Doubling: Doubting

I only know myself as a human entity; the scene,
so to speak, of thoughts and affections; and am
sensible of a certain double-ness by which I can
stand as remote from myself as from another. . .
When the play, it may be the tragedy, of life is over,
the spectator goes his way.  It was a kind of fiction,
a work of the imagination only, so far as he was
concerned. This doubleness  may easily make us
poor neighbors and friends
sometimes. (Thoreau)

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Henry is the joker , trickster, antidote to hysteria.
Antithetical. Diabolical.  Says things that remind
us and we either hate him or love him for it. 

He DID drop out.  But so what? Couldn’t find
work that satisfied him. 

Students claim his mom made pie for him.

So what if she did and I’m not saying it’s true.
Students say he borrowed stuff and squatted
on Emerson’s land. So what if he did?

He didn’t bother with feeding the poor,

didn’t pay his poll tax.  Went to town

when he felt like it and came back to

his cabin.  Measured ponds and observed

loons.  Grew beans. Bragged on his self.

Harvard Grad. Can’t do no better than
Harvard as far as credentialing is concerned.

Henry talks about a mild schizophrenia:
a kind of double-ness where by he can
split himself off  from himself so to speak
—stand divided and  look at himself. So what?
Everyone one does that. Multiple Personalities
R Us. 

Raise your hand if you think you are just ONE. 
E Unum Pluribus.  From One: many.
Factor it in.

The word DOUBT is diminutive of DOUBLE.
To double is to doubt. On the one hand and
then again on the other hand.
Doubling.  Doubting.
A good thing.