A Noiseless Patient Spider

A noiseless, patient spider,
I mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;
Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;
Ever unreeling them—ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you, O my Soul, where you stand,
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,—seeking the spheres, to connect them;
Till the bridge you will need, be form’d—till the ductile anchor hold;
Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul.

So we of the scribbling class, we word-scratchers, like Whitman's noiseless patient spider, spin.

How do we justify such a life? As Kierkegaard understood, there is but one justification: the Socratic one.



"Perhaps, then, someone might say, 'By being silent and keeping quiet, Socrates, won't you be able to live in exile for us?' It is hardest of all to persuade some of you about this. For if I say that this is to obey the god [to theo] and that because of this it is impossible to keep quiet, you will not be persuaded by me, on the ground that I am being ironic" [Plato's Apology, 38a, Thomas G. West translation].

In the present context, "being silent and keeping quiet" is refusing to spin.

"And on the other hand, if I say that this even happens to be a very great good for a human being--to make speeches every day about virtue and the other things about which you hear me conversing and examining both myself and others--and that the unexamined life is not worth living for a human being, you will be persuaded by me still less when I say these things. This is the way it is, as I affirm, men; but to persuade you is not easy" [ibid].