Finding the Life You Want in the Life You’ve Got

[“Crossroads,” by Hungarian artist István Orosz. For more about this image, see the Note at the bottom of this post.]

From whiskey river:

A Note

Life is the only way
to get covered in leaves,
catch your breath on the sand,
rise on wings;

to be a dog
or stroke its warm fur;

to tell pain
from everything it’s not;

to squeeze inside events,
dawdle in views,
to seek the least of all possible mistakes.

An extraordinary chance
to remember for a moment
a conversation held
with the lamp switched off;

and if only once
to stumble upon a stone,
end up soaked in one downpour or another,

mislay your keys in the grass;
and to follow a spark on the wind with your eyes;

and to keep on not knowing
something important.

(Wislawa Szymborska [source])

…and:

I feel sometimes as if I were a child who opens its eyes on the world once and sees amazing things it will never know any names for and then has to close its eyes again. I know this is all mere apparition compared to what awaits us, but it is only lovelier for that. There is a human beauty in it. And I can’t believe that, when we have all been changed and put on incorruptibility, we will forget our fantastic condition of mortality, and impermanence, the great bright dream of procreating and perishing that meant the whole world to us. In eternity this will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets. Because I don’t imagine any reality putting this one in the shade entirely, and I think piety forbids me to try.

(Marilynne Robinson, Gilead [source])

Not from whiskey river:

…there is a growing apprehension that existence is a rat-race in a trap: living organisms, including people, are merely tubes which put things in at one end and let them out at the other, which both keeps them doing it and in the long run wears them out. So to keep the farce going, the tubes find ways of making new tubes, which also put things in at one end and let them out at the other. At the input end they even develop ganglia of nerves called brains, with eyes and ears, so that they can more easily scrounge around for things to swallow. As and when they get enough to eat, they use up their surplus energy by wiggling in complicated patterns, making all sorts of noises by blowing air in and out of the input hole, and gathering together in groups to fight with other groups.

In time, the tubes grow such an abundance of attached appliances that they are hardly recognizable as mere tubes, and they manage to do this in a staggering variety of forms. There is a vague rule not to eat tubes of your own form, but in general there is serious competition as to who is going to be the top type of tube. All this seems marvelously futile, and yet, when you begin to think about it, it begins to be more marvelous than futile. Indeed, it seems extremely odd. It is a special kind of enlightenment to have this feeling that the usual, the way things normally are, is odd–uncanny and highly improbable. G. K. Chesterton once said that it is one thing to be amazed at a gorgon or a griffin, creatures which do not exist; but it is quite another and much higher thing to be amazed at a rhinoceros or a giraffe, creatures which do exist and look as if they don’t.

(Alan Watts: The Book: On the Taboo of Knowing Who You Are)

Given all the above, this was pretty hard not to include: “What Do You Want from Life,” by the 1970s punk-rock band The Tubes. Or maybe I should say former punk-rock band: they’ve changed personnel (and looks) numerous times, and now seem to be touring, albeit successfully, as a sort of nostalgia act. (Who would have thought punk rockers would ever do so — ever want, or be able, to do so?) The video below doesn’t actually show this aging version of the band, choosing instead simply to interpret the lyrics (which appear below).

Here’s the version as recorded (especially for those of you who might lack YouTube access — and if this streaming-audio version doesn’t work, either, well… there’s always a way!):

Lyrics:

What Do You Want From Life
(Music and lyrics by Bill Spooner and Michael Evans;
performed by The Tubes)

What do you want from life
To kidnap an heiress
or threaten her with a knife
What do you want from life
To get cable TV
and watch it every night

There you sit
a lump in your chair
Where do you sleep
and what do you wear
when you’re sleeping

What do you want from life
An Indian guru
to show you the inner light
What do you want from life
a meaningless love affair
with a girl that you met tonight

How can you tell when you’re doin’ alright
Does your bank account swell
While you’re dreaming at night
How do know when you’re really in love
Do violins play when you’re touching the one
That you’re loving

What do you want from life
Someone to love
and somebody that you can trust
What do you want from life
To try and be happy
while you do the nasty things you must

Well, you can’t have that, but if you’re an American citizen you are entitled to:
a heated kidney shaped pool,
a microwave oven — don’t watch the food cook,
a Dyna-Gym — I’ll personally demonstrate it in the privacy of your own home,
a king-size Titanic unsinkable Molly Brown waterbed with polybendum,
a foolproof plan and an airtight alibi,
real simulated Indian jewelry,
a Gucci shoetree,
a year’s supply of antibiotics,
a personally autographed picture of Randy Mantooth
and Bob Dylan’s new unlisted phone number,
a beautifully restored 3rd Reich swizzle stick,
Rosemary’s baby,
a dream date in kneepads with Paul Williams,
a new Matador, a new mastodon,
a Maverick, a Mustang, a Montego,
a Merc Montclair, a Mark IV, a Meteor,
a Mercedes, an MG, or a Malibu,
a Mort Moriarty, a Maserati, a Mack truck,
a Mazda, a new Monza, or a moped,
a Winnebago — hell, a herd of Winnebago’s we’re giving ’em away,
or how about a McCulloch chainsaw,
a Las Vegas wedding,
a Mexican divorce,
a solid gold Kama Sutra coffee pot,
or a baby’s arm holding an apple?

___________________

Note: The image at the top of this post, “Crossroads,” is by Hungarian artist István Orosz. You can find it numerous places around the Web, but I first encountered it here, at a site called Impossible Worlds. The author there says of it: “The work depicts crossing bridges that could not exist in the three-dimensional world. For example, there are reflections where there are no bridges to be reflected.”

If you can spare ten minutes to experience something beautiful and mysterious, skip over to YouTube to see Orosz’s animated short film Time Sights (2004). The voiceover’s English translation (by David Evans) appears on the right side of the page, when you click on the “More Info” link. It begins:

The morning will be so real, so perfect,
like a dream, the taste of a dream
to be remembered by a dreamer woken in another dream.

…and ends:

The dream was forever locked in its own time,
a series of pictures with no beginning and end,
no reference points, no hierarchy;
it was as if we were the characters in an art movie.

Time and space both ceased to exist,
becoming mere elements of a ceremony,
of a secret contract, or a rule of a game,
the origin of which nobody could remember.

Creation was suspended.
The person who would give it a name had not arrived yet.