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PROFUNDITY AND SUPERFICIALITY: Now you men of profundity, who often strive after the core of things at the expense of the husk - take care, you profound men, that you do not forget how to be superficial, that you do not forget how to honour the husk!

There are many so-called profound men who absolutely abhor superficiality and, conversely, many superficial men who abhor profundity, but one shouldn't pay them too much attention - not, that is, unless one is so superficial as to be deceived by them. For if a man is truly profound, he will certainly know how to use superficiality to his own advantage!

So beware, you profound men, the 'enemies of the superficial'! And if a man is profound but still an enemy of the superficial, you can be pretty sure that his antipathy is a delusion, that he certainly knows how to be superficial all right, but doesn't know exactly when he is being so.

But 'the superficial' themselves are your greatest threat; for although they are not altogether lacking in profundity, their profundity is almost invariably incompatible with yours. It is a profundity from which you instinctively shy away, as from an immense hurdle or grisly nightmare. It is not a profundity you greatly admire but, more often, something that strikes you as being akin to a coffin in the market place, so disagreeable are the cadaverous connotations which rise from it, like the foul stench of a putrid corpse.

So beware then, you profound men, the profundity of 'the superficial', since it will not help you to understand yourselves! See to it that you do not forget how to cultivate your superficiality in antithesis to theirs, lest you endanger the intermittent sovereignty of your profundity as well!