Should I quit drinking? Are Seagrams and Anheuser-Busch Illuminati companies? Is alcohol a drug to subdue the masses and dampen the fiery Heraclitan spirits of artists?

I am an artist. What I have been lacking is personal power. What has been stopping me? I have been stopping me. Not them. THEY are small, scared, stupid, weak. Their mediocrity and ability to conform has given them advantages they are not imaginative enough to exploit. It is indeed a case of giving bread to a man with no teeth!

I have been lacking personal power because I have been lacking direction and/or purpose. There must once again be a goal, a goal so shiny and bright that I can suffer through the worst and cherish the best. A Holy Grail!

I'm thinking of quitting drinking because yesterday - for the first time in at least five months - I actually felt happy and - almost more importantly - IN THE MOMENT. Happiness. Happiness. Wow. Happiness now feels strange - like a totally foreign and alien emotion - and even disconcerting.

Am I a barometer of forces? My forces have, so far, been restrained by one thousand and one things. I'm a builder. I took a nap today and I could feel the "elan vital" coursing in, out, through me, under, over, around me and in all directions. Would alcohol dampen that force? Should I take joy in sex and creativity alone.

Should I put away the last childish thing (alcohol) and reinvent myself as some kind of Goethe?

Just as long as I do not become as strong and reliable as Goethe. The worst thing a man can be nowadays is strong and reliable.