Skill, sensitivity, beliefs - these are the measures for recognizing the meaning that others intend. Go to sleep. Gaze into the mirror of your tv... Is she wearing size nine or ten pin bloomers? The hard thing about intelligence: it's a growing organism that re-multiplies. Knowledge depends on the cooperation of perception with intellection. Meaning adheres to understanding. The world we make begins before we think it; but we have to explain it by means of interior processes. The dual structure of thought and its relationship to reality has long obsessed and confused Western philosophy, and has lead, in fact, to whole schools and disciplines, including skepticism, empiricism, phenomenology and epistemology.

Literary criticism has seen a variety of conflicts arise from the form of our consciousness, too. Basically, the arguments that most obsess critics revolve around choosing between universal and subjective judgements, the possibility or impossibility of both, and the means at our disposal for deciding of what meaning consists, and wherein it resides: the world in general, the mind of the reader - or, the imagination of the writer. Meanwhile, the very best poetry is an advanced kind of psychological philosophy that communicates personal truth and wisdom about human being - and the whole universe. While some say that the "universal" poetic message intended by poets is supposed to be obvious, individual apprehension permits several ideas of the "intended" meaning. Literary criticism doesn't spend much of its time arguing about what the writer was really trying to say, but it often concerns itself with arriving at a clear understanding of what to do with a poem! Ha, ha - what to do with a poem! The critics are obsessed with the optimal approach to things. Imagine a best-selling first-year guide: "How to Recognize and Pick-up Poems in the Bar, Easily, Everytime." The accent upon awakening the potential for new knowledge is the key selling point for today's critic. The critic wants to surpass the natural opposition of reality and thought, and compel the paradox spawned by one imagination meeting its multitudinous audience to express and fulfill a universal communion! Literary critics make a living from the same condition of embodied being that we all share; nevertheless, a lot of what they have to say misses the point of literature! They get obsessed with small details and channel all their thought into evoking a certain limited perspective, applying careful pronouncements and building elaborate stances: for example, "there are no special women," or, "a reader's impressions are the final arbiter of an the author's intentions." Even more safe and effective - the critics can defend the supremacy of understanding inspired by a particular intellectual wing - like semiotics and Gestalt psychology - the choices are endless! The point is, everyone is convinced that they must persuade somebody else that their camp is right - and so gain publication rights, funding, sales and ultimately - perpetual mnemonic status!

We hope instead that criticism would study literature directly, especially with a view to understand what we can learn about how literature conveys human truth, and so reflect upon the merits those "truths" have with respect to the meaning of civilization. However, nowadays critics seem to be otherwise occupied... Keeping up with the Jones's of criticism is an experience as traumatizing as the competition between geneticists and physicists for position, funding and big prizes! Which branch appeals to you most? It's yours. To make a career, buy into it! Now, the advanced intellectual world stands on splitting the finest of hairs growing atop imagination. Knowledge is so fascinating! The field of literary criticism, more so than any other, reveals exactly how the desire to understand can create fantastic new imaginary realms. So now you can study and study until understanding becomes no longer possible, or you forget what you wanted to find out.

Ultimately, who's to know what the poet means, but the poet himself? This is the last truth that criticism only dreams of mastering. Philosophy cannot excuse itself anymore. A master only became a master having vanquished all antecedents. Ancient Greek philosophers were inspired to original expression. We've travelled too long through the era of redoubled consciousness. Hume and Descartes weren't the only ones guilty of redoing their predecessors. After all, the true beginning of modernity as we know it was defined by reflecting upon "progress" and the new self-consciousness of civilization - of moral weakness and the conflict of aims with natural human limitations. Nietzsche was good at that. Modern forms of reflection and art have relied on the conviction that we are mostly made of accretions - prior knowledge.

The modern world is a dawn of realizations nobody could suppress. Today, global social complexities, like the sciences, appear too widely differentiated and dispersed. We're left in suspense, as if waiting for a new moment of fertile intersection... Moments in intellectual progress made it easy for geniuses to arise, like Plato, Milton and Goethe. Nobody could stand in the way of their insights, since they were the pawns that civilizations needed to grow. Everyone wants to hear the news. The ideas we have for each other make the world. We believe the self sees all; so, the truth an artist discovers through fiction is purely a currency of human reflection. But it isn't the only one we need to use. Till we understand the voice speaking beside us. But can we listen to each other? The ability to survive and flourish will probably depend intimately on transcending ourselves through knowledge of others... So, that's one reason some of the world's most difficult souls decided to be novelists: to enrich the human estate with refined insight...

...Carl loves to talk about his cash. His blabber sounds like some industrialist or media mogul on a drunken binge with his rich cronies. He has three kinds of money: really big money, regular big money and small money. It's taken Carl months to perfect his monetary stratagem. The main point is to hide the really big money securely away from everyone in the deepest pockets possible, which can be opened only with zippers and knives... This really big money you hide away because you don't want anyone to see it at all. As for the regular big money... Well, Carl gives away his Grinchiness with this story, but I love this guy, and he'd make a fine travelling companion. About regular big money: he says it's a good idea to flash it around. Hundreds here and there. Carl's a ham and mimes the act of showing some hundreds to the poor. He implies, of course, that he's putting himself in a position of dominance and power over those with less, so they must inevitably respond to his demands with alacrity and subservient eagerness... He enjoys having big money in a "small" money country like China. So do I, actually. He says, "You keep your regular big money behind your small money, because usually you only need to show your small money to get things done... Otherwise, if there's a crowd, you won't get away until everyone has looked at your big money..." I laugh and laugh. Carl is a wonder of nature all to himself... "We'll never see each other again," he says. "You and I won't remember each other..." He sounds like a professional john.

Carl's stories, as I've said, never end. It's a pleasant coincidence, a fortuitous feeling, to meet a man from the same home. We talk for a couple of hours about bikes and which parts have broken in the past. Once, Carl had to ride a long way without a seat because the post snapped. He has broken whole frames. I vouch for my bike: Chrome-moly steel tubing. The frame is Japanese, specially designed for touring. Carl has a Taiwanese frame. My seat's all leather, sprung with coiled steel.

Late in the afternoon of my second day in Ali town, the foreign affairs police officer comes to get me. She's Tibetan and real cute and leads me to her spick and span office - so she can make me pay. I fill out a form and fork out 350 renminbi for a permit that says I can visit Tsamda County, Tsaparang village and the Guge kingdom. This ancient Tibetan ruin, a whole city, is carved from a sandstone mountain in the Sutlej river valley below the Himalayan range along the north side of the Indian border. Visiting it is really the main reason I've ridden all this way. Yet, I'm not there, yet: Ali to Guge is still a few hundred kilometres more...

What to do for our last night in town? There is a whole group of foreigners, Suzanne, Oscar, myself, Paul, an Australian named John, and Carl, too. Suzanne had a charming idea, to invite the quiet Tibetan policewoman out to dinner. Here we are: we order a dinner of tofu fried with tomatoes and momo dumplings. The power goes off so we use candles to make things glow. Poor Suzanne and Oscar are down to their last pennies and must starve all the way to the nearest Bank of China, thousands of kilometres away. Carl is quieter than usual, loaded to the gills with cash, and boasts he can eat anything. The Tibetan policewoman tells us that she grew up in the country and her parents are farmers. She went to the police academy in Lhasa. But she isn't very hungry and that's about all she says tonight.

The night wears out. Two or three photos of Carl and Paul, back at the hotel, I get the cute gypsy-girl running the hotel. These girls seem submissive, coy and curiously available. I like that. People on the street? I want buy some Indian incense. But the salesman is hiding behind somebody else's shoelaces. I wait a long time for him to come back to his stall. It's worth it: the incense is a blessing and masks the urine nicely. Before parting, Paul suggests that I ought to visit certain places in India, like Rishikesh, the Valley of Flowers, and the Paravati Valley. Other, less popular places, I won't mention. I'm sure it'll be too small and crowded. He also says the Dalai Lama gives public lectures and you can apply for an audience.

At 6:00 A.M. Oscar and Suzanne are already up and poised intently for the China Post truck to arrive. It comes trundling along as I cross the street, going for the loo. I wave "so long" and they bundle into the back of the freight truck as I disappear round the corner to satisfy nature.

I don't get on my bike right away, but eat a big breakfast of meat dumplings and wait for the phone office to open at 9. This time, my girl is home and I tell her I'm okay. She says little except, "I love you, I love you, I miss you, I miss you..." She wants to know if I've seen any animals on the way. So, I list all the camels, antelopes, gazelles, wild asses and colorful birds... At ten A.M. Paul and Carl help me unload the bike onto the street and say goodbye. Off I go. They watch me ride away. Paul looks wistful, as if wondering, "What's life?" Carl walks with me to the sidewalk. He grins and advises me to take it easy. Then he jog-trots beside along on the pavement, and grins, glowing love for life and the whole world we live in together. He laughs and jokes as I speed up and away, "We too got caught in a run!" I'm gone, waving over my shoulder. He's back there, smiling - watching after me!