i returned home through the snow. Crossing the road i lost my footing on a patch where cars had impacted the snow into a frictionless patina, and as i was falling i reflected that knowledge presents similar problems to snow – where many have trodden, the ground is icy, one just skids along, unable to generate the friction for a proper step; and as civilization progresses, it is harder to find fresh snow, where the foot can crunch and tread; one needs to approach the matter differently, to contemplate ancient knowledge as a modern man, or modern knowledge as an ancient – either is like wearing snowshoes – there is friction, a useful strangeness. The world is strange but accumulations of research disguise this. So academics never seem to approach the matter itself – they get as far as “what Nietzsche said” or “the Leavis position” and go no further. Hence academics are constantly citing other academics – they entirely lack the innocence one needs, to see things as they are, as strange. Everything is familiar to the academic – that is to say, false. Nothing is familiar.

- Elberry