Free Thunder and Roses by Theodore Sturgeon Page B

feet, and vertigo once in a while. Otherwise I’ve never been better.”
    Peg frowned. “Aches … what have you been doing?”
    “Oh—a little writing. A lot of reading. I holed up in Westchester with all the books I could think of that I’d ever wanted to read. I got right out of myself for a while. Not for long, though.”
    “What happened?”
    “It was strange … I got bored. I got so that a paragraph would tell me an author’s style, a page would give me the plot … maybe if I could have become interested in mathematics or something it would have been different. I was suddenly cursed with a thing you might call hyper-understanding. It made me quit working altogether. There was no challenge in anything. I could do anything I wanted to do. I knew how to do it well. I didn’t need to publish anything, or even to write it down. I didn’t need approbation. It was pretty bad for a while. I know what failure is like, and the what’s-the-use feeling. This was worse. This was what’s-the-use—it will succeed.”
    “I don’t know that I understand that,” said Peg thoughtfully.
    “I hope you never do,” he said fervently.
    After a pause, she asked, “Then what did you do?”
    “What you saw me doing tonight. Starting arguments.”
    “On maturity?” Suddenly she snapped her fingers. “But of course! I should have realized. You added nothing to that discussion—you just kept the ball rolling. But why, Robin?”
    He rubbed his knuckles. “I’m—very alone, Peg. I’m a little like Stapledon’s Sirius—I’m the only one of my kind. When I reached a stage of boredom at which I had to find some alternative for suicide, I began to look for something I could have in common with other people. It seemed a slim hope. At first glance, there was nothing which interested me which would interest enough different
kinds
of people to make me want their opinions.”
    “There’s always sex,” said Peg facetiously.
    “Sex!” he said scornfully. “The American public is basically disinterested in sex.”
    “
What!
Robin, you’re mad! Why, every magazine cover, every plot of every book and movie, practically, shouts sex. How can you say a thing like that?”
    “If the public were really interested,” he smiled, “do you think they’d need all that high-pressure salesmanship? No, Peg; people are most curious about the same thing that has been bothering me; I happen to be in the odd position of having to face it, which is where I differ from most people.”
    “Having to face what?”
    “Maturity.”
    She stared at him. “And that’s what most people are interested in?”
    “Certainly. You heard the argument tonight. I’ve started the same one hundreds of times recently. It’s about all I do, these days. I’ve heard it knocked around in bars, in parks, in subways and buses and parish houses. Try it yourself. Bear in mind, though, that not everyone calls it maturity. Some call it self-help, and where their self-help will get them; others call it wishful thinking. Coué was preaching maturity; so were Philip Wylie and the Federation of Atomic Scientists and Fletcher, with his disgusting idea of chewing each mouthful of food a hundred times; Santayana and Immanuel Kant and Thoreau and, in their twisted ways, Dr. Townsend and Schopenhauer and Adolf Hitler and Billy Sunday were striving toward maturity insofar as maturity represents a greater goal for humanity, or a part of it … it’s a sorry mistake to think one part deserves it over the rest.…”
    “Have you found out what true, complete maturity is?”
    “True, complete maturity isn’t,” he said positively. “But I
think
I know what it would be if it happened along. And don’t ask me. If I’m ever absolutely sure, I’ll let you know. Now let’s talk about you.”
    “Not yet,” she said, “if at all. I want to know first why you are making these rounds.”
    “Research,” he said shortly.
    “Certainly you can find more