Spiritus Monday: What You Get

“There is an Indian fable of three beings who drank from a river: one was a god, and he drank ambrosia; one was a man, and he drank water; and one was a demon, and he drank filth. What you get is a function of your own consciousness.” Joseph Campbell (1904-1987)

The temptations are two—for me, at least—to retreat nonsensically into the half-full or half-empty cliché or to quarrel with Campbell’s proposition either for his worldview or over his language choices, which may not be so different at the heart of the matter.

What I acknowledge is what I get? Dare I go further—what I think is what I create?

Another spin on the notion comes from Ludwig Wittenstein (1889-1951): The world of those who are happy is different from the world of those who are not.

Well then, the world for those who are mostly content differs from those who generally are not. Those who are grasping, for example, whether for power or money or fame, to my way of thinking always beg the question of how much will be enough.

But, I am sidestepping Campbell’s main thrust. At the very least, consciousness suggests a level of awareness, and perhaps even more, an attentiveness. Discernment.

Or, to march at the topic from another direction, leave it to Thoreau (1817-1862): Where there is not discernment, the behavior even of the purest soul may in effect amount to coarseness.

No doubt the world is a vast, scaled consumable. Maybe I am what I consume. Must it be all just garbage in, garbage out?  And what should I say about current political rhetoric?

So even more, I must maintain a high level of alertness. To be continually sounding my conscience is how I read the task. To admit the good stuff. To be conscious of what is life-sustaining water and what is not. Filth is Campbell’s word du jour.

As for the ambrosia, “Man’s got to know his limitations”. And that would be from Dirty Harry.

Spiritus Monday: Religion of Love

“My heart has become capable of every form: It is a pasture for gazelles and a monastery for Christian monks, and the pilgrim’s Ka’ba, and the tablets of the Torah, and the book of the Koran. I follow the religion of Love: Whatever way love’s camel takes, that is my religion, my faith.” Ibn Arabi (1165-1240)

In theory, for my part, whitetails perhaps. As for the camel’s way, my truck somehow doesn’t resonate in the same manner. Ibn Arabi’s declaration? Humbling, to be sure.

I must confess that Saturday I fell more in line with Jonathan Swift’s (1667-1745) proclamation: "But principally I hate and detest that animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth. This is the system upon which I have governed myself many years, but do not tell...."

The subject was politics, a poor focus while enjoying a meal—especially one that I did not prepare. Certainly no good came from my ill-will (or ever would), and in the way conversations sometimes go, driven by coincidence and irony, a reference to planks and eyes surfaced.

Yep, I had a bad case of plank-eye, and if removal was beyond my ken, then I could think to shave off a bit of an edge later. Going forward, I will strive to be more resolute with my attentiveness, to stage my own intervention the moment my heart contracts.

But, the plank is 2”x6”x12’, and my plane is small in my hands. However, a little hope exists, for “No one can grow if he does not accept his smallness” (Pope Francis 1936--).

At least I have that going for me.

As for the vagaries of the human condition, listen to Father Zosima, from The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoyevsky 1880), quote a doctor he knew: “The more I love humanity in general the less I love man in particular. In my dreams, I often make plans for the service of humanity, and perhaps I might actually face crucifixion if it were suddenly necessary. Yet I am incapable of living in the same room with anyone for two days together. I know from experience. As soon as anyone is near me, his personality disturbs me and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he’s too long over his dinner, another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I hate men individually the more I love humanity.”

So it goes—and, yes, I got that from Vonnegut.

       

Spiritus Monday: Act in Peace

“Speak, move, act in peace, as if you were in prayer. In truth this is prayer.” Francois Fenelon (1651-1715)

Fenelon’s equation is both simple enough and seemingly impossible—and I won’t even mention politics, much less war. Our daily lives, maybe mundane by comparison to outside events that swirl 24/7, are often a series of encounters that disrupt our inner peace. The slings and arrows of slights and crosses.

I might reframe his dictum as one phrase: Live in peace.

Of course, we must catch ourselves in the moment, call ourselves to account before a commission that is not in peace. No hasty, harsh words from our mouths; no trampling beneath our feet; no harm by our conduct.

A lofty standard, a moment by moment to be sure. To know the flare to be lighted even before the match is struck.

Edward Abbey (1927-1989) has it right, I think: "The function of an ideal is not to be realized but, like that of the North Star, to serve as a guiding point."

Perhaps, then, our path is to recognize our humanity with humility and to strive to walk as our better selves.

Go in peace, we say.

And so I would humbly offer up the notion that before we go in peace, we must be in peace.

Timmm-berrrr!

My neighbor is to blame.

My power bill is going up this summer. My neighbor had 3 40’-pines taken down in her front yard. The ones that shaded the bedroom side of my house from around 4:00 on during the height of summer.

One morning, I heard the chainsaw roaring and went over to see what was what.

“You limbing them up?” I had recommended this action several times, even taking off a few lower limbs on the pines and a bunch off the white oak growing between the two tallest pines for her.

“Taking them down.”

“Well,” I laughed, “there goes our power bill.” The pines kept the sun off the front of her house from about 2 until 6 or so during the hottest months.

“I hate pines.”

“Hugo?”

“No. Scared of them. Back in Alabama a pine limb fell on a friend and nearly killed her.”

“She’s okay now?”

“Yes, she’s fine.”

Of course, my neighbor didn’t plant those trees. She didn’t build the house. She didn’t set the property lines.

But my neighbor is why my cooling costs are going to go up.

Of course, I didn’t build my house. I didn’t set the property lines either. Bought the house as a rental property a decade ago, and when I moved in here myself 4 years ago, the first summer’s shade pattern was an unexpected gift.

My bill is going up, but I’m not the one who took down the trees. My neighbor did that.

I’m sorry to see those trees go even more than because of the shade issue. Three big beautiful pines.

My neighbor manages a convenience store, takes good care of her place, has a daughter that stays with her on weekends, is friendly with my dog, and gets along well with folks living on our street.

Dang power bill, though.

She’s a good person, a good neighbor. Came over and checked on me when she hadn’t seen me for a few days—I was out of town.

Still, gonna cost me.

Good neighbor, though. Absolutely. Am I going to mention the trees and shade again? Absolutely not.

Like a good neighbor.

Lost Star Wars Raider (Spoiler Alert)

“Have you seen it?”

“No.”

“Are you going to see it?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“When the kids have gone back to school and the college kids are mostly done with it and I can slip in at some weekday matinee.”

“That doesn’t sound like fun.”

Sigh. “Go in peace.”

Two weeks later. “Have you seen it?”

“Yes, and before you ask, it’s too long, the fight and flight scenes are not thrilling, and it’s much too deferential to what has gone before in the series.”

“You didn’t like it.”

“Well, at least the ticket cost less than the diet drink.”

To be fair, I am very much not a member of the target audience. And, as a good friend would have it, I am often in the check-the-Other-box zone.  

In fact, my mother long ago in a time and space faraway created the axiom that if I like something, it has no commercial appeal, but if I don’t, then harness up the cash wagons.

“Not always” is my default defense.

When the first Star Wars episode came out in 1980, which was followed the next year with Raiders of the Lost Ark, I was just easing past my mid-20s. I thought them both wildly entertaining and great sendups of films I grew up watching. Especially in St. Petersburg, where I could go to the Cameo and watch the Saturday double feature for a quarter and buy popcorn and coke for another quarter. Yep, fifff-ty cents, and I was good to go for the afternoon.

And I watched a lot of movies. I don’t know whether there can be a genetic disposition toward film, but my dad’s grandfather opened the first movie theater in St. Pete. I suggest the possibility as an explanation for going to see Cleopatra four times the first week it opened. I was nine. Cost a buck a ticket, but for me the spectacle—and perhaps even Elizabeth Taylor, her eyes you know—was worth it.

The go-to films were westerns and war movies as I was all about the action. In my young eyes, John Wayne reigned supreme in theatres without stadium seating. Hatari, The Longest Day, How the West was Won, McLintock!, Circus World—the man could dominate any environment.

For me, though, it was the western icon—a fearless, indomitable, no-nonsense cowboy kind of guy—that resonated with me. I grew up on Hopalong Cassidy and Gene Autry, the Lone Ranger and Roy Rogers, but for my money, it was John Wayne, John Wayne, John Wayne.

In 1967, Wayne pushed forward with The Green Berets, a pro-military take on the Vietnam War. He even bought out the rights of author Robin Moore who was being investigated for leaking secrets in his 1965 novel of the same title. The resulting film was a generally positive spin much appreciated by President Lyndon Johnson and the Pentagon folks.

In 1968, the film was released and the Tet offensive was launched and the rest is history. Sort of. Francis Ford Coppola gave us war as madness with Apocalypse Now in 1979—watch the original release, not the director’s cut—and Oliver Stone released Platoon in 1986 in part as a rebuke to Wayne’s worldview of Southeast Asia. Wayne said repeatedly his film was to honor soldiers who must do the job, not to make a political statement. Watch The Green Berets, and then watch Coppola’s film. It’s an easy call.

The following year, True Grit—his 129^th film—earned Wayne his first and only Oscar as Best Actor. After being a fat, drunk, aging marshal, Wayne mostly reverted to more heroic form playing cowboys and detectives before the movie that was apocalyptic to my way of thinking.

Wayne’s 140^th and final film, The Shootist, teamed him with Lauren Bacall and Jimmy Stewart. Again an aging and famed lawman, Wayne’s character is diagnosed with cancer and given two months to live. Ron Howard plays a young lad enthralled by the shootist’s heroic reputation, but the film’s melancholy tone and brutal finale upended the decades upon decades of Wayne playing “The Man”. I stayed seated until the credits finished rolling.

The man known as The Duke died 3 years later at 72—stomach cancer.

Which brings me back to Harrison Ford’s death roll as Han Solo in the latest installment, Episode 7 of Star Wars. Watch that scene, and then watch Wayne’s end as J.B. Books. It’s an easy call.