NOW THAT I’M GETTING ON A BIT, I OCCASIONALLY FEEL like the Japanese poet-philosopher Basho, who, after many years spent travelling in search of wisdom along the Narrow Road to the Deep North in Edward Bond’s play of that name, is asked what he has learned, and replies, ‘I learned that there is nothing to learn in the Deep North.’ Nothing to learn on the journey is the wisdom of the journey, wisdom itself being the grand illusion.
“松下问童子，言师采药去”
