About twelve, thirteen years ago I woke up in the middle of the night, rubbed my eyes, turned over, stretched out my right arm to grab my pillow and, instead, felt another hand, not my own, and I sure as hell knew that there hadn't been anybody else sleeping beside me when I crawled into bed, but there it was, the hand, and my fingers roamed downwards, against my will, and there was an arm attached to that hand, and I thought it was a dead body, was sure it was a dead body, until, suddenly, a strange but familiar tingling sensation emanated from this mysterious arm, transferring its energy into my own flesh, and I just about screamed before I realized that this energy was, in actuality, my energy, that this unknown arm was my arm, that my left arm was, in fact, asleep, and while it had felt like my left arm was align with my horizontal frame, that was a lie, a trick of the mind, because my left arm had actualy been lazily sprawled outwards, and now the feeling was coming back, not the gone-to-sleep feeling but the normal-arm feeling, and with it the realization there was only me in that bed, me and no corpse, and within moments the feeling was back, my arm was back, independent no more.
(Which made me kind of sad, because nobody likes to sleep alone.)
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
THE (NON-EXISTENT) BEST MOVE IN CHESS, or WHY ENVYING PAULY SHORE IS ACTUALLY A REALLY GOOD THING
How can we learn to know ourselves? Never by reflection, but by action. Try to do your duty and you will soon find out what you are. But what is your duty? The demands of each day.
-- Goethe
Unless you don't have a shred of empathy for your fellow human beings, living in a country like Cambodia forces you into some heavy-duty existential inquiries, most of them centred upon your own mobility as a reasonably healthy, reasonably wealthy westerner, crossing paths, on an hourly basis, with some of the poorest people on earth.
Why am I here? Why are they there? We inhabit this same earth, we breathe the same air, and we are all mortal. (To crib from J.F.K.) But we ain't equal. What's it all about?
I'm reading this book right now called The Doctor & the Soul: From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy by Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor and creator of logotherapy, which essentially puts the 'soul' into psychological therapy. It's very readable, understandable, credible. All the answers you need to know about life's problems in three hundred pages. And for three-fifty American.
A precis:
1) Why are we here?
As Neil Peart, the brilliant drummer and lyricist from the Canadian rock band Rush put it: "Why are here? Because we're here. Roll the bones."
In other words, we are here to do the tasks before us. Period. If we have a task before us, a task worth doing, then we have found our meaning and purpose in life.
2) Why is life not giving me what I want?
The question is phrased backwards; it is not what life is not giving us -- it's what we are not giving life.
We tend to view life as this swimming pool that we're wading through -- not even swimming, usually, just wading, as if it's separate from us, as if it is remote from us.
When things go wrong, we lash out at life itself.
Ain't gonna work, according to Frankl.
It is not what we are demanding from life that's crucial -- it's what life is demanding from us. What are we putting back into the biosphere? What are we not living up to? When you invert the question, the onus comes back to us, and our own responsibilities towards those around us.
3) What if I consider myself a loser, a has-been, a good-for-nothing yahoo who makes
Pauly Shore look like Kofi Annan?
Not to worry, says Frankl. Feeling this depressed and wretched is actually a good thing.
Why?
It's proof that you have an ideal in your head, an image, an oasis of sucess and prosperity that eludes you.
Ah, but the image is there, you see. It exists. It emanated from inside of you.
And once you have that kind of picture in place, you now have a task before you -- the
ideal that you wish to move towards. If you have a task, you can now have a responsibility. If you have a responsibility, you can take action. You may not ever reach those ideals, but
so what? You know what they are, and you know what you're striving towards.
4) What's the meaning of life?
I now quote Frankl, 'cause he's more educated than me. He didn't watch as many episodes of Who's the Boss or Growing Pains as I did, no, but his analysis still tops my paraphrasing:
...In the light of existential analysis there is no such thing as a generally valid and universally binding life task. From this point of view the question of "the" task in life or "the" meaning of life is -- meaningless. It reminds us of the question a reporter asked a grandmaster in chess. "And now tell me, maestro -- what is the best move in chess?" Neither question can be answered in a general fashion, but ony in regard to a particular situation and person. The chess master, if he took the question seriously, would have had to reply: "A chess-player must attempt, within the limits of his ability and within the limits imposed by his opponent, to make the best move at any given time." Two points must be stressed here. First, "within the limits of his ability"; that is to say, the inner state, what we call temperament, must be taken into consideration. And, secondly, the player can only "attempt" to make a move which is best in a concrete situation in the game -- that is, in relation to a specific configuration of the pieces. If he set out from the start with the intention of making the best move in an absolute sense, he would be tormented by eternal doubts and endless self-criticism, and would at best overstep the time limit and forfeit the game...To ask the meaning of life in general terms is to put the question falsely because it refers vaguely to "life" and not concretely to "each person's own' existence...
Couldn't have said it better myself.
All the answers to life, it seems, in the paragraph above.
So:
Life is meaningless, pointless, filled with endless human suffering -- a logical conclusion, after almost two years in Cambodia.
Ah, but there is no such thing as 'life' -- there is his life, and her life, and your life, and that guy over there's life.
There is a person, at a point in time, in a specific place. The meaning is found based on the specific tasks faced before them. If they have the means to radically invigorate their life, this could be known as creative. If they are stuck there, against their will, this could be experiential. If their situation is terminal or life-threatening, it is attitudinal. Even when you have nothing at all left in life, when you're on your way to the gas chambers, as Frankl was, you still have the ability to judge how you react to it; you still have the capacity to choose your view.
Impossible to boil life's insanity down to all of these platitudes, isn't it?
But they makes sense to me.
They have a form and a shape, Frankl's words, that I can grasp.
They allow the petty demands of each day to acquire a meaning and resonance that not only explains life, but justifies it, too, allowing all of our duties and actions to be seen as what they are: expressions of will, and grace, and direction.
-- Goethe
Unless you don't have a shred of empathy for your fellow human beings, living in a country like Cambodia forces you into some heavy-duty existential inquiries, most of them centred upon your own mobility as a reasonably healthy, reasonably wealthy westerner, crossing paths, on an hourly basis, with some of the poorest people on earth.
Why am I here? Why are they there? We inhabit this same earth, we breathe the same air, and we are all mortal. (To crib from J.F.K.) But we ain't equal. What's it all about?
I'm reading this book right now called The Doctor & the Soul: From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy by Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor and creator of logotherapy, which essentially puts the 'soul' into psychological therapy. It's very readable, understandable, credible. All the answers you need to know about life's problems in three hundred pages. And for three-fifty American.
A precis:
1) Why are we here?
As Neil Peart, the brilliant drummer and lyricist from the Canadian rock band Rush put it: "Why are here? Because we're here. Roll the bones."
In other words, we are here to do the tasks before us. Period. If we have a task before us, a task worth doing, then we have found our meaning and purpose in life.
2) Why is life not giving me what I want?
The question is phrased backwards; it is not what life is not giving us -- it's what we are not giving life.
We tend to view life as this swimming pool that we're wading through -- not even swimming, usually, just wading, as if it's separate from us, as if it is remote from us.
When things go wrong, we lash out at life itself.
Ain't gonna work, according to Frankl.
It is not what we are demanding from life that's crucial -- it's what life is demanding from us. What are we putting back into the biosphere? What are we not living up to? When you invert the question, the onus comes back to us, and our own responsibilities towards those around us.
3) What if I consider myself a loser, a has-been, a good-for-nothing yahoo who makes
Pauly Shore look like Kofi Annan?
Not to worry, says Frankl. Feeling this depressed and wretched is actually a good thing.
Why?
It's proof that you have an ideal in your head, an image, an oasis of sucess and prosperity that eludes you.
Ah, but the image is there, you see. It exists. It emanated from inside of you.
And once you have that kind of picture in place, you now have a task before you -- the
ideal that you wish to move towards. If you have a task, you can now have a responsibility. If you have a responsibility, you can take action. You may not ever reach those ideals, but
so what? You know what they are, and you know what you're striving towards.
4) What's the meaning of life?
I now quote Frankl, 'cause he's more educated than me. He didn't watch as many episodes of Who's the Boss or Growing Pains as I did, no, but his analysis still tops my paraphrasing:
...In the light of existential analysis there is no such thing as a generally valid and universally binding life task. From this point of view the question of "the" task in life or "the" meaning of life is -- meaningless. It reminds us of the question a reporter asked a grandmaster in chess. "And now tell me, maestro -- what is the best move in chess?" Neither question can be answered in a general fashion, but ony in regard to a particular situation and person. The chess master, if he took the question seriously, would have had to reply: "A chess-player must attempt, within the limits of his ability and within the limits imposed by his opponent, to make the best move at any given time." Two points must be stressed here. First, "within the limits of his ability"; that is to say, the inner state, what we call temperament, must be taken into consideration. And, secondly, the player can only "attempt" to make a move which is best in a concrete situation in the game -- that is, in relation to a specific configuration of the pieces. If he set out from the start with the intention of making the best move in an absolute sense, he would be tormented by eternal doubts and endless self-criticism, and would at best overstep the time limit and forfeit the game...To ask the meaning of life in general terms is to put the question falsely because it refers vaguely to "life" and not concretely to "each person's own' existence...
Couldn't have said it better myself.
All the answers to life, it seems, in the paragraph above.
So:
Life is meaningless, pointless, filled with endless human suffering -- a logical conclusion, after almost two years in Cambodia.
Ah, but there is no such thing as 'life' -- there is his life, and her life, and your life, and that guy over there's life.
There is a person, at a point in time, in a specific place. The meaning is found based on the specific tasks faced before them. If they have the means to radically invigorate their life, this could be known as creative. If they are stuck there, against their will, this could be experiential. If their situation is terminal or life-threatening, it is attitudinal. Even when you have nothing at all left in life, when you're on your way to the gas chambers, as Frankl was, you still have the ability to judge how you react to it; you still have the capacity to choose your view.
Impossible to boil life's insanity down to all of these platitudes, isn't it?
But they makes sense to me.
They have a form and a shape, Frankl's words, that I can grasp.
They allow the petty demands of each day to acquire a meaning and resonance that not only explains life, but justifies it, too, allowing all of our duties and actions to be seen as what they are: expressions of will, and grace, and direction.
Monday, February 21, 2005
SHARE IT
I just read on the net that 'gonzo' journalist Hunter S. Thompson pulled a Hemingway and did himself in. Gun to the head. Literary immortality guaranteed.
Never read much of Thompson -- his stuff was too topical, too of-the-times for me to get into very much. His work kind of slipped by me, like the Beats, who I've still yet to read. He pioneered a kind of reckless journalistic style that shook things up and took the government and American society to task for all their moral failings. He was played in the movies twice, by Johnny Depp in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and by Bill Murray over twenty-five years ago in a film (unseen by me) called Where the Buffalo Roam.
Thompson wrote for www.espn.go.com until his death, and his last article was about 'shotgun golf', a new, more-than-slightly lunatic idea of his that he talks about with Bill Murray. It's a strange article, and fun, and, in light of what's happened, creepy and sad, too.
Suicide is one of those things that can't be explained, rationalized, figured out. Doesn't matter if you're a famous writer or the snowmobile repairman down at the garage, the one with the lazy right eye; the end result is the same, and the resulting sorrow and confusion is just as intense for those left behind.
But it's also kind of a taboo in our culture, isn't it? We don't like to talk about it all that much, yet it exists, and it's real, and it's daily, in Canada and Cambodia and Japan.
Speaking of Nippon, the suicide rate over there is freakin' huge; just today, I read that an executive of Seibu, one of the big rail companies in Japan, did himself in in light of some investigation into the company's wrongdoings. If you've done something wrong, it's the noble thing to do in Japan, offing yourself; it gives you a dignity in death you lacked in life.
I used to wonder why there were so many mirrors looming over the railway tracks in Tokyo, until I read that it was done to prevent people from jumping in front of the trains; psychologists believe that if you see your own reflection before you take the leap, you might think twice. (The trains would always be delayed because of suicide jumpers, and the families of the victimes would be presented with the bill. There was even an announcement that if you were going to kill yourself, could you please kindly not do it at rush-hour, thereby saving the inconvenience of thousands of passengers?)
So now another famed writer has been added to that infamous list headed by Hemingway and Mishima and Plath. A sad club to a part of. We won't know why Thompson decided to do it; we never do. People have reasons that even reason can't persuade.
But let me just say this: If you ever, even for a moment, for whatever reason, even contemplate joining that list, stop. Take a breath. Pick up the phone. Switch on the net. Check your e-mail. Call your friend. E-mail me, even. Breathe again. (Oh, but that won't happen to me, you think, and you're probably, most definitely right, but I'm just saying: thoughts are things of their own, with their own erratic orbits, so you have to be prepared for where they may lead. You have to guard against your own levels of tolerance.)
Nothing's gained when someone loses like that, loses the only game we're all playing, all the time, like it or not. The world always unknowingly mourns and contracts when death comes via this method. It's like a law of nature or something, this galactic sense of futility.
There is always someone out there to share your pain. There is always someone out there to listen to your voice. There is always a way up, even if you don't believe that, and you don't even have to believe it; it's enough to believe that others believe it, and they can pull you up, one yank at a time.
Immortality is not guaranteed, no, and neither is the moment after next, but what you do have is this moment, right now, in your hands. Don't be afraid to share it.
Never read much of Thompson -- his stuff was too topical, too of-the-times for me to get into very much. His work kind of slipped by me, like the Beats, who I've still yet to read. He pioneered a kind of reckless journalistic style that shook things up and took the government and American society to task for all their moral failings. He was played in the movies twice, by Johnny Depp in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and by Bill Murray over twenty-five years ago in a film (unseen by me) called Where the Buffalo Roam.
Thompson wrote for www.espn.go.com until his death, and his last article was about 'shotgun golf', a new, more-than-slightly lunatic idea of his that he talks about with Bill Murray. It's a strange article, and fun, and, in light of what's happened, creepy and sad, too.
Suicide is one of those things that can't be explained, rationalized, figured out. Doesn't matter if you're a famous writer or the snowmobile repairman down at the garage, the one with the lazy right eye; the end result is the same, and the resulting sorrow and confusion is just as intense for those left behind.
But it's also kind of a taboo in our culture, isn't it? We don't like to talk about it all that much, yet it exists, and it's real, and it's daily, in Canada and Cambodia and Japan.
Speaking of Nippon, the suicide rate over there is freakin' huge; just today, I read that an executive of Seibu, one of the big rail companies in Japan, did himself in in light of some investigation into the company's wrongdoings. If you've done something wrong, it's the noble thing to do in Japan, offing yourself; it gives you a dignity in death you lacked in life.
I used to wonder why there were so many mirrors looming over the railway tracks in Tokyo, until I read that it was done to prevent people from jumping in front of the trains; psychologists believe that if you see your own reflection before you take the leap, you might think twice. (The trains would always be delayed because of suicide jumpers, and the families of the victimes would be presented with the bill. There was even an announcement that if you were going to kill yourself, could you please kindly not do it at rush-hour, thereby saving the inconvenience of thousands of passengers?)
So now another famed writer has been added to that infamous list headed by Hemingway and Mishima and Plath. A sad club to a part of. We won't know why Thompson decided to do it; we never do. People have reasons that even reason can't persuade.
But let me just say this: If you ever, even for a moment, for whatever reason, even contemplate joining that list, stop. Take a breath. Pick up the phone. Switch on the net. Check your e-mail. Call your friend. E-mail me, even. Breathe again. (Oh, but that won't happen to me, you think, and you're probably, most definitely right, but I'm just saying: thoughts are things of their own, with their own erratic orbits, so you have to be prepared for where they may lead. You have to guard against your own levels of tolerance.)
Nothing's gained when someone loses like that, loses the only game we're all playing, all the time, like it or not. The world always unknowingly mourns and contracts when death comes via this method. It's like a law of nature or something, this galactic sense of futility.
There is always someone out there to share your pain. There is always someone out there to listen to your voice. There is always a way up, even if you don't believe that, and you don't even have to believe it; it's enough to believe that others believe it, and they can pull you up, one yank at a time.
Immortality is not guaranteed, no, and neither is the moment after next, but what you do have is this moment, right now, in your hands. Don't be afraid to share it.
Sunday, February 20, 2005
HOW DO YOU KNOW?
At what point do you settle? 'This is my life, and this is my house, and this is my street, and this is my job, and this is my life' -- at what point do you, should you, must you actually say all of that? Acknowledge all of that? Is there a predetermined hourglass inside of all of us that indicates when this declaration has to take place? If there is, I haven't heard the delicate sands of that hourglass just quite yet, which scares me and consoles me at one and the same time.
Some people settle at nineteen in their hometown, just down the road from where they grew up. They watch the same TV channels they always did, go to the same movie theatres, order pizza from the same pizza shop, the one that has the pizza with the good cheese, the thick cheese. Others never settle; they stay here for a year, there for another, before heading off down the road, late for the plane, early for the boat, whatever. Always a new place, road, encounter.
People in Cambodia settle young, because they don't have a choice, because they don't have money, because they live where they live and work where they work and if they have to travel to get a job, well, then they do what they have to do. It's not a 'lifestyle option'. It's life, and they live it, and that's that.
We in the west are raised with the belief that we can do anything and be anything and live anywhere and survive to tell the tale (returning with wallet-size photos, too). We can travel the world and explore the world and still have a couch to come back and crash on.
Still, at a certain point, life takes over. You will have a place and a time that is yours and yours alone, like it or not, ready or not.
How about it?
Is this your time? Is this your place? How do you know?
Some people settle at nineteen in their hometown, just down the road from where they grew up. They watch the same TV channels they always did, go to the same movie theatres, order pizza from the same pizza shop, the one that has the pizza with the good cheese, the thick cheese. Others never settle; they stay here for a year, there for another, before heading off down the road, late for the plane, early for the boat, whatever. Always a new place, road, encounter.
People in Cambodia settle young, because they don't have a choice, because they don't have money, because they live where they live and work where they work and if they have to travel to get a job, well, then they do what they have to do. It's not a 'lifestyle option'. It's life, and they live it, and that's that.
We in the west are raised with the belief that we can do anything and be anything and live anywhere and survive to tell the tale (returning with wallet-size photos, too). We can travel the world and explore the world and still have a couch to come back and crash on.
Still, at a certain point, life takes over. You will have a place and a time that is yours and yours alone, like it or not, ready or not.
How about it?
Is this your time? Is this your place? How do you know?
WHY READ?
The problem with a love of reading is that it can disconnect you from the real world around you, making you think thoughts and imagine images that don't have any relation to what's right there in front of your face. You read a book about Taiwan, and suddenly your brain is immersed in facts and figures that are interesting, compelling, potentially moving, but the cars that pass by your house, the birds that chirp overhead, the clouds that do their cloud-like things, remain unnoticed. The reality you inhabit becomes an appendage to the more vibrant world that your intellectual pursuits provide.
So what do we read for then? To connect to something bigger than us. To gain insights into who we are and why we do the things that we do. To know that we are not alone.
But we know that already, don't we? We can walk outside, turn right, knock on our neighbour's door, and our loneliness becomes an illusion. There's a person there, asking who we are and what we want. The deeper insights that books allow, the knowledge that we gain, pales in comparison to the flesh that we now face, flesh attached to a face, and a chest, and a torso, flesh that forces us to confront another living creature, and share our loneliness, our confusions and questions.
Books are an escape. Books are a journey. Books are the means by which we makes sense of a senseless world. These are the reasons that readers give for living and loving books. They're the reasons that I give, too.
But is it all bull? If you want an escape, step out your door. Go on a journey to a new place, a new street, a new shopping mall. If you want to make sense of a senseless world, ask your local priest, rabbi or grocery-store clerk. Those are real people, stuck in the same world you are, dealing with the same daily aggravations that drive us all slowly, unavoidably insane.
I think our love for books is simpler than that, and it comes down to words. Words, words, words. We like words. We like what words do. We like the way they interact with themselves and our own psyche.
Everything else -- escape, knowledge, entertainment -- is a byproduct of what those words do to our nervous systems. We read because are bodies are wired to get off on the electric, kinetic effect that good words grouped together can create. We like the sounds that are formed in our head as our eyes scan the page. We like the buzz and the pulse. All the other good stuff is a not-so-accidental offshoot of the language; the letters are our entrypoint into those other worlds and our lifecraft when we're lost. They give us what the real world withholds -- all of the emotion, all of the knowledge, encapsulated in twenty-six member states, with none of the attachment that life demands.
If you don't get off on the language, you don't get off on reading. And if you do, it's good to remember that life, too, has its own occasional rewards, as transitory as they sometimes seem.
Saturday, February 19, 2005
FIFTEEN YEARS FROM NOW
A cool and almost wet Saturday morning. Rare lately. Appreciated now. A respite from the sun and sweat. A rotating fan blows on my neck. An empty Pink Lemonade Snapple bottle sits beside the computer. It has been awhile since I've tasted a Snapple, and it tastes good, tastes real, even with all its artificial, sweetened glory. I can see and feel all of these things, and for some strange reason this makes me feel good, as if I'm appreciating that which is usually neglected, as if the little things have somehow become big things in my mind, achieved a weight that they deserve but aren't usually allowed. I think of all the things that have been crammed into my head, useless things, irrelevant things, facts and dates and names and scents from my past, my high school, my classroom in Japan, thousands of raw, inert facts, learned and glimpsed once, then stuffed away, forgotten. It can be overwhelming, if dwelled upon, but then I remember to focus on this fan right here and right now, and the wind from the fan, and the lack of heat, and the taste of Snapple still on my lips, and for some reason I can't quite explain I hope that I won't forget this moment, that it will come back to me on a cold winter night fifteen years from now, when I am forty-four, in Canada, awake, listening to a winter storm, that it will give me a strange sort of comfort, a remembrance of youth, if nothing else, before I sink back into sleep.
Thursday, February 17, 2005
WHAT NOW?
I read an old interview with playwriter/screenwriter/filmmaker David Mamet recently, which got me thinking about the kind of stuff I like to think about, which is the future, the past, fate, destiny -- you know, all of those esoteric concepts that are always overlooked in school, in favor of such important, crucial ideas like imaginary numbers and the International Date Line. (I still don't get 'imaginary numbers'. And try explaining what the International Date Line is to a group of slightly confused Cambodian university students. I've been there. It wasn't pretty.)
Mamet was making kind of an offhand remark, which is where all the great wisdom is inevitably found. He was saying that there really is no 'future' -- that the very concept of the 'future' is simply a means by which those in power maintain power. "Do what we say, and do it now, or else W, X and Y will take place. Oh, and maybe even Z, if you're not careful."
Makes sense to me, especially in light of multiple 'terror warnings' and threats of attack on American soil. We sacrifice our daily lives for what might be, could be, probably won't be.
I like to think of it like this: The future is now, just extended, like a twirly straw, and we never, ever get there, because it is always now, this moment, and not then, or the next moment. It's forever now.
Which puts even the very concept of the 'future' in a tricky place. Where will I be in that mythical, non-existent point in time? Will I still be in Cambodia five years hence? Unlikely, very unlikely, but not impossible. And when (or if) that five year span comes to a head, will I then proclaim: "Aha! I'm now in the future!" No. I'll simply be here, at this moment, doing this thing. Plain and simple. The year 2000 didn't feel like the year 2000 because it wasn't the year 2000, not the one we'd grown up with, that futuristic realm of flying cars and skyway escalators. It was simply now.
And now it's then, and the year 2000 actually seems rather quaint, pre 9/11 and all.
So then: where do we position ourselves, if there's never a next, and only a now? We have to plan for the future, but since it never comes, how do we know if our plans have been fulfilled? One day you wake up and say "Damn, I'm almost thirty," and of course you don't feel thirty, because it was always up-ahead and down-the-line. The plans you made were for that thirty-year old self transplanted from whatever your twelve or fifteen or twenty-one year old self was thinking and feeling and hoping for.
All I know is, the future doesn't exist, but I'd still like to go there, just to chill out, hang out, like Marty McFly in Back to the Future II. When I was younger the future was, indeed, the undiscovered country, this strange and foreign land, waiting to be discovered, if not conquered, but now I see it more as a way-stop, the fast-food place at the side of the highway that you take a break at before getting back on the road again. It's not a place you dwell in. You prepare for it, and you have 'future preference', as Bill Clinton's old prof used to say, but it's merely the repository for this present moment. Everything we're doing is preparing ourselves for the next now. And the next. And the next.
So you better make sure that your now has some weight, purpose and dignity to it, because it's a linked chain, this collection of present moments is, like the Buddhist concept of a reincarnated soul: one candle lights the next, then the next, then the next, so that there is no clear differentiation between the various lives; they are all part of the same, fluid line. Moment leads to moment to moment, each of them building and shaping the next, influencing the next. Each lending gravity or grace to what follows.
So, take care now, is what I'm saying.
It's all you've got.
Mamet was making kind of an offhand remark, which is where all the great wisdom is inevitably found. He was saying that there really is no 'future' -- that the very concept of the 'future' is simply a means by which those in power maintain power. "Do what we say, and do it now, or else W, X and Y will take place. Oh, and maybe even Z, if you're not careful."
Makes sense to me, especially in light of multiple 'terror warnings' and threats of attack on American soil. We sacrifice our daily lives for what might be, could be, probably won't be.
I like to think of it like this: The future is now, just extended, like a twirly straw, and we never, ever get there, because it is always now, this moment, and not then, or the next moment. It's forever now.
Which puts even the very concept of the 'future' in a tricky place. Where will I be in that mythical, non-existent point in time? Will I still be in Cambodia five years hence? Unlikely, very unlikely, but not impossible. And when (or if) that five year span comes to a head, will I then proclaim: "Aha! I'm now in the future!" No. I'll simply be here, at this moment, doing this thing. Plain and simple. The year 2000 didn't feel like the year 2000 because it wasn't the year 2000, not the one we'd grown up with, that futuristic realm of flying cars and skyway escalators. It was simply now.
And now it's then, and the year 2000 actually seems rather quaint, pre 9/11 and all.
So then: where do we position ourselves, if there's never a next, and only a now? We have to plan for the future, but since it never comes, how do we know if our plans have been fulfilled? One day you wake up and say "Damn, I'm almost thirty," and of course you don't feel thirty, because it was always up-ahead and down-the-line. The plans you made were for that thirty-year old self transplanted from whatever your twelve or fifteen or twenty-one year old self was thinking and feeling and hoping for.
All I know is, the future doesn't exist, but I'd still like to go there, just to chill out, hang out, like Marty McFly in Back to the Future II. When I was younger the future was, indeed, the undiscovered country, this strange and foreign land, waiting to be discovered, if not conquered, but now I see it more as a way-stop, the fast-food place at the side of the highway that you take a break at before getting back on the road again. It's not a place you dwell in. You prepare for it, and you have 'future preference', as Bill Clinton's old prof used to say, but it's merely the repository for this present moment. Everything we're doing is preparing ourselves for the next now. And the next. And the next.
So you better make sure that your now has some weight, purpose and dignity to it, because it's a linked chain, this collection of present moments is, like the Buddhist concept of a reincarnated soul: one candle lights the next, then the next, then the next, so that there is no clear differentiation between the various lives; they are all part of the same, fluid line. Moment leads to moment to moment, each of them building and shaping the next, influencing the next. Each lending gravity or grace to what follows.
So, take care now, is what I'm saying.
It's all you've got.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)