation as "cheap fiction". Put simply, Conan Doyle was reduced to creating upscale "penny dreadfuls", in order to become rich. And, he did just that, and was very unhappy doing just that, and was immensely successful doing just that. Because people know they are uncertain, and are frightened, virtually all the time, the illusion of the serene, detached, all-knowing sage -- the Sherlock Holmes -- is immensely satisfying. Conan Doyle got the idea for Holmes from Edward Allen Poe's Auguste Dupin, an eccentric, intuitive young genius who uses his perceptive mind to solve crimes by means totally invisible to the police. The Poe character of Dupin is, in fact, a perfectly plausible one, in real life. However, Conan Doyle did something to the character to make him much more appealing, and much less realistic. He turned him into an invincible superman. While Dupin is a talented amateur who sometimes can do things the police cannot, Holmes literally can do anything. He's not merely an intellectual superman, he's a physical superman too, something Dupin certainly was not! Holmes cannot be defeated, if you have Sherlock Holmes on your side, in any situation, you cannot possibly lose, Sherlock Holmes is your Good Shepard, your Talisman, your Messiah, your God! And, we can well understand just how very uncomfortable the good Doctor Doyle must have been with that idea. It wasn't Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's idea to create a religion, I suspect. He just wanted to make money. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wasn't at all like science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Church of Scientology, was he? Or, was he?

A short poem

If you want to understand something, You feel deeply about, But don’t fully understand, You might want to write a poem about it. When you understand it, Your poem is complete.

The real nature of Israeli policies to their neighbors in the Middle East

I was thinking in terms of Israeli policies in general in the Middle East, with respect to their neighbors there, and, for some reason the song about women gossiping in Iowa, USA about 1900, from the musical "The Music Man", came to mind. The song is called "pick-a-little, talk-a-little", from its main line and chorus. In terms of the Israelis, the correct paraphrase would I think be as follows: Kill a little, talk a little Kill a little, talk a little Kill, kill, kill, Kill a lot, Talk a little more. Doesn't this sound like a pretty accurate description, in terms of Israeli behavior with respect to their Arab neighbors, in general?