狂い死に

In recent days my mind has dwelt on the idea of the proverb; those short phrases that embody some important truth in an elegant, easy to convey form. I have thought of how they embody truisms not only for a given culture, but in many cases for humanity as a whole.

Sometimes they represent some fact of life in a given subculture or endeavor. In the open source community they say “Release early, release often” because doing so is considered the best path to success. In the business and financial circles I’ve heard them say “Bulls win, pigs die” as a warning against excessive greed. “A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away”, shows us the essence of the creative process.

Others, I think, provide a window into the profound mechanics of an entire society; simple constructs that nonetheless have wide ranging effects on a culture’s more visible manifestations. Consider these proverbs in light of the histories that spawned them: the Japanese say, “The nail that sticks up get hammered down”, while the westerners say “Fortune favours the bold”.

And then there are those that speak to the essence of our humanity. Those that are true for all people, in all places, at all times. Shakespeare’s famous phrase, “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts,” is a good example. In a mere 29 words he expresses what it is to live as a human.

One concept I take away from Shakespeare is that of our limited time on this mortal plane. I have often heard the truism, “Life’s to short to …” in order to justify one social infraction or another, but I think that phrase equally applies to endings such as “… live in regret”, or “… stay in the hospital for 6 months”.

It should encourage us therefore to live our lives in keeping with this maxim: “True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written; in writing what deserves to be read.” That one, in particular, stays with me as I struggle with the trials of our shared existence and, I hope, as I write this blog.

Shakespeare’s words, “all the men and women merely players”, makes me think on the illusion of greatness. Even the most powerful magnates, leaders and criminals of our time will fade into the dust of history until not even the bespectacled historians can remember anything of the truth. And while not factual per se, I think “And on the pedestal these words appear: ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ Nothing beside remains”, nicely captures the idea of our essential insignificance.

But scale is important. While on the scale of creation itself, all things are essentially worthless, people do not work that way. On a universal level, the fact that I may, for example, lose my arm is a matter of utter insignificance, but I’ll sure care. And the cosmos may not be unduly concerned if the Canuck’s win the playoffs, but it’ll make a lot of folks back home very happy. Thus, while it is important to see something’s objective level of importance, the subjective level is, perhaps, more practical.

One of the basic drivers of the human psyche is the need to feel important. What that means to a given individual in a given circumstance varies wildly, but the underlying pressure is universal. People often quench this need by being part of something larger and more important than themselves. And that “something larger and more important” speaks directly to the soul; that which truly drives us. Thus, “Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood.”, and, “A man does not have himself killed for a half-pence a day or for a petty distinction. You must speak to the soul in order to electrify him.”

In any study of our humanity, I am given pause to consider the fundamental conflict of our nature. That for all of our ability to walk as angels upon the earth, we are equally capable of the grossest atrocities of our kind. Most of our lives resolve into a kind of grey, born out of the unceasing conflict of our different halves. The Yin-Yang symbol, while not a proverb per se, does an excellent job of conveying the condition of our souls.

Yet it is possible for us to escape our baser and darker selves. While icons such as Mother Theresa and Florence Nightingale personify this, I think we can each count people in our lives, both famous and unknown, who have learned to reflect the light of our better natures. Consider: “I have gained this by philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.”

But in our darker selves, while it is often distasteful or disturbing, there can often arise a perverse kind of beauty. For as much as we hide our eyes from such things, they are part of our nature and in them there is truth. This next quotation left me a little unsettled at first, but after thinking on it carefully I discovered it’s essential meaning, and a kind of nobility in its genesis:

“It is entirely seemly for a young man killed in battle to lie mangled by the bronze spear. In his death all things appear fair.”

It is, in actuality, that statement that led to the development of this blog entry. I turned it over a long while in my mind before I came to truly understand it in the context of our greater world. It is shocking at first, and horrible to envision, but ultimately the truth; naked and terrible in it’s way.

From my defeat at its hand, and paradoxically perhaps, my life has improved; for truly, I have nothing to complain about.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 3rd, 2008 at 7:31 pm and is filed under thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.