herding with demons
Apr. 13th, 2004 11:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gurdonark"Tell how this Nameless, condemn'd for years long
To herd with demons from hell beneath,
Saw things that made him, with groans and tears, long
For even death".--James Clarence Mangan
When I was in fifth grade, the janitor could push a straight pin through his arm muscle without flinching or pain. He did it slowly, with concentration, as if it were not so much an act of folly as an act of strong will. But for all the carnival beauty and repulsion of this spectacle, his stoicism in the face of self-inflicted wounds did not convince me of his dignity. I learned what a cool and noble guy he was because he went after school, and participated while my fifth grade English teacher taught him to read.
A rotund, sturdy man, with a ready sense of humor, he sat in the little middle school chairs at the "reading table", and slowly formed out the words in the books.He'd gone decades without knowing how. We kids would sometimes happen in after school, and there he'd be, acquiring that elusive literacy.
I think tonight how people without advantages impress me from time to time with how they seize the moment. I recall impoverished widows who could enliven a church function with deep-fried chicken. An elderly man walked by the tracks into town each day, for want of a car. He had no money, but he had white spats and a hip cane. He gave us fresh strawberries from his garden each year. He did not mind that he had no novels written, no corporate positions attained.
I've seen the studies that suggest that on the whole, people with money lead more contented lives than people without money. On some stark baseline, I suppose this must be true. It's easier to be miserable when one is hungry or cold.
But I think sometimes of the rarified ennui which afflicts those blessed with relative material comfort. It's that sense of "not enough". A job is "not enough". A particular spouse or inamorata is "not enough". An educational opportunity is "not enough". A house/car/neighborhood/state is "not enough".
I have seen much of this country, and a bit of this world. No matter where one looks, rich or poor, one can find lack. One can find people struggling with the demons of anonymity, of living out eighty three point seven years, give or take forty, and not making any real difference to anyone.
In War and Peace, the fellow says something to the effect that it's not death in battle he fears, but not knowing what is on the other side. Yet so often, I think people fear not knowing what is on "this" side, the side plainly visible and not subject to religious doubt.
Did you ever write you obituary in your head? I have, recently, and found it wanting. Sometimes I'd like to live like the person whose obituary I'd want to read.It's a vain, idle thought, which two guys in Ecclesiastes would probably frown upon. But I'd still like to live a life which merited a cool obituary.
But I think that very desire is a clouding of things that matter. It's a bit like the Bhavagad--"all wisdom is clouded by desire...like a mirror by dust". The sheer wanting to "be somebody" may obscure one's ability to simply be at all. One is nameless and faceless, because one cannot accept oneself as one is, really. It's desire, a materialism of ambition.Yet, maybe one can use the idea as a touchstone, and yet do without worrying about being known for doing.
I'd love to sit on a screen porch, on a cool Spring evening, without a moment's care about who or what I am about. It's that moment of "I am here now" that is so important. I do not believe for a moment that scientific discoveries or great acts of compassion are made by people who sit about longing for life to have meaning.I think, instead, that although the wide variety of human life can saddle even the achievers with despair, that the escape from Hell is not only in "I believe", but also "I will do, even if nobody will remember".
Sometimes, too, it's that courage in being willing to be a sixty-seven year old illiterate sititng in a kiddie chair, reading from a primer. It's that sense of starting one's own business, even if one has never owned a business ever before.It's even writing down who and what one is, even if one has no hope of fame or fortune, but just a need to see the words on the page.
I come to believe that the longing to escape one's otherwise workable life is in fact Hell. Hell, after all, is not going to be all coal-smoke oriented. It's going to have green grass--invitingly appealing, urging the on-looker to come to Hell.I imagine that Hell is not that dissimilar from Kentucky, all rolling hills and gorgeous fields of grass. But I kinda reckon that the grass is not "blue-green" but tinged with a bit of red. Appealing, you know, but not quite right, somehow.
In my metaphor, Hell is the way to try to artificially escape one's task at hand, whatever that task may be. It's not Sisyphus pushing the rock uphill. It's trying to set the rock aside, and get a lemonade instead.
I think, sometimes, that one's own rock to lift (cross to bear, hurdle to jump) is not what damns, but what saves. Because she who would truly lose her life shall try to save it. It's not meant to be saved, you see. It's meant to be used. But consumed doing what? That's the challenge.
Sometimes the demons lack tails or wings. Sometimes they're only idea, metaphors trapped in one's mind. An extra chocolate from the front-office dish, or getting lost in resentment over nothing, when the real work beckons.
It's like we are not all here to be rich or famous or pretty, but we are all here.What then do we do? Surely something more than feel the damnation in not being rich or famous or pretty.
But finding this thing to do, this alternative to wealth or beauty or fame--that's the quest. I'm not all that good at altruism, but I'm coming to believe I ought to be. I'm not much for boredom in life, and I don't want to acquire a taste. As my father says about gambling--"I never tried it, because I just might like it, and I can't afford that". But every time I do what I know I ought, I marvel at how easy it was, and wonder what keeps me from always making progress.
The things that make me groan and put me into tears are so often how I define the problem. Who needs real troubles, when I can find them in nothing?
But if I could put aside all that longing, and just be and do, what is it that I would be and do?
That is the question, I suppose. Not "to be", as that's how Danish princes waste their time. But "to do", and "to do heedlessly, but with all one's heart".
That is the question.
To herd with demons from hell beneath,
Saw things that made him, with groans and tears, long
For even death".--James Clarence Mangan
When I was in fifth grade, the janitor could push a straight pin through his arm muscle without flinching or pain. He did it slowly, with concentration, as if it were not so much an act of folly as an act of strong will. But for all the carnival beauty and repulsion of this spectacle, his stoicism in the face of self-inflicted wounds did not convince me of his dignity. I learned what a cool and noble guy he was because he went after school, and participated while my fifth grade English teacher taught him to read.
A rotund, sturdy man, with a ready sense of humor, he sat in the little middle school chairs at the "reading table", and slowly formed out the words in the books.He'd gone decades without knowing how. We kids would sometimes happen in after school, and there he'd be, acquiring that elusive literacy.
I think tonight how people without advantages impress me from time to time with how they seize the moment. I recall impoverished widows who could enliven a church function with deep-fried chicken. An elderly man walked by the tracks into town each day, for want of a car. He had no money, but he had white spats and a hip cane. He gave us fresh strawberries from his garden each year. He did not mind that he had no novels written, no corporate positions attained.
I've seen the studies that suggest that on the whole, people with money lead more contented lives than people without money. On some stark baseline, I suppose this must be true. It's easier to be miserable when one is hungry or cold.
But I think sometimes of the rarified ennui which afflicts those blessed with relative material comfort. It's that sense of "not enough". A job is "not enough". A particular spouse or inamorata is "not enough". An educational opportunity is "not enough". A house/car/neighborhood/state is "not enough".
I have seen much of this country, and a bit of this world. No matter where one looks, rich or poor, one can find lack. One can find people struggling with the demons of anonymity, of living out eighty three point seven years, give or take forty, and not making any real difference to anyone.
In War and Peace, the fellow says something to the effect that it's not death in battle he fears, but not knowing what is on the other side. Yet so often, I think people fear not knowing what is on "this" side, the side plainly visible and not subject to religious doubt.
Did you ever write you obituary in your head? I have, recently, and found it wanting. Sometimes I'd like to live like the person whose obituary I'd want to read.It's a vain, idle thought, which two guys in Ecclesiastes would probably frown upon. But I'd still like to live a life which merited a cool obituary.
But I think that very desire is a clouding of things that matter. It's a bit like the Bhavagad--"all wisdom is clouded by desire...like a mirror by dust". The sheer wanting to "be somebody" may obscure one's ability to simply be at all. One is nameless and faceless, because one cannot accept oneself as one is, really. It's desire, a materialism of ambition.Yet, maybe one can use the idea as a touchstone, and yet do without worrying about being known for doing.
I'd love to sit on a screen porch, on a cool Spring evening, without a moment's care about who or what I am about. It's that moment of "I am here now" that is so important. I do not believe for a moment that scientific discoveries or great acts of compassion are made by people who sit about longing for life to have meaning.I think, instead, that although the wide variety of human life can saddle even the achievers with despair, that the escape from Hell is not only in "I believe", but also "I will do, even if nobody will remember".
Sometimes, too, it's that courage in being willing to be a sixty-seven year old illiterate sititng in a kiddie chair, reading from a primer. It's that sense of starting one's own business, even if one has never owned a business ever before.It's even writing down who and what one is, even if one has no hope of fame or fortune, but just a need to see the words on the page.
I come to believe that the longing to escape one's otherwise workable life is in fact Hell. Hell, after all, is not going to be all coal-smoke oriented. It's going to have green grass--invitingly appealing, urging the on-looker to come to Hell.I imagine that Hell is not that dissimilar from Kentucky, all rolling hills and gorgeous fields of grass. But I kinda reckon that the grass is not "blue-green" but tinged with a bit of red. Appealing, you know, but not quite right, somehow.
In my metaphor, Hell is the way to try to artificially escape one's task at hand, whatever that task may be. It's not Sisyphus pushing the rock uphill. It's trying to set the rock aside, and get a lemonade instead.
I think, sometimes, that one's own rock to lift (cross to bear, hurdle to jump) is not what damns, but what saves. Because she who would truly lose her life shall try to save it. It's not meant to be saved, you see. It's meant to be used. But consumed doing what? That's the challenge.
Sometimes the demons lack tails or wings. Sometimes they're only idea, metaphors trapped in one's mind. An extra chocolate from the front-office dish, or getting lost in resentment over nothing, when the real work beckons.
It's like we are not all here to be rich or famous or pretty, but we are all here.What then do we do? Surely something more than feel the damnation in not being rich or famous or pretty.
But finding this thing to do, this alternative to wealth or beauty or fame--that's the quest. I'm not all that good at altruism, but I'm coming to believe I ought to be. I'm not much for boredom in life, and I don't want to acquire a taste. As my father says about gambling--"I never tried it, because I just might like it, and I can't afford that". But every time I do what I know I ought, I marvel at how easy it was, and wonder what keeps me from always making progress.
The things that make me groan and put me into tears are so often how I define the problem. Who needs real troubles, when I can find them in nothing?
But if I could put aside all that longing, and just be and do, what is it that I would be and do?
That is the question, I suppose. Not "to be", as that's how Danish princes waste their time. But "to do", and "to do heedlessly, but with all one's heart".
That is the question.
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no subject
Date: 2004-04-13 11:57 pm (UTC)"The World is Not Enough." - James Bond
no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 05:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 12:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 05:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 01:04 am (UTC)Wowee, Bob. Of my Memories list, you're the majority. You have so much to say and you say it straightforwardly and clearly. THAT is much much harder than it seems.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 05:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 01:26 am (UTC)I find this thought both comforting and hilarious. And that seems entirely inappropriate.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 05:23 am (UTC)But all one can do with a post is take it as one takes it :).
no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 03:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 04:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 04:54 am (UTC)When I'm in the studio making something, I'm not comparing, or thinking of anything else. I lose myself completely. That's a great feeling-- to lose oneself. (I feel like I'm this extremely annoying friend that I wish would just get lost)
no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 05:28 am (UTC)Upward mobility is not a bad thing, of course, but if one has shifted into a mindset of "gotta have, gotta have", it can be quite a prison.
I think hard work at any true vocation is a cure of sorts.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 05:56 am (UTC)hmmmm. excellent thought. i do like the way you think!
no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 08:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 08:34 am (UTC)This line struck a chord with me. Well said, and a great post. I, too, would like to sit on that porch in Springtime, completely lost in being, not, for once, obsessively measuring my gains and losses against the years.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 11:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 12:39 pm (UTC)While I have not read all of your posts I do go back into 2002 and 2003 to read. I sense an underlying questioning of who you are from yourself. You do put out an excellent smoke screen of trivial literature and music quotes. But, it's that little statements that seem to bare your inner self.
You have said numerous times that you would like to be a better person. What is a "better" person? Can you not find those qualities in your life as it is now? I know you are a practicing attorney and have had to helped many people through difficult times in their lives. Does it not count since you are paid? I know you love your wife without question. Does this not make you a "better" person.
You also say in a previous post that you would like to be a country farmer. I do read where you walk or hike but you never mention putting your hands in the dirt and feeling "mother earth". You enjoy what you see visually but never seem to participate.
You seem to yearn for a simple life. Yet, you are uncomfortably comfortable with the life you live now. You are very obliquely abstract and I don't know if I am able to understand your point of view.
I am sorry if this offends you and your list friends. I guess I am just trying to understand you not just the trivia you write in your journal.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 12:50 pm (UTC)I see the quotations and lyrics as "garnish" rather than "smokescreen", but you are correct in that they are intended to create a setting for the post rather than to be particularly moving in their own right.
A "better" person is more helpful, more caring, more sensitive, and, in my case, more organized. I'm not saying I'm a "bad" person, and I do things sometimes that I think are the "right" things. I'm just noting that I can do more than I do.
The "past life country farmer" answer really related more to the fact that so many of my forbears came from that life. I am myself a "town boy", not a "farm boy". It's a good point about "not digging in" in that sense.
I cannot answer for whether you understand my point of view.
I am in general content with my life and with my situation, but I do examine the way I live.
In real life, people tell me that I am hard to really know, so it is not a real surprise to hear the same thing on-line.
The simple life v. complicated life dilemma is one I cannot address in one line, but I see the point you make, I think.
Thanks for reading, and welcome.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 01:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 01:29 pm (UTC)I sometimes get brain chatter, but usually, the levels of thought for me are more entertainment than distractions. I might should not admit it, but I am enormously entertained by flitting from topic to topic. It's a curse of being a little good at lots of things, and not very good at anything :).
LJ helps me focus on the fact that I sure do meander.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-14 04:52 pm (UTC)