The Dark Design by Phillip Jose Farmer

That made Jesus a pervert, too.

However, some people just did not have much sex drive. Perhaps Jesus and Paul had been such. Or they had sublimated their drive in something more important, their desire to have people see the Truth.

Buddha was perhaps a saint. Heir to a throne, to riches and power, married to a lovely princess who had borne him children, he had given all these up. The miseries and wretchedness of the poor, the stark unavoidability of death, had sent him wandering through India, seeking the Truth. And so he had founded Buddhism, eventu­ally rejected by the very people, the Hindus, whom he had tried to help. His disciples had taken it elsewhere, however, and there it had thrived. Just as St. Paul had taken the teachings of Jesus from his native land and planted its seeds among foreigners.

The religions of Jesus, Paul, and Buddha had started to degener­ate before their founders were cold in their graves. Just as St. Francis’ order had begun corrupting before its founder’s body was rotten.

48

On an afternoon while the Razzle Dazzle was sailing along, a good breeze behind its sails, Frigate told Nur el-Musafir these thoughts. They were sitting against the bulkhead of the forecastle, smoking cigars and looking idly at the people on the bank. The Frisco Kid was at the wheel, and the others were talking or playing chess.

“The trouble with you, Pete-one of the troubles-is you worry too much about other people’s behavior. And you have too high ideals for them, ideals which you yourself don’t try to live up to.”

“I know I can’t live up to them, so I make no pretense,” Frigate said.

“But it bothers me that others claim to have these ideals and to be living up to them. If I point out that they aren’t, they get angry.”

The little Moor chuckled. “Naturally. Your criticism threatens their self-image. If that were to be destroyed, they, too, would be destroyed. At least, they think so.”

“I know that,” Frigate said. “That’s why I quit doing that long ago. I learned on Earth to keep quiet about such matters. Besides, people got very angry and some even threatened violence. I can’t stand anger or violence.”

“Yet you are a very angry person. And I think your abhorrence of violence stems from fear of being violent yourself. You were- are-afraid that you’d hurt someone else. Which is why you sup­pressed that violence in yourself.

“But as a writer, you could express it. It would be done imper­sonally, as it were. You wouldn’t be doing it in a face-to-face situation.”

“I know all that.”

“Then why haven’t you done something about it?”

“I have. I tried various therapies, disciplines, and religions. Psychoanalysis, dianetics, scientology, Zen, transcendental medi­tation, Nichirenism, group therapy, Christian Science, and funda­mental Christianity. And I was strongly tempted to become a Roman Catholic.”

“I never heard of most of those, of course,” Nursaid. “Nor do I need to know what they were. The fault lies in yourself, regardless of the validity of these. By your own admission, you never stuck to any of them long. You didn’t give them a chance.”

“That,” Frigate said, “was because, once in them, I could see their flaws. And I had a chance to study the people practicing them. Most of these religions and disciplines were having some beneficial effect on their practitioners. But hot nearly what was claimed for them. And the practitioners were fooling themselves about much of the benefits claimed.”

“Besides, you didn’t have the stick-to-itiveness needed,” Nur said. “I think that comes from fear of being changed. You desire change, yet dread it. And the fear wins out.”

“I know that, too,” Frigate said.

“Yet you have done nothing to overcome that fear.”

“Not nothing. A little.”

“But not enough.”

“Yes. However, as I got older, I did make some progress. And here I have made even more.”

“But not nearly enough?”

“No.”

“What good is self-knowledge if the will to act on it is lack­ing?”

“Not much,” Frigate said.

“Then you must find a way to make your will to act overcome your will not to act.”

Nur paused, smiling, his little black eyes bright.