Ah, that’s the great puzzle!
December 18th, 2007 | 
Author: 
I think I should understand that better, if I had it written down:
but I can’t quite follow it as you say it. – alice
Hemingway once said, “The real reason for not committing suicide is because you always know how swell life gets again after the hell is over.”. Well, suicide may be an over statement, but the idea is certainly a good one. An idea I keep tacked on my forehead in that place normally inhabited by darts. Experience teaches you of course that all bad things & good things for that matter come to an end. Where our souls are tested is on the cusp of each change. Our sanity depends on the ability to see the end of the darkness and cope with the end of the light. We can really only continue on with either an inculcated understanding of life’s cycles or a blissful unawareness that leaves us living so tightly in the "now" that there is no past to regret and no future to fear. Of course, Hemingway decided in the end that life was not going to get swell and ended his life with a shotgun. So apparently all hope is eventually lost. Unless of course you believe in a happy hereafter. In which case you don’t mind the thought of digital tombstones with a 25 year life of their own.
Like all mad individuals, I often see the world through a perspective of isolation. You live within your mind, trapped inside a frail body held separate from everything around you. I’m sure that’s why in many ways I love the sensualities of the natural world. Sensory perception is after all, the only reality we have. Rain, sleet, wind, mist, and even darkness can, for a moment, lift you from your container of skin and bone. Even racing a 17 foot kayak down a big wave can for a time, take you outside your shell and merge you with the larger world. I do love those moments.
Many days I’d give anything to be one of those folks who just wakes up and move through their day with no complications of the mad mind. It seems like it would be such a grand thing to just “live”. Take each day as it is, and bounce from moment to moment with little thought or argument from a crazy head. I certainly have days like those, where everything just flows. Yet most days, I tend to see everything that passes through a multifaceted kaleidoscope of options and possibilities. All the while my brain screams for simplicity. Although everything in life seems to be complex, the complexity seems obvious, therefore the reaction to it seems simple. How’s that for confusion?
Alice (in Wonderland) said once, “but I don’t want to go amongst mad people”. Yet, she was the one down the rabbit hole. Therein lies the contradiction. . .
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Right on. Those folks who can go through life without thought don’t live at all. We all create our own reality. They live someone else’s reality and never know themselves. Listen to Nitzche, say yes to the pain.
Your knowledge of the music and literature, and it’s characters is incredible!!!
Ever thought about teaching a philosophy class at the university? Or, taking to the airwaves?
I can’t imagine what would be so bad I’d have to take my life, but if it gets to that point, my plan (which is “loose”, like my Zombie Plan, but I…you know…) is to paddle up the bay, stop at the menhaden factory and fill my kayak with menhaden chum. Then paddle out the inlet, heading for the Gulfstream. When I get too tired to paddle any further, I’ll just capsize and do my last wet exit.
But I bet it never gets to that point…
well they say it’s always good to have a plan! LOL!
Hi Derrick,
For a ‘mad individual’ you show a remarkable articulate and organized thoughts. When I am navigating across the oceans of my mind, thoughts of a Jester pop-up; “diamonded costume dripping shades of green”; just some words of another Derrick, some “obscure scottish poet”, a favourite. I cannot dwell too long on that, getting out and about in the outdoors brightens-up things quite a bit.
When I read your post, I thought of Jack Nicholson in Kubrick’s The Shining, as he safekeeps The Overlook Hotel in the dead of winter and starts going stark raving “bughouse”–you know, typing “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” a kazillion times and drinking in the bar with dead people. The goriest scene is when that corpse woman stands up out of the bathtub and Nicholson hugs her flesh-decayed body.
If any one of you has not seen it recently, The Shining is a great movie to rent on a blistering cold winter’s night. It’s better than the Hemingway solution, certainly.
Adios.
What a great entry. My compliments.
A few wise words from another poet, RUMI
FROM BOX TO BOX
Don’t weep.
The joy that has gone
will come `round again in another form –
Have no doubt about this!
A child’s first joy
comes from its mother’s milk;
After the child is weaned
his joy comes from drinking sweet wine.
This supreme joy has no resting place -
It enters one form then another,
from box to box – an eternal movement
between heaven and earth.
Here it comes, pouring down from the sky,
seeping into the earth,
and rising up again as a bed of roses.
Now it is water, now a plate of rice,
Now the swaying trees, now a horse and rider.
It lies within these forms for awhile
then bursts forth to become something new.
Isn’t this like our dreams? –
The body sleeps
while the soul moves on
to take other forms.
You say,
I dreamt I was a cypress, a bed of tulips,
the blossoms of roses and jasmines.
Then the soul returns, and you wake up –
the cypress is gone, the roses are gone.
I tell you truly,
everything you now see
will vanish like a dream.
I do not mean to trouble you, O friend,
with words so bold as these.
Perhaps you will only listen to God.
He speaks more gently than I.
But how will you ever hear Him with
All that blathering going on? –
Everyone is speaking about golden bread
yet no one has ever tasted it!
O my soul, where can I find rest
but in the shimmering love of his heart?
Where can I see the pure light of the Sun
but in the eyes of my own Shams-e Tabriz?
thanks for the comments. Good stuff. What was that old public service announcement? Reading is Fundamental.?? On the other hand I’m reminded of Ecclesiasties 12:12 “And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” Finding balance in all things it seems is the hardest part.