1969, store window image, 101 Street, Edmonton. My wife–then fiancé, and I used to pass by it and it struck me then as expressing ultimate truths about feminine beauty and the perspective of death.
The original famous optical illusion drawing, “All Is Vanity”, was created in 1892 by Charles Allan Gilbert (1879-1929).
There are, of course, those basic life choices, often narrowing down to the following continuum:
Living from inside_____________________________________Living by/in exteriors
The exterior life is largely connected with the world of work and nonstop socialization. In it, we often wear social masks to hide our true selves because we are often dealing with people who don’t know us or have no real interest in us (except as a means to an end). Although the exterior life is connected with making a living, being ‘connected’, and achievement and ambition, it often involves selling out, compromises, and dealing with crazy people, absurd situations beyond one’s control, and power-trippers and users of various kinds. Frequently, one lives, exteriorly, as a pawn in someone’s else’s game, as Dylan once put it. At some point, though, one has to remember that there is more to life than seeking money, power, and controlling others.
Which is why so many people flip out in the social world because they are not their own authentic selves, and are many times at loggerheads with others, the system, and the extrovert or external lifestyle. At some point, I feel, people have to be themselves, make best choices for themselves (which often don’t include others), and live a more honest, conscious lifestyle. This often leads to ‘dropping out’, retreat to solitude or a quieter life. One simply doesn’t need to endure situations one doesn’t choose with minimal power or control over one’s external life. One simply doesn’t need ‘crap’ of or the hassles of dealing with irrational or crazy others, who make their own choices in any case. One can simply choose to live a life on one’s own terms.
I can remember past moments such as: leaving McNally once I learned I was being declared surplus after all I had done for that school, deciding to travel to New England early one school year despite everyone else telling me ‘I couldn’t do that’, turning down renewal of a leadership position did not want which was being offered to me with full expectation of my acceptance and thereby external control, retiring from teaching early completely on my own terms, and picking the educational book projects I wanted from beginning to end.
And did I find enough to distract me and fulfill me in my ‘solitude’ the past 12 years? Easily. The inner life is the main one I have happily known, experienced, and expressed. It simply cut out a lot of noise, conflict, and hassle–none of which I miss. And I can socialize with whom I please, notably with my few chosen friends and family, none of whom are weak or crazy. They are all interesting, pleasant people to go with my many interesting interests. (With Nature always close-at-hand/on standby.)
All in all, it is and has been a very full life. And what I want to do I still do whether it be a trip, an activity, or venturing out into the madding crowd for self-chosen diversions and connections whenever I need them. (As always, money/cost/price is the last consideration.) So is What will others think? Freedom, as I’ve mentioned before, as well as power and control over one’s life, are three of the best values. One can never have too much of freedom, in particular. Or living vertically, in depths, which I habitually do. Whitman’s “I am large, I contain multitudes” has stood me in good stead, the enrichment personally generated and experienced within, on the left side of the continuum, left of centre where I long have been and continue to happily be.
…………………..
The first and last person one always has to answer to is one’s self.
and
There is much more to life than performing for others or, as Hamlet noted, being played by others.
Every spring I resume riding my fendered 6-speed Raleigh Oasis and continue into the fall. I have been doing this since I bought the bike in the mid-’80s. I can remember riding it into December, a couple of weeks from Xmas with no snow on the ground–an incredible riding year.
I initially rode my mother’s wonky pink single-speed despite criticisms of school friends–all who owned multi-speed bikes. I rode that bike far those early years in Winnipeg and pretended I was a bus in my early elementary years. (My only goal at that time was to be a bus driver.) And then suddenly, out of the blue, my wild grandmother bought me a CCM 3-speed from Eaton’s and my bike career moved into a higher gear. I would use it for delivering my papers and getting around for miles with friends. I will always remember riding the melting spring streets from Wallasey to the air force base to see movies with my Thompson Drive bud Bob (Hutch) Hutchinson, my friend into grade 6. I also used it in winter to deliver drug store prescriptions from the original Briggs and Maxwell pharmacy at Thompson and Portage Avenue.
But in grade 9, it began to be uncool to ride a bike as I joined forces with the grade 9 Silver Heights gang and acquired a girlfriend in the process. I began to walk long distances suddenly everywhere. That would be in 1964. So it was a long 2 decades until I came full circle and moved up 3 speeds into the 21st century. Ps/I still enjoy the freedom of not wearing a helmet and look forward to riding with my grandson one day. And I’m glad I never became a bus driver!
And there’s a laugh
hanging in the air
And there’s no
desperation anywhere…
And you’re limned
in light, golden and thin
Looks to me
like you’re lit up from within…
And look how far the light came
Look how far the light came
Look how far the light came
to paint you
this way.
–from “Look How Far”, Breakfast in New Orleans, Dinner in Timbuktu by Canada’s musical poet laureate Bruce Cockburn
As surely as we die
the magpies will return
to eat the robin’s eggs
and baby birds.
No one will stop it.
No one else will close the gate
or water what’s left of the garden, too.
Non-presence as final as
dark days covering Earth.
Winds that rip thru houses
floods that flow unstopped
sirens neverending–
all the meltdowns and revenges
of Nature–that give the lie
to 5″ worlds of wire-less illusion.
An unconvenient truth, indeed.
……………………..
Like the ancient Greeks, Arthur Miller often said, “The chickens will come home to roost.”
I’m probably the last person to opine on this, but what used to be hard media news such as the recurrent prairie floods, the umpteen coups, wars and rebellions abroad has steadily given away to the most banal, clichéd, glandular, mindless infotainment, previously just associated with Entertainment Tonight and The National Enquirer, such as the media obsession with Kim Kardashian’s butt, and Rob Ford’s pathetic, intoxicated public ravings.
Alas, the news media no longer has a credible, serious sense of purpose or common-sense perspective, and had simply caved in to giving the masses what they want–all in the name of approval ratings and the lowest common-denominator, dumbed-down survival. None of this, of course, is surprising with the great decline and deconstruction of traditional education and the mere faddish shift to ultimately unequal, undemocratic political-correctness agendas.
Above all, the masses has shown a stubborn reluctance to think, preferring instead fashionably mindless, non-stop e-media distraction and 5″ screen faux or virtual connections. Important and consequential nformation–which used to be prized in a book and reading culture–has been completely devalued, debunked, and dumbed down beyond belief. By and large, the masses dictate all and they–the ones buying the cellphones–simply don’t want to think for a second, shallowly preferring instead the ‘electrical excitement dream’ of advertising and self-serving fantasy. The rest of the world and its real, serious concerns, issues, and problems are the last thing isolated, alienated people today choose to tune in or address in any way.
…………………………
In today’s news, U.S. Labor data shows 83% of Americans do not devote any part of their days to just thinking. North American culture has become largely mindless, mostly distracted, and often alienated from what used to be the real, external, physical, natural worlds.
In the news today, a “brilliant, but troubled”, university-educated woman who recently lost a job and a boyfriend is getting married to sadistic, psychopathic, convicted killer Paul Bernado. Calls him a kind, Christian fellow whom she believes innocent. Wears an ankle tattoo that says “Paul’s girl.”
…………………………..
In France a primary school teacher was stabbed to death in front of her students on the last day of school. I knew teaching was dangerous (which is one of the reasons I retired), but this is as crazy, stupid, and absurd as the above story.
Living in Canada? Adventure? beauty? truth? Risk-Taking? Non-stop play? Wealth? Health? Well, as one ages, one certainly sees how the latter is basic and underlies even the most bored, boring, unproductive, wasted life.
But, as John Huston, remarked, it’s of course Interests. Nothing happens to one, inside or externally sans interests. These are the things that excite one, motivate one, pleasure one, and keep one getting up each day–following up on one’s interests. You can see this in children when they play, in teens when they enjoy their friends, in adult life when people pursue their dreams and careers, and in retirement when people pursue what they want in their more limited time left to them.
Interests are usually specific: to the moment, the hour, the day, the week, the month. But they reflect who we most and essentially are as individuals. We each of us have larger interests. In my case–interests in Nature, beauty, language, literature, books, writing, creative process, all music, theatre, plays, film, painting, sculpture, architecture, the arts, history and stories, civilization, life processes, etc.
This morning I continue my latest interest–an exploration of one of the great directors of all time–John Huston. One of his movies (The Misfits) has taken me to a biography, a documentary which I haven’t seen for a while, and to the purchase of a book of interviews with the remarkable, maverick-Renaissance man.
This specific interest reflects a lifelong interest in truly interesting people who work in the arts, and film, the latter a large, general interest of mine. I am always interested in creative process, long having been a writer, poet, ‘people facilitator’ and teacher myself. There is always much in these ‘investigations’ that reveal much about people, life, and values, -beliefs, and sensibilities–all things that add to my own ‘largeness’ as a creative, hopefully interesting person.
And so I would add to interests, the cliché of lifelong learning–the desire for specific information of interest to me, which fits my needs, wants, and desires as well as curiosity. No, I never stop learning.
And the only times I have seen these two qualities cease in people closest to me have been when my parents were in decline, dying from cancer–their pain, suffering, and isolation so great, they were no longer interested, curious to learn anymore. They also, memorably, could no longer laugh at the ironies and absurdities of life and even themselves anymore.
And so I would modify the list of what I would consider to be most important in life to five basic, major things: attitude (since it governs our overall basic approach to life), interests, curiosity, learning, and a sense of humor.
Those five things also go a long way in/toward explaining, understanding, and appreciating yours truly and many others.
Real summer. Natural beauty. No texting or smartphone required.
Resident backyard squirrel. Furry high-wire aerial artist. Shelled-peanut connoisseur.
