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gurdonarkWhen I was a kid, the kids who went to the local missionary baptist church always told the rest of us that when you die, you get to watch a movie version of your entire life, apparently as an essential process in one's personal rush to judgment. Albert Brooks turned the notion into a brilliant concept for a movie called "Defending Your Life", although like many of Mr. Brooks' best concepts, the movie did not quite live up to the scenario.
But I notice that even before I achieve some post-life experience, I read life around me as if it were a novel or film. Evelyn Waugh's Charles Ryder, the quintessential "ordinary man looking in on the truly eccentric", is portrayed in "Brideshead Revisted" as someone who relates everything in his emotional life to a book or movie. I just notice how much I infer from every bit of data I receive. In part, this is healthy and natural. But I am not prepared to self-diagnose whether in part it is a bit excessive. I just notice that I live my life as if I were watching a cinema show sometimes, and I am grateful that they do not put excessive butter on the popcorn.
I always find that although I am a reasonably subtle person, I am surrounded by people far more subtle than I am. My personal movie is more like "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" or the original version of "The Winslow Boy" (I have a budding crush on the film actress Margaret Leighton), than like "8 1/2" or "The Conformist".
I sometimes call myself "ordinary", not as a value judgment on myself, but because I would like to be like that woman Sarah in the children's book I read last weekend: "I am plain and tall". I'll bet I could spend years in counseling, if I wished, learning that I am more complex and ignoble than I ever imagined. But I would rather be plain and tall.
I like people who are what I call "plain in the best sense". I like people who are comfortable with who they are, and whose assertion is quiet, and assured. I like people who don't worry how they look, or how rich they are, or what obstacles keep them from living. I like people who just live out their lives, plain and simple. It may be a gift to be simple, as the song says, or it may be a choice. I don't know. But I long for simplicity, even as I suspect I am making my analysis far too simple.
I'm on another road trip, in another hotel room, far busier than I imagined I would be tonight. Thank goodness for post-it notes and Domino's pizza.
But I have this instinct that quiet, simple times are ahead, and if I am fortunate to enjoy some simple time off soon, I will be enough of a pure simpleton to enjoy it.
But I notice that even before I achieve some post-life experience, I read life around me as if it were a novel or film. Evelyn Waugh's Charles Ryder, the quintessential "ordinary man looking in on the truly eccentric", is portrayed in "Brideshead Revisted" as someone who relates everything in his emotional life to a book or movie. I just notice how much I infer from every bit of data I receive. In part, this is healthy and natural. But I am not prepared to self-diagnose whether in part it is a bit excessive. I just notice that I live my life as if I were watching a cinema show sometimes, and I am grateful that they do not put excessive butter on the popcorn.
I always find that although I am a reasonably subtle person, I am surrounded by people far more subtle than I am. My personal movie is more like "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" or the original version of "The Winslow Boy" (I have a budding crush on the film actress Margaret Leighton), than like "8 1/2" or "The Conformist".
I sometimes call myself "ordinary", not as a value judgment on myself, but because I would like to be like that woman Sarah in the children's book I read last weekend: "I am plain and tall". I'll bet I could spend years in counseling, if I wished, learning that I am more complex and ignoble than I ever imagined. But I would rather be plain and tall.
I like people who are what I call "plain in the best sense". I like people who are comfortable with who they are, and whose assertion is quiet, and assured. I like people who don't worry how they look, or how rich they are, or what obstacles keep them from living. I like people who just live out their lives, plain and simple. It may be a gift to be simple, as the song says, or it may be a choice. I don't know. But I long for simplicity, even as I suspect I am making my analysis far too simple.
I'm on another road trip, in another hotel room, far busier than I imagined I would be tonight. Thank goodness for post-it notes and Domino's pizza.
But I have this instinct that quiet, simple times are ahead, and if I am fortunate to enjoy some simple time off soon, I will be enough of a pure simpleton to enjoy it.
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a message from pure simpletons R us
Date: 2003-08-21 01:04 am (UTC)Hope your time comes soon - enjoy, enjoy.
And thanks so much for this posting
love and blessed be
xxxx
Re: a message from pure simpletons R us
Date: 2003-08-21 06:05 am (UTC)Re: a message from pure simpletons R us
Date: 2003-08-21 07:03 am (UTC)blessed be
xxx
simplicity
Date: 2003-08-21 02:06 am (UTC)cell phone #. i hope you're able to call and meet, if only
for a short while, in the next day or two.~paul
no subject
Date: 2003-08-21 09:00 am (UTC)I can imagine at some pre immersion into this life dinner party people talking about how well they will do. That there is nothing to it. That they will not forget. That this time they are going to kick some ass on fear. And then the birth into this life, this life being all we know, the sea we swim in... and then there is fear. Fear the terrifying, fear the teacher. NOW what will you do?
That movie has always brought up those kinds of thoughts for me... as does "Joe and the Volcano" and the terrifying "brain cloud" the protagonist experiences.
no subject
Date: 2003-08-23 05:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-23 11:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-21 10:31 am (UTC)I've been thinking a lot about something related to this - about slowing down. I tend to have tunnel vision and strive to get things done too aggressively. I'm trying to slow down and enjoy just being on the journey instead of always being on a bullet train.
I've been far too concrete about things the past few years, everything is so scheduled and structured - I need to be more vague in my pursuits, like have more fun, enjoy the people around me more, do nothing. Even if I cross all the big and small things from my lists, I still feel behind so I need to stop associating my self worth where where on the physical and mental lists I am.
no subject
Date: 2003-08-21 05:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-21 12:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-23 05:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-21 05:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-23 05:41 am (UTC)