![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/images\/crossroads_%20%20istv%C3%A1norosz_sm.jpg?ssl=1\" "\\"Crossroads,")
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[“Crossroads,” by Hungarian artist Istv<\/em>\u00e1n Orosz. For more about this image, see the Note<\/a> at the bottom of this post.]<\/em><\/p>\n From whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n A Note<\/strong><\/p>\n Life is the only way to be a dog to tell pain to squeeze inside events, An extraordinary chance and if only once mislay your keys in the grass; and to keep on not knowing (Wislawa Szymborska [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n …and<\/a>:<\/p>\n 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n (Marilynne Robinson, Gilead <\/em>[source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n …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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n (Alan Watts: The Book: On the Taboo of Knowing Who You Are<\/em>)<\/p>\n 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<\/a>. Or maybe I should say former<\/em> 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<\/a> of the band, choosing instead simply to interpret the lyrics (which appear below).<\/p>\n
\nto get covered in leaves,
\ncatch your breath on the sand,
\nrise on wings;<\/p>\n
\nor stroke its warm fur;<\/p>\n
\nfrom everything it’s not;<\/p>\n
\ndawdle in views,
\nto seek the least of all possible mistakes.<\/p>\n
\nto remember for a moment
\na conversation held
\nwith the lamp switched off;<\/p>\n
\nto stumble upon a stone,
\nend up soaked in one downpour or another,<\/p>\n
\nand to follow a spark on the wind with your eyes;<\/p>\n
\nsomething important.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n