...Orgota cooking was insipid; no harm in that. But why did the people I met, whether well or ill disposed towards me, also seem insipid? There were vivid personalities among them––Obsle, Slose, the handsome and detestable Gaum––and yet each of them lacked some quality, some dimension of being; and they failed to convince. They were not quite solid.
It was, I thought, as if they did not cast shadows.
This kind of rather highflown speculation is an essential part of my job. Without some capacity for it I could not have qualified as a Mobile, and I received formal training in it on Hain, where they dignify it with the title of Farfetching. What one is after when farfetching might be described as the intuitive perception of a moral entirety; and thus it tends to find expression not in rational symbols, but in metaphor.
It was, I thought, as if they did not cast shadows.
This kind of rather highflown speculation is an essential part of my job. Without some capacity for it I could not have qualified as a Mobile, and I received formal training in it on Hain, where they dignify it with the title of Farfetching. What one is after when farfetching might be described as the intuitive perception of a moral entirety; and thus it tends to find expression not in rational symbols, but in metaphor.
( Ursula K. Le Guin )
[ The Left Hand of Darkness ]
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