Lived It Wrong - Gerard Menuhin

This book is an attempt to explain myself to myself.

How did I become who I am?

My brother confides: “I would have far preferred you to have committed murder than espouse those views.”

I belong to an almost extinct race: the individual.

People who act in groups embarrass and repel me because they lack independence. People who think in groups are even worse. They have voluntarily rejected that part of their bodies which raises them above animals: the mind. They have repudiated their ability to think for themselves. Obviously, Creation was much too generous in its distribution to humanity of brains, as most people can’t find any use for them.

This general mindlessness has helped those who depend on lies to further an abominable system. Liars are inferior. I abhor inferiority. So I automatically rebel against any system that has been devised to benefit inferior people.

I didn’t recognize my own conformity within this system until very late in life. During my tortuous development, I struggled through various incarnations, in film, in foreign trade, in literary composition, in environmental job-creation, in journalism, before recovering my identity as an individual. At the moment, my individuality as a historical revisionist has resulted in my becoming a member of an endangered species, and in my relatives considering me to be mad, bad and dangerous to know.