Conversations with Eric Hoffer; 12; Reading and Writing

We present a conversation between early coffer and James day. As he works on the dock or walks in the park. Eric Hoffer delights in pursuing a train of thought as a dog gnaws on a bone never knowing whether pursuit may lead him out of this process has come a mass of unpublished aphorisms. He doesn't quite understand why the form is not more in favor and three published books. The ordeal of change the passionate state of mind and the true believer. His books pass no judgments. They explain and the explanations all of them theories on the nature of suggestions in his own defense he cites one of his favorite authors Montane. All I say is by way of discourse and nothing by way of advice I should not speak so boldly.

If it were my do to be believed Eric Hoffer is a product of Skid Row and the free public library self-educated and a born generalized for the past 40 years he has been a laborer the last 20 of these as a longshoreman on the San Francisco waterfront Mr. Hoffer I've been impressed if not overwhelmed by the way in which you've cited literary and historical references to all of our conversations and I can't help but be curious about your contact with books. Protect your first contact with books. Well with that the books have played an enormous role in my life. My ear earliest memories of old books. I remember you know at the age of 5 was the day I taught myself to read English in German and. These days age of five you know this is a tremendous thing.

All my life I've known that I was probably a brilliant child and that I have been declining and it had been coming down since and I'm actually convinced that that genuinely creative person really exceptional persons and I don't include myself amongst them are the ones who can retain the mentality of the five year old all to their lives. And I remember at the age of five this is a very vivid memory whenever I cried and I didn't cry much because my parents lap their symbols. But if I felt uncover they were used to put me on a table pushed a table against a cupboard you know my father was a small town intellectual probably small town 80 small town and so he had. The books that that and self educated intellectual in Germany let's say at a certain time was buying was buying collecting in some English books and they were all in a in a cupboard with glass doors and they used to push over the table there.

And I used to spend hours hours on end playing with these books. I remember I can still feel that the forms of the book's not a title so much but I used to spend hours arranging these books according to color according to size according to the thickness and believe it or not Mr. De see the same mental process that went into air ranging the books is the same the impulse that goes into generalizing and collating ideas. And I am not an educator but I think this sorting ability the sorting impulse should be stimulated in children. Of course when I went blind at the age of 7 books were out of my life see. I mean Micah didn't read books to me she told me stories and she told and she gave me herself. But the moment I regain my eyesight I was sure that that is just a temporary colony. My greatest impulse was to read as much as possible. I wasn't worried about ruining my eyes I thought I knew that my God when a good anyhow see saw or read

anything anything anything and missed a day. If there is anything any uniform occurrence in my life it's the accidents. Again and again and again certain accidents happen to me. Lucky accidents exceptional accidents and I always divide humanity into two categories those to whom the right accidents happen and those whom they don't happen to meet out across my heart I suppose and so far the accidents happen. Now when I go to my site and I want to read I just walk down the street near some place called Edward square I think and there was a second hand bookstore. They are owner of the bookstore just happened to buy a whole library by a man I forgot the name only I know the name started with k k k maybe and so on. Now that that person there. Or that woman. I can't even I don't even know who or what it was a man or a woman and if I was interested in Scandinavian literature all translate into English Russian literature and sight see.

But. Mr. D. I remember it of course. Maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit. I remember the first time I entered that bookstore you know. During my blindness I imagine or maybe it was a real imagined or maybe how you really hear it. I heard my father say well you know I I lost my memory as well as I said at the same time and I remember him saying What can you do with an idiot box if I didn't know what is yours was easy but the the little they were here and I remember the first time I went into that bookstore. See I walked over to a shelf of books there and picked up a book with a title. If you're that you did this with the golden letters of that in your must have jumped at me of that and I was 15 at that time and that was the first time I read Dostoevsky is the this is the only book Mr. DEWEY that I have been reading the real reading you know regularly just a few weeks ago I

finished the I'm done reading and this is the only way I can check up on myself you know what I what I'm declaring developing and just about easier to I think. How can I find every real reading something. It's more in there. Now of course I became acquainted with the regular with the clue Thompson along with a whole bunch there and then back the other book. The one book that really had impressed me and right away was a large sized beautiful of printed books by sea or something or other an English traveler or maybe a scientist who described this sort of American jungle beautiful reproductions beautiful letters and I remember. How how I impressed I was I took like it took to it right away see my interest in plants my interest and growth. And you know later on was the day

on skid row there. Let's see. Towards in my late 20s and early 30s there when I was educating myself I had these fits of curiosity I used to become interested in a certain subject and I would drop everything and spend as much time as was necessary to acquaint myself with a certain subject. And I'm going to tell you how how these these books that I found in the second hand bookstore how they connected later on you know I just every year I used to work for a short time in a nursery Nasdaq you had along with the nursery is there now I think it belongs to you. We used to be a HUGE think you belong to the Guggenheim or something like that and I used to go in there once a few weeks and then quit. But every year when I returned I used to look for the things that I planted or transplanted to see with a group and if I saw a plant growing I was I had such a warm feeling I have I felt like taking that plant because it grew because it gave you the feeling you know that that you really could do something. And so when you

have must've been in the early 1930s I was transplanting tomato plants you know into small pots and then suddenly. I asked myself a question you know and that I don't think I wasted my time but I think I had the makings of a scientist maybe or or at least a botanist. I ask myself every lead. Then I question the question was Why does this then go upwards and it would stop and I got so excited because I knew for sure that somebody else already asked the question that the emissary is there all I have to do is go back to sunder the nearest town get the books out. I'll fight as I quit the job right there I got a freight train came over to San Jose and he actually started work I got in the library I went to the section marked botany and I put my head on a thick wall you know if you watched Rosabelle profitable gears and Book of battle it's a translation from the German. So I took out the book. I have always had a card you know what every library there and the length of California. I've had a few dollars so I got me a

warm. I got me a dishwashing job. And. Study but no matter how long it took. And Mr. D. You can imagine what it through man in this job need to ask for me to reach for us for years. Textbook of what every other word was the Latin word their emission from the Greek dictionaries didn't tell you nothing idiocy. But. Mr. D. S. I don't think that my mind is any better than anybody's as mine. Certainly I don't feel superior to any longshoremen advisor mentality because you are the only thing I have is that bull dog quality of putting my teeth into something and holding on. I believe in these qualities of holding on. I do actually believe that if you have a problem and you just get justin going to Logan Sam's solution will offer itself and I have these bulldog quality to hang onto something knowing all my ignorance. Knowing all the obstacles I can never give up. I suppose if I if

I transfer this quality to to the free enterprise system I made him a millionaire. Like you Lee I have ne because I didn't want to get near this so you had on the button that I want to button and I started out actually to make me an dictionary of my own and to try to. This is clear and keep putting more you'll this off. It's fun. Fix it. And then one day on my way to the library. You know there used to be I don't know where there are still there used to be second hand bookstores opposite the library in Jersey and there was a small book. It had a color of a paperback that you get in the grocery store you know and it wasn't even a paddle for some reason for some reason I reached over and I took that little book. And it was a germ of what family issues veritable. It means about panicle dictionary rot and I was still remember a book by a Professor Mueller in Berlin now believe it or not Mr. De. These But D'Amico dictionary was made precisely for

Strasburg various textbooks. Everyone think that I've had it I have to not was right there and not only need an explanation of every term give you the Latin there have ation So I learned a little Latin. Ill give you the history of every botanist What mention it was a marvelous thing. I wonder whether anybody in that you know Mr. De has the experience that you have something that will give you an answer for every difficulty that you have seen. And I spent a whole year to learn about me. I didn't go to taxonomy but I learned botany. I mean the anatomy physiology and morphology when I got through. This is it. So I was left on Tuesday but I couldn't separate myself. I couldn't park form that dictionary acuity thing with me and I remember one day writing on top of the freight Whatley was how I was thinking about something else I can't even remember what you didn't see it was a problem here and I got stuck.

I got stuck and automatically my hand went to my knapsack to take out that child from that magic book you know that needs all the answers and I remember I held the book in my hand and I suddenly realized that if I had anybody that will do my thinking for me it'll be the answers for me that I subsume for thinking I would grab it because thinking so hard so I threw away that that magic book at the end of it right there and proceeded from there not just to have you spoken about how you started reading. How did you start writing well writing is one of the most natural thing to me because I told you I lost my memory to it when I lost my eyesight for a while and although my memory now I begin my memory right away. See I mean I forgot the names of people doing things I've forgotten. But this lasted very briefly. But all my life. I said I am convinced that you can't rely on your memory. Always always when you want to remember something you get your notebook. You get your pen you write you I touch. So

writing a note book a pen is the most natural thing to me and I think this is the only contribution that I can really give to young people here and I've done it at Jefferson High School there. I went there and I told them about these notebooks and now actually you know the teacher they're a wonderful person has been in the habit of not books and they all have the same size more books than I am. They have the same label Ali and the number and they write down the number. I think this is going to be a habit and it's a wonderful habit to mechanical things but Mr. D You never know what you have until you write something down. This is the beginning this is the beginning. You can't rely on your memory you can't put it away. Expectation is you go all the see and so writing was the natural thing to of course I would have started to write without the Hitler became the Hitler hit me on the head. Mr. D. Those of us those of us who lived through that the key and we're approaching the only

aware of of what what is happened there we are not only which he is you know that we but we have gained a certain confidence to see. We have seen something that nobody else has seen before us. After all where did I get the confidence you know to to think about the world. Well I knew that what I saw not plate or out of stock do not German professor nobody has ever seen before. See that I have seen with my own eyes you know and I've seen the belly of the world ripped open and I could say here is the liver here the gold here that are the source of all of us now we have soared up the valley again that propped up the deer that horse on it. It's dead legs and all the promises I guess again. Yes well I have these these Where's and then we already mentioned Monte. When I first read you're saying there see I'm going to not going to repeat it but acquired a taste for good sense. Now if you have these kinds of questions done that you have and you have a taste for good sentence writing is there. It doesn't mean to say that that I write fluently or anything and I know I have to struggle with every

word that I write the first sentence there and if I was a pious people I was afraid that I write the sentence. I'm never sure that I can really write. Never never. After all these years see the only thing that I know that I have missed that is the one to hold on to something see to live with. See I cried once on the waterfront. I was I had a heart problem and I said to myself every hour on the hour I'm going to go out to the square of the hatch and look up to the sky and remember my truck. See just like a pious thing every child sees but I believe in family and I believe in living with your problems. Sitting with sleeping with eating with it. Carrying it around with you all the time. So. So should we operate or any of you have such a problem. You'll be surprised. All kinds of accidents will happen to you. You'll find out the whole world. Even the newspapers are talking about your problems. Even children as with questions of you talking about you from the whole world will come to your door and bring water and brick for you to be

here now. Yes. You've spoken of your father. You describe your father as a small town atheist. Does that mean that the Bible has no influence knowing. No no no. I I you know this is fantastic. I've never really started to read the Bible until I was 27 years old at the most and when. And imagine there are all of these that the book now plays in my life. You know I can write on nothing now without bringing in the Old Testament. What it is. No man or anything. See this is one of the central books in my life there and I think I probably know more about the Bible than the average religious person and yet I'm not religious. Certainly there and and in my other thing is that you know I really don't believe in God. And yet I can open my mouth without mentioning God and God please. You want to see these these these these these think that I'll commission how God and Old Testament has gone into the alchemy in their sea and and it's fantastic. Terrific. I couldn't tell you about it now because it's out of the world. Now if you have asked

me several times about the research how I do research actually Timmy's Knoxy I really can't do research. I don't know how to do the research. Everything that I know all these books that I mentioned to you all these books equity in my writings there I came on them accidentally. I just you know how you see you when you scold S.. I never hit it rich there but I used to I used to do this placer mining I recall a story you wash you just wash dig the jury and you catch this flakes and this is what you do use your mind all the time there and all your humor even all that you hear and all that you see becomes part of it. Yes yes. But actually you're doing you're thinking all the time you're doing it you know sometimes it seems to me that you just like turning over the clouds of everyday life you know between your fingers looking for some. For some here route you know it's the misery here that will lead you to the main stem to the main route you know of some

generalizations somebody's good laddie. You're always looking for a good one. And you you know Mr. De used to say that all points are on Earth equidistant from heaven. My convictions that all experiences are equidistant from tremendous ideas you don't have to have an exceptional experience to have an exceptional idea so you always experience the tiniest experience equidistant you up one day from the simple truth that of which all these experiences are only an illustration. I recall vividly the story you once told me about the talk you gave to a group of theologians or just go where you were asked how you did research. You know this was fantastic. As I told you I'm not a religious person and yet I have a love for the logins whenever we get together I feel that that we talk about the same thing although we would travel at different levels there see so I was invited by the sunlight into the twilight or sent in some order so out so I went over there and the professor in charge a very high professor visiting

professor from Tennessee was a shock for research and he probably told those those budding ph these there that in math and open their mouth you mustn't write a single word unless there was a research intellect and they probably resented it because I could see one of these students with a twinkle in his eye turned to me and said Mr Hope for how do you do your research and I wasn't going to let him down. So I told him. How I do research I said you're not. The way I do research is the way a man comes at six of San Francisco looking for something it was as if it was obvious you don't know. Now there are two ways of going or going you're going about it. You know in the way of research you go to city hall you go to the telephone books you go to trade books you go to if he is a businessman you go to the Chamber of Commerce he's a longshoreman you go to the union

office there. This is research. But there is another way and this is my way and my way is to stand on the corner of power and market and wait for the man that you are looking for to pass by. Now if you have all the time anyone in the world and you love the passing sure these is as good a way as any. And if you don't meet the man you're looking for you're going to meet somebody else and I think that that's you that just Although I think that the professor felt that there is there a kind of levity on my part but deceased. The rule is that I am not against research. But it's not my way. I can not I can not just go after getting to see the thing has to come as a byproduct because I suspect the things you go after are cataloged anyway. Well that's right and you know it's fantastic of course I'm interested in all these qualities in the hole in the home or in faith in

dictionaries. You won't find much but there is one other one and you would think that there should be stacks of books on it there. You remember in one of our last broadcast there I talked about I mean yes. And I don't think I talked more than about two minutes on it. I remember I told you the story about Clemens coming to New Delhi In the early 1900s and being taken to see the new buildings and he stood there for about five minutes without saying a word and then the officer who the British officer was with him asking what are you thinking about Monsieur le premier and commercial said I was thinking what ruins this with me. And I developed the idea you know that to judge the vigor of a civilization the vigor of society you can't. Gauge this figure just by seeing whether they can build. Anybody can build if you get them excited enough. But maintenance that the key to keep things in repair then the out. That's at best of the reality. Now for instance. Mr day after the last one you

know many contacts got through it in Europe. If you want to know which probably will cover fastest All you have to do is find out the maintenance record. Now you have been in Africa now you have all kinds of new nations. If you want to know which nation is going to be here 50 years from now you got to see that one that has the right amount of made and now I received a letter from one of the of officials of the school maintenance in New York asking me to come and give a lecture on many of mine if you loss of your maintenance expenses. I never knew I had a philosophy majors and I went to university or to the library I went to university library Mechanics Library on my wrist and you'll be surprised there ain't nothing on me. Again nothing I wanted to know where these inputs to me when I started out you know because I think this is one of the chief peculiarities of the oxidant is the capacity for maintenance there handling or maintenance anywhere else and that is that even now you don't you want find a Russian is only the right you have no interest in China. They even them got their word for it and I wanted to know just when these arrangements started you know because

maintenance ease and defiance of the teeth of time. You know it's Plymouth So what a tremendous person. His books are nothing but he Small Talk is tremendous. I mean if you collect all the cleverness on small talk you will get more insight into the human condition than shelves of books on historians sociology what clima source saw was this he knew that in these of the accident in India when MBRD and he could see that dragon of Asia coming in and sinking its yellow D's of time into all the Occident has wrought no new way of living. Just a skeleton of the ruins and the Occident is the only civilization that set itself to the fire you get the thought that you see that. But. Try it trying to find any information about me and so I want to know just when you know when maybe it's going to do with it with a sense of maybe maintenance started when everybody had a watch and was watching the time pass by. Maybe maybe this is connected with the rise of the Middle Ages I don't know but I'm going to then want to hear this today.

And eventually I'll probably get something but everything that I'm interested in. Mr. DAY. You can't just go and get a book on either of the books. I would not for instance think the question of who I think that one bright political scientist or sociologist a student a graduate graduate student here should actually try to write a small book on hope see because hope plays a tremendous role in politics in life and so on. And here we don't know nothing about. You've spoken of the excitement when you discovered one day when you spoke of much earlier you spoke of the excitement of when you discovered the King James Version of the Bible. Do you still find excitement in in books you've read so much. Yeah but I'm getting old and you know these Western far between. Imagine in your whole life down I told you a bit of excitement ahead about the book The Hanoi exciting sometimes only a phrase that you come across

a sentence maybe the sentence in the book by a man right. See Of course I'm getting old and I told you all my life I feel that I'm sick like always I know I'm today worse than I was yesterday whether it's true or not but these have been that simple fact and sense of feeling with me that I'm always on the way down. See but. You're actually think what Mr. D. If you read a book and you have one sentence that if you could have one sentence in any book you read that's enough because I'm not after the fact sort of. And maybe a warrant maybe a turn of phrase and it's words that can't miss a day. Now for instance the whole maintenace I had that piece of time in the teeth of that to the finality of that. And I can see the whole new drama you know of the Occident you know how we piece connected how the peculiarities of the oxidant the people of this set it's apart from all the civilization is simply to allow these which set off

man from one of the forms of life. See this is a separation from nature and defiance of the inexhaustible laws you know that's ruled nature and but so far all I have is a little metaphysics there that that's a real dork you know about me developing a taste for metaphysics. You know when she said that Christianity should never be forgiven for having spoiled my skull and I used to say that metaphysics should never be forgiven for having spoiled rotten and now here. It is. Mr. Hoffer this is been a fascinating experience for me and I'm sure for all of our viewers too. We've enjoyed talking with you. I know that you would be the last man to admit it but you are an unusual man. Your life's been full and you still continue to learn and to give. You've maintained a deep respect and a great love and a great faith in the strength and resources of your fellow man the man with whom you work on the docks and as a matter of fact all Americans and you can you demonstrate this by your writing and by the manner in which you live. We thank you very much.

I'm very very grateful to study. I couldn't have. Done anything without you. It's a tremendous fact to sit here and talk with you. You can imagine how much comes from you would go to the damn things down that would you would you. It has been an exceptional experience. Thanks very much. You've just seen a conversation between coffer and James the general manager of KQED. This is ne t the National Educational Television Network.