To thine own self be true

(November 22 while babysitting my grandson)

Yesterday morning we had been playing for a couple of hours, both of us on the floor. My head and body were somewhat turned away when he walked past and spontaneously hugged and kissed me! There was no warning, no precedent–only this kind, thoughtful, expressive, heart-felt gesture of the moment.

(My immediate response was to thank him and to realize that this was the closest we have ever been–that this was his way of spontaneously expressing gratitude and appreciation for the fun we were having that morning. I realized, too, that this was as close as we might ever be, and that it might also possibly never happen again.)

But beyond that, something registered very deeply, emerging early this morning about the uniqueness and uncommonness of his kind gesture. He accepts and knows me, appreciates the time we spend together, and showed me, spontaneously, how he feels about that. With absolute innocence and openness of heart. An early example of a conscious personal choice. Without one ounce of guile or agenda (not adultly treating me as a means to an end). Just a simple impromptu thank-you (hug, kiss) for our time and play together yesterday morning. Nothing else.

………………………..

In his twenty-second month, my grandson continues to teach me many unique things in passing about who he is and what is important in life with respect to others, especially those closest to us. This was a very basic, simple lesson today with much resonance. I feel incredibly lucky and privileged to have experienced the simple moment of being loved, the free young expression of that special gift of self, and the profound way that it has affected me yesterday and today. That and the beauty and re-awareness of the potential gifts of self and love from one’s (or another’s) innate (sometimes dormant) inner/most child. That and the acceptance, too, of these precious, ephemeral, simple, spontaneous gifts.

“‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers–“–Emily Dickinson, #254

Chi is a blue-bird mobile of hope. (Special thanks to HD)

Food for thought; talking and thinking points.

The following quotes are excerpted from the conclusion of my 1st year u History textbook, The Western Heritage—-second edition, a truly admirable, noble accomplishment by Stewart C. Easton. Enjoy and ponder!

“Almost none of the writers and philosophers of stature in [the 20th] century have been optimistic about the condition of man.”

“To them material progress is meaningless.”

(On moral improvement from the 19th to the 20th centuries) “The present epoch has witnessed an awareness on the part of human beings that they are indeed ‘their brother’s keepers’.”

“Today in Western civilization almost everyone seeks to be loved and appreciated, and is willing to love and appreciate in turn according to the best of his abilities.”

“The modern parent really cares whether his children have a good opinion of him.”

“”He regards his child as having a personality, a moral being of his own.”

“The businessman wants his customers to like him, to call him by his first name; he does not want to hurt anyone’s feelings, and he expects them to have a care for his feelings.”

“Rich nations feel they have an obligation to help others less fortunate.”

“Slavery has been legally abolished for a century and a half.”

“”It is socially respectable today for a man to detest tyranny and discrimination, and socially disreputable to approve them.”

“It seems to this historian that man has acquired his freedom and self-consciousness, but that he does not as yet know what to do with them.”

“But [man] is not happy; in part because of the worries attendant on his economic and social position, but also in very large part because of a lack of a sense of direction, a certain emptiness of soul.”

“Sociologists inform us that the majority of men are inclined to estimate themselves by the criterion of the approval by others, that their very choice of actions is dependent upon their presumed effect on other men. The ‘inner-directed’ men, we are told, are becoming rarer, and may perhaps even become extinct.”

“But it remains true that, if the human being finds time to reflect in the midst of the twentieth-century world, he knows, from his own personal knowledge, that he is an individual separate from others, that he is born alone, lives alone, and dies alone; that if he is stripped of all his worldly good and his whole civilization is destroyed around him, there are inner resources on which he can draw for his survival. All those things told him by scientists and sociologists are mere spinnings of thoughts, in comparison with the intuited reality.”

I generally find most of Easton’s opinions still relevant or true today. There are exceptions, of course; slavery for one. I am sure you will have an opinion yourself on each of these quotations by Easton.

can be limited, limiting, or liberating.
(One often pays a price for the inauthentic, false, limited, limited roles as well.)

My main office/study for the past 30 years. Whence “Tothineownselfbetrue.ca” originates. Posted on Twitter #ACCreative and on Twitter (both Jan. 28, 2014)

The Information in close-up, note: gold record clock, (posters from left to right on wall–Monet, Ryan’s Daughter, 2001: A Space Odyssey; left of chair Trials of Oscar Wilde poster, to right–Beatrix Potter Peter Rabbit poster.) Owls on shelf above black printer. Apple calendar to left of computer as well as blue china ring hand ‘holding back’ hourglass and glimpsed “All is Vanity” classic illustration. Grandson pics by hourglass. Pic of Thoreau’s cabin (facsimile) from my 1st Walden Pond trip. Beethoven bust on first book shelf. Above clock, pic of former black female miniature poodle–Pepper, squirrel (in honour of backyard squirrels present and past). On bottom two book shelves, art books, Above that, two shelves of reference books. The color-striped binder contains my collected poems. Top right–poster of owl wingspan coming toward viewer. Above laptop–Life mag cover of RFK jogging on a beach followed by his dog–the June 14, 1968 post-assassination tribute photo. Above the scanner–“Time to Clean Up”, a watercolour by late poet-friend-significant influence Dean McKenzie. Wooden foot roller on floor under desk. Group of 7 calendar beside the fall sun-lit window blind.

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The usual dates given for the onset of his complete deafness are typically 1814-1815.
So, for his last 13ish years until his death in 1827, he was likely no longer (audibly)hearing the following great works:

Piano sonata in E minor (Op.90)

Cello sonatas (Op. 102)

Piano sonata in A (Op. 101)

Piano sonata in Bb “Hammerklavier” (Op. 106)

Piano sonata in E (Op. 109)

Piano sonata in Ab (Op. 110)

Piano sonata in C minor (Op. 111)

33 variations in C on waltz by Diabelli (Op. 120)

“Missa Solemnis” in D (Op. 123)

Symphony no. 9 in D minor (Op. 125)

String quartet in Eb (Op. 127)

String quartet in A minor (Op. 132)

String quartet in Bb (Op. 130)

“Grosse fugue” for string quartet (Op. 133)

String quartet in C# minor (Op. 131)

String quartet in F (Op. 135)

Amazing output; incredible, unique pieces!
………………………………….
This certainly gives a different spin, understanding, and appreciation when hearing the above works. We can safely say that Beethoven was writing purely, then, from his oral imagination, memory, and past experience. I believe he was deeply, intuitively, and instinctually writing Keats’ “ditties of no [audible] tone”–the music of his soul and spirit. He was writing that music that remained deep inside him. And he was writing the music that he really wanted to compose as in the case of his mass. In that, I believe he wrote both the misery and suffering of the human condition in the opening two sections and later concluded with the hopeful possibilities typically interpreted in and by the positive ending. Despite his previous suicide attempts and pessimism, Beethoven hoped for a higher state and salvation for humans. Unlike no other genius-composer, his work, attitudes, and approaches are a perfect balance of positive and negative, hope and pessimism, the ideal and the real.

Samples–

Emily Dickinson:
(from 1890–early publication–Poems by Emily Dickinson, edited by friends Todd and Higginson)

THE CHARIOT.
XXVI
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

(from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, the 1951 Harvard, Johnson ed. which reproduces the poet as she originally wrote)

-712-
Because I could not stop for Death–
He kindly stopped for me–
The Carriage held but just Ourselves–
And Immortality.
………………………..
Uh, like, where’s the Chariot?
It only takes reading the titles and opening stanza side by-side to see the distortions, even with friends’ best intentions. The serious reading world is fortunate that Johnson resuscitated Dickinson’s unique, original voice, capitalization and punctuation use. Imagine being misrepresented for 61 years. Ironically, original published distorted versions continue to be published as much as the intended originals since the ’50s.

****************************************************

Walt Whitman
(common version from most modern editions of Leaves of Grass):

Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Here is what Whitman wrote and possibly finally preferred in the 1891 ‘Death-bed’ edition:

Very well, then, I contradict myself;
(I am large–I contain multitudes.)

But in the original 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, he wrote:

Very well then….I contradict myself;
I am large….I contain multitudes.

…………………………………………..

Today as I drive by all the misspelled advertising signs or watch the misspelled tv news captions, I think of other inaccuracies and distortions of other basic facts, information, and details, as evidenced in the above. And I recall all the people, some in my former area of English teaching who told me or said to others–Spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and grammar are not important or as important as ideas. Communication of author meaning and purpose can be changed by something as apparently ‘slight’ as those key elements.

Accuracy or correctness do matter. Details–particularly faithful detailing and attention to details do matter in reading and writing, as much as in publishing originals of authors’ works.

Accepting yet another (unexpected) role in life with all the possibilities (and positives) that go with it.

Visiting grandson today. The likely climax and high-point of today’s flow.

……………………………………….                                                                                        –re. roles, individual potential and possibilities, and ‘moral’ and spiritual ‘progress’:

“I am large….I contain multitudes.”–Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”, 52nd section

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I sought for The Key for many years, and finally found it at Ellerslie Gift and Garden! It now hangs on the wall outside my room so I see it a number of times each day and am reminded of what it represents to me. I will say this much more–The Key is very much a personal experience, sense, or realization of inner fulfillment and completion, with no significant missing pieces. It is also a sense of satisfaction with one’s many significant choices in life, especially at key turning points or moments of opportunity. The Key has to do with knowing oneself quite well and accepting who and what one is, as well as letting go, something I’ve previously alluded to in any mention of Keats’ “Negative capability”. It is also the privilege of having lived and chosen to live in the 10% zone of fuller, ongoing consciousness, self-actualization, and transcendence–a zone not chosen or lived in, to a large extent, by 90% of the population (more concerned with umbilical smartphones, daily survival, limiting frivolity, absurd penny-pinching or mindlessly making money, and being ruled by surface appearances) . Finally, and most importantly, The Key is in the awareness and consciousness that one has been significantly known, understood, wanted, appreciated, and savoured closely by at least one other person and that one has willingly, happily, and completely reciprocated.

Well, ain’t that the truth, from birth to death.

Think of how vulnerable to injury or death babies and preschoolers are.

Ponder the risks built into one’s day, whether this be stepping off a curb, riding in a car, eating toxic food, falling in the bathtub, falling down stairs, being admitted to a hospital with nightmare bacteria, etc.

Consider the many unexpected things that can blind-side one such as suddenly getting a cancer diagnosis, losing one’s job, failing an exam, having parents who divorce, getting an unexpected electric shock, being stranded in a foreign country, etc.

Think about the risks built into friendships and relationships we think will last forever. (People change, grow, quarrel, separate, divorce. Often these days.)

Consider all the people who like to live on or ‘at the edge’ like gamblers, druggies, exhibition-ride-fanatics, parachutists.

Recall all the performers you like and have known and meditate on the many risks they take each time they perform.

Contemplate all the projects and plans you have shied away from because you thought them too risky in some way.

Writers, such as those who are honest and truthful, also take various risks as well, as in the case of writers who base fictional characters on real people who may then take umbrage if they recognize themselves.

For that matter, watch birds and animals taking risks all the time as they go about their lives, something reflected in most nature tv programming.

Keep in mind, too, all that flying debris in space flying Earth’s way. In the long run, we here are most likely living on borrowed time. Lives of risk.

For me, it seems very clear, then. Life is risk for everyone and everything on the planet.

…………………………………………….

“And you all know security
Is mortals’ chiefest enemy.”
–Hecate, Macbeth (Shakespeare)