I was watching a recently released PBS Woody Allen documentary - just the beginning, so far, and it's already illuminating. They start, not surprisingly, with his childhood, and we learn, first, what a freak he is ("There's *no one* like Woody," interviewees repeat in various incarnations, and I'd agree except my friend Z is kind of like him), and second, how something happened to him when he was about five. He was a happy go-lucky normal baby and kid, and then, bam, he changed and became sullen. How odd, everyone was saying. We wonder what happened to him, and why he turned so serious, so hard, so cynical. He states, himself, that is was his sudden understanding of mortality at age five which so soured him and made him forever funny and miserable with the thought of eventual death.
A few minutes later in the documentary, Woody mentions an incident when he was a kid during which one of the many (possibly unfit) nurses / nannies who took care of him scared him by telling him that she COULD kill him, that she had the power to do so, and was able; she could smother him with a pillow and then toss him in a dumpster out back and there was nothing he (Woody) could do about it. She even demonstrated by briefly actually smothering him with a pillow, so he could experience, viscerally, the truth of what she was saying. If she were a little more unstable, psychotic, the interviewer mused, that could have been it.
"Yes..." Woody agreed. "The world would have been deprived...you know...of a tremendous...store of great one-liners." Or something like that. It was very funny. It was, in fact, a one-liner, but what captured my attention was - well, gee, that could be the problem, folks! That traumatic incident probably had something to do with his incredible, permeating fear of death, and the incredible, permeating misery that accompanies a fear of death, especially when one doesn't believe in god or a living universe but rather just thinks it's all a cold, mechanical world of quarks and electrons and nothing else. But I'm no therapist.
Still, the overwhelming fear of death and focusing on it until it covers every aspect of every moment (sleeping or waking) is in vogue these days; neurotic isn't as "in" as it once was, but it's still pretty popular. Woody Allen said something like, life basically consists of living with the knowledge that one is going to die and it will all end and there's nothing else, and life is all about how we spend our days, in varying degrees, distorting that basic truth. I can't say I agree with him there. I mean, yes, everyone dies; I get that. But this vision of All That Is as this dumb, meaningless, pointless, mechanistic random and chance (he's obsessed with luck) collection of particles....it's absurd.
It's obviously absurd to me. In fact, it's *so* obvious, I have a hard time believing anyone really does feel that way, but I know people who do - for one, my friend Z from New York, who is a really amazing person. One of the things that makes him unique (this is going to be ironic) is how very much he reminds me of Woody Allen - in all the best and good ways (and a few of the bummer ones too, like his sadness and depression). So I've talked to him about it at length: how there comes to be meaning in the world, if indeed there is. We go around and around. It's not really one of those questions that we're meant to come to definitive ends is, as a race.
It *is* however something I think we can individually have some certainty on. I was a lot more depressed when I was younger, and have, as time has passed, learned to manage - really, to view and approach and talk about to myself - the darker side of things, of myself. But it wasn't always thus. I had to learn. I had to learn how to concentrate on beauty, to keep on creating it. I had to learn how to focus on the stories that things tell you, and the meaning - yes, Z and Woody, the *meaning* - behind things. I had to understand the concept of personal and collective myth. I had to figure out if it was possible to have a light heart and yet still be realistic, still be relevant. As I've written in a song, life's default is not misery. Maybe it's not joy, either, I'll admit; it's maybe more neutral, more *zen* (or at least that's a fair argument). Still, I tend toward joy. I do. As I wrote in a other song about our planet Earth (a phrase which I stole from Steven Colbert - it's what he calls his show), this place really is a joy machine. Life exists to expose joy. It's here to figure how to get to the gold under all the muck.
It's about moving from fear to love, this planet, and everyone who lives on it. I think that's a conviction that the Woody Allens of this world miss, a little bit. They have an idea but they can't quite groove into it. I don't blame them. It's not easy to be happy. It's hard world. I am happy - I've been especially happy these days; annually, autumn and holidays is my own season of high production and high spirits. Often, I crash a bit in January, but not always. As I said, I've learned to sort of manage...surf...go with the flow of the whole process; up or down, it's got to be all what you want - what you *really* want.
As Alan Watts says, most people don't know what they *really* want. They either think they do and don't, or know they don't; very few have a clear idea of what's really in their hearts - mostly becaus they don't know who they are - they *really* are; they don't know about the great game of hide and seek.
In fact, the cynics and I agree in that humanity is mysterious, full of marvelous depths and lovely complexities. That is a reason people like Woody Allen movies (and one of the reasons I like my friend Z): the focus on the wonder, the magic, the beauty. The sheer heartbreaking bittersweet nostalgia of it all. Sure, Woody says, there's nothing *behind* life, nothing beyond it - but the here and now is really all you need anyway. This moment. This thing. Tracy's face, as Woody's character says at the end of Manhattan.
"Why is life worth living? It's a very good question. Um... Well, There are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile....uh... Like what... okay....For me, uh....I would say... what, Groucho Marx, to name one thing...and Willie Mays...and... the 2nd movement of the Jupiter Symphony.... Louis Armstrong's recording of Potato Head Blues...um...Swedish movies, naturally... Sentimental Education by Flaubert... Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra.... those incredible Apples and Pears by Cezanne... uh... the crabs at Sam Wo's....Tracy's face..."
I've said the same thing to myself, many times (sorry, that's another Woody Allen reference). I just never asked the question "Why is live worth living?" with the idea that I have to come up with actual answers in order to justify going on with it all. My default is yes. I happen to think everyone's default should be yes - or could be; you really can divide the world into the people who say why and the people who say why not. I'm a why not.
I've been reading the journals of Spalding Gray lately - my partner gave me a copy. I didn't even know they were out. I'm fascinated by them, for many reasons, not the least of which is that I'm curious to see what other people's journals are like. Are they like mine? I like mine. Or at least, I have always liked them before. Now that I am reading Spalding's (which are somewhat depressing and oddly written). Mine aren't like that, I thought. Mine have more commentary. More meaning. They aren't such a scattered amalgam of facts and floating thoughts and scattered reflections; mine were not so neurotic, I was sure. So I went and took a look at some old journals, with my Spalding Gray glasses on....and they were worse. Less neurotic, but not as interesting, either. They would be only of interest to me - or someone who knew me well. Oh well, They had some gems of ideas embedded here and there.
It did however get me thinking about my point of view and how it's contrasted to those of others.... particularly those who are in pain, fear....troubled, neurotic...clueless. I know so many people who seem to have no sense that what is happening - that anything is happening. Some of them don't even know there's a thing to happen. And others know about life, something about it - but see it as irrevocably troubled and troubling.
I've had my moments of clarity. My states of grace. My weekend retreats and subsequent illuminations. I have some idea, and I can't help - these days - from seeing the joy and beauty everywhere. How can I keep from singing? I can't. I won Most Likely to Star on Broadway and Most Likely to Win American Idol at my workplace because I am always singing.
And maybe it's because I don't mind my own mortality. I mean, I'm not eager to face it. I want to live. Of course, I want to live. But I know that whatever's next is what's supposed to be next, and I accept that, even if "next" turns out to be nothing, and there's nothing when we die but nothing. Then that's the way it was to be. That's the lesson. That's the learning we get to take back to the All That Is - and if All That Is is nothing, then that's OK too. But I know it's not. I've had a sense of the world behind this shadow version, and once you've glimpsed that, you know.
I could my my own list of why life is worth living - and it would include Woody Allen (and Groucho Marx), and Indiana Jones and the poems of Bukowski and my grandmother's pasta sauce. The films of Wes Anderson and the music of Bob Dylan. Waltzing and circlesinging. I could go on forever. Dancing at the Dicken's Faire: that's it. You don't need anything else. That one thing is worth it. I don't even need to trot out Sappho or Rumi or Mozart. I don't even need to mention the Alps or the ocean or the full moon. The existence of any one of those things is reason enough to keep saying yes...keep saying, "Why not?"
It's Christmas time, and I am in full swing. I have energry; I have ideas. I'm enjoying being alive. I'm grateful to be alive - and this blog is about gratitude, after all, and Christmas - when it's done well - is about being grateful. I recently watched A Christmas Carol (with Patrick Stewart as Scrooge) and it's really quite brilliant: when you see who are are - when you realize you, you yourself - are connected to everyone else (hide & seek), you can't help but start to act compassionately. In the end, Scooge, a changed man, knew how to keep Christmas in his heart, Dickens says. I'm for that. I do that. Because really...why not?
A few minutes later in the documentary, Woody mentions an incident when he was a kid during which one of the many (possibly unfit) nurses / nannies who took care of him scared him by telling him that she COULD kill him, that she had the power to do so, and was able; she could smother him with a pillow and then toss him in a dumpster out back and there was nothing he (Woody) could do about it. She even demonstrated by briefly actually smothering him with a pillow, so he could experience, viscerally, the truth of what she was saying. If she were a little more unstable, psychotic, the interviewer mused, that could have been it.
"Yes..." Woody agreed. "The world would have been deprived...you know...of a tremendous...store of great one-liners." Or something like that. It was very funny. It was, in fact, a one-liner, but what captured my attention was - well, gee, that could be the problem, folks! That traumatic incident probably had something to do with his incredible, permeating fear of death, and the incredible, permeating misery that accompanies a fear of death, especially when one doesn't believe in god or a living universe but rather just thinks it's all a cold, mechanical world of quarks and electrons and nothing else. But I'm no therapist.
Still, the overwhelming fear of death and focusing on it until it covers every aspect of every moment (sleeping or waking) is in vogue these days; neurotic isn't as "in" as it once was, but it's still pretty popular. Woody Allen said something like, life basically consists of living with the knowledge that one is going to die and it will all end and there's nothing else, and life is all about how we spend our days, in varying degrees, distorting that basic truth. I can't say I agree with him there. I mean, yes, everyone dies; I get that. But this vision of All That Is as this dumb, meaningless, pointless, mechanistic random and chance (he's obsessed with luck) collection of particles....it's absurd.
It's obviously absurd to me. In fact, it's *so* obvious, I have a hard time believing anyone really does feel that way, but I know people who do - for one, my friend Z from New York, who is a really amazing person. One of the things that makes him unique (this is going to be ironic) is how very much he reminds me of Woody Allen - in all the best and good ways (and a few of the bummer ones too, like his sadness and depression). So I've talked to him about it at length: how there comes to be meaning in the world, if indeed there is. We go around and around. It's not really one of those questions that we're meant to come to definitive ends is, as a race.
It *is* however something I think we can individually have some certainty on. I was a lot more depressed when I was younger, and have, as time has passed, learned to manage - really, to view and approach and talk about to myself - the darker side of things, of myself. But it wasn't always thus. I had to learn. I had to learn how to concentrate on beauty, to keep on creating it. I had to learn how to focus on the stories that things tell you, and the meaning - yes, Z and Woody, the *meaning* - behind things. I had to understand the concept of personal and collective myth. I had to figure out if it was possible to have a light heart and yet still be realistic, still be relevant. As I've written in a song, life's default is not misery. Maybe it's not joy, either, I'll admit; it's maybe more neutral, more *zen* (or at least that's a fair argument). Still, I tend toward joy. I do. As I wrote in a other song about our planet Earth (a phrase which I stole from Steven Colbert - it's what he calls his show), this place really is a joy machine. Life exists to expose joy. It's here to figure how to get to the gold under all the muck.
It's about moving from fear to love, this planet, and everyone who lives on it. I think that's a conviction that the Woody Allens of this world miss, a little bit. They have an idea but they can't quite groove into it. I don't blame them. It's not easy to be happy. It's hard world. I am happy - I've been especially happy these days; annually, autumn and holidays is my own season of high production and high spirits. Often, I crash a bit in January, but not always. As I said, I've learned to sort of manage...surf...go with the flow of the whole process; up or down, it's got to be all what you want - what you *really* want.
As Alan Watts says, most people don't know what they *really* want. They either think they do and don't, or know they don't; very few have a clear idea of what's really in their hearts - mostly becaus they don't know who they are - they *really* are; they don't know about the great game of hide and seek.
In fact, the cynics and I agree in that humanity is mysterious, full of marvelous depths and lovely complexities. That is a reason people like Woody Allen movies (and one of the reasons I like my friend Z): the focus on the wonder, the magic, the beauty. The sheer heartbreaking bittersweet nostalgia of it all. Sure, Woody says, there's nothing *behind* life, nothing beyond it - but the here and now is really all you need anyway. This moment. This thing. Tracy's face, as Woody's character says at the end of Manhattan.
"Why is life worth living? It's a very good question. Um... Well, There are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile....uh... Like what... okay....For me, uh....I would say... what, Groucho Marx, to name one thing...and Willie Mays...and... the 2nd movement of the Jupiter Symphony.... Louis Armstrong's recording of Potato Head Blues...um...Swedish movies, naturally... Sentimental Education by Flaubert... Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra.... those incredible Apples and Pears by Cezanne... uh... the crabs at Sam Wo's....Tracy's face..."
I've said the same thing to myself, many times (sorry, that's another Woody Allen reference). I just never asked the question "Why is live worth living?" with the idea that I have to come up with actual answers in order to justify going on with it all. My default is yes. I happen to think everyone's default should be yes - or could be; you really can divide the world into the people who say why and the people who say why not. I'm a why not.
I've been reading the journals of Spalding Gray lately - my partner gave me a copy. I didn't even know they were out. I'm fascinated by them, for many reasons, not the least of which is that I'm curious to see what other people's journals are like. Are they like mine? I like mine. Or at least, I have always liked them before. Now that I am reading Spalding's (which are somewhat depressing and oddly written). Mine aren't like that, I thought. Mine have more commentary. More meaning. They aren't such a scattered amalgam of facts and floating thoughts and scattered reflections; mine were not so neurotic, I was sure. So I went and took a look at some old journals, with my Spalding Gray glasses on....and they were worse. Less neurotic, but not as interesting, either. They would be only of interest to me - or someone who knew me well. Oh well, They had some gems of ideas embedded here and there.
It did however get me thinking about my point of view and how it's contrasted to those of others.... particularly those who are in pain, fear....troubled, neurotic...clueless. I know so many people who seem to have no sense that what is happening - that anything is happening. Some of them don't even know there's a thing to happen. And others know about life, something about it - but see it as irrevocably troubled and troubling.
I've had my moments of clarity. My states of grace. My weekend retreats and subsequent illuminations. I have some idea, and I can't help - these days - from seeing the joy and beauty everywhere. How can I keep from singing? I can't. I won Most Likely to Star on Broadway and Most Likely to Win American Idol at my workplace because I am always singing.
And maybe it's because I don't mind my own mortality. I mean, I'm not eager to face it. I want to live. Of course, I want to live. But I know that whatever's next is what's supposed to be next, and I accept that, even if "next" turns out to be nothing, and there's nothing when we die but nothing. Then that's the way it was to be. That's the lesson. That's the learning we get to take back to the All That Is - and if All That Is is nothing, then that's OK too. But I know it's not. I've had a sense of the world behind this shadow version, and once you've glimpsed that, you know.
I could my my own list of why life is worth living - and it would include Woody Allen (and Groucho Marx), and Indiana Jones and the poems of Bukowski and my grandmother's pasta sauce. The films of Wes Anderson and the music of Bob Dylan. Waltzing and circlesinging. I could go on forever. Dancing at the Dicken's Faire: that's it. You don't need anything else. That one thing is worth it. I don't even need to trot out Sappho or Rumi or Mozart. I don't even need to mention the Alps or the ocean or the full moon. The existence of any one of those things is reason enough to keep saying yes...keep saying, "Why not?"
It's Christmas time, and I am in full swing. I have energry; I have ideas. I'm enjoying being alive. I'm grateful to be alive - and this blog is about gratitude, after all, and Christmas - when it's done well - is about being grateful. I recently watched A Christmas Carol (with Patrick Stewart as Scrooge) and it's really quite brilliant: when you see who are are - when you realize you, you yourself - are connected to everyone else (hide & seek), you can't help but start to act compassionately. In the end, Scooge, a changed man, knew how to keep Christmas in his heart, Dickens says. I'm for that. I do that. Because really...why not?
No comments:
Post a Comment