Time Enough for Heinlein

There are books that we treasure. There are books that live in our minds. There are books that shape our identities. For me, the writing of Robert A. Heinlein, but especially Time Enough for Love and Stranger in a Strange Land were formative reads. I read them as a high school student and, time and again, I keep coming back to them. 

I have reread Stranger several times since high school, but recently, I reread Time Enough for Love for the first time in decades. I had forgotten about the novel’s almost uncomfortable exploration of love taboos. What I remembered strongly were two other aspects of the novel: The character and wisdom of the main character, Lazarus Long, and his wonderful list of aphorisms in his “notebooks.” 

I have quoted these aphorisms from memory ever since. I have posted them on my dorm room door in college and used them as sample belief statements in my Sunday school class. One, in particular, formed the basis of final exam essay question, and another has justified adjourning congregational committee meetings for more than two decades! I will list some of these wonderful, wise, and clever statements a little later. 

Time Enough For Love argues that, “The more you love, the more you can love — and the more intensely you love. Nor is there any limit on how many you can love. If a person had time enough, he could love all of that majority who are decent and just.”

That majority includes everyone – and this book explores that in-depth. Everyone means that you could love, passionately and sexually, the people our society says you can only love in a platonic non-physical way: your family! I had forgotten how this novel took the idea that long-lived people might eventually fall in “Eros” love with their children, siblings, and parents. In fact, Heinlein’s lengthy and obsessive exploration of our main character’s affair with his own mother was at times both excruciating and cringe-worthy. It made the point – and then kept making it. 

What stuck with me as a teenager was not the incestual nature of the book, but the wisdom the oldest man alive shared. His thoughts about love, for sure, but also about religion, politics, and plain old not-so-common sense. 

So here are only a few of the wonderful aphorisms from “The Notebooks of Lazarus Long.” 

Heinlein was clearly a religious skeptic, another point that would have made this book a winner for teenaged (and later) me: 

“History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.”

“God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent-it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks, please. Cash and in small bills.”

“The most preposterous notion that H. Sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all of history.”

“Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other sins are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful - just stupid.)”

Several of Lazarus Long’s statements might be commentary on today’s political issues: 

“What are the facts? Again and again and again-what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history”--what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!”

“Does history record any case in which the majority was right?”

“A generation which ignores history has no past—and no future.”

“The two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of “loyalty” and “duty.” Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute--get out of there fast. You may possibly save yourself, but it is too late to save that society. It is doomed.”

“Never underestimate the power of human stupidity!”

Most of the wonderful aphorisms are just plain good advice:

“Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks.”

“Yield to temptation, it may not pass your way again.”

“If you don’t like yourself, you can’t like other people.”

“A motion to adjourn is always in order.”

“Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy.”

“Sovereign ingredient for a happy marriage: Pay cash or do without. Interest charges not only eat up a household budget; awareness of debt eats up domestic felicity.”

“Another ingredient for a happy marriage: Budget the luxuries first!”

“To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods.”

“Money is truthful. If a man speaks of his honor, make him pay cash.”

“Anything free is worth what you pay for it.”

“Pessimist by policy, optimist by temperament--it is possible to be both. How? By never taking an unnecessary chance and by minimizing risks you can’t avoid. This permits you to play the game happily, untroubled by the certainty of the outcome.”

There is no doubt that some of Heinlein’s writing has not aged well. Many of his ideas were chauvinistic and sexist. His portrayal of women is deeply problematic. Yet, unlike some of the other important writers of the golden age of science fiction, his work is still engagingly readable and shockingly relevant. 

That may be why, once I finish reading the Hugo nominees, I am going to read The Cat Who Walks Through Walls!