William Butler Yeats writes lines of such elegance and spiritual force that I find they resonate with me, like an unsettling, too-truthful dream, until I find an outlet for them. And thus the following quote:
Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart.
(W.B. Yeats, "Easter 1916)
Yeats wrote this in reference to the sacrifices of the Irish nationalist movement, which sought to win Ireland's freedom from the United Kingdom into which it had forcefully been drawn in the early 1800s (and, of course, Ireland had been ruled by the English to various degrees since the 1300s). Irish nationalist movements had flared up occasionally throughout the centuries of English colonial rule, only to be snuffed out by the greater military resources of the English.
The armed rising that took place on Easter 1916 was the latest act of resistance plotted by Irish nationalists. They took over the post office in the center of Dublin and used it as a military base for the Easter Rising. The English sent battleships into the city centre, and waited out the leaders of the rising, executing all of them (save one) by firing squad. The death of these men was only the latest of many "sacrifices" incurred by Irish patriots.
In the poem, then, Yeats is suggesting that resisting the English may have too grave a cost - the drawn out resistance to English rule and the deaths that resulted threatened to make the Irish a cold and embittered people.
Yet, while the poem addresses a very specific sacrifice, Yeats' line has a lot of truth regarding sacrifices in general. We often make personal sacrifices so that we might come closer to realizing our goals - we avoid eating out or going on vacation to save for a car, a house, etc; we sacrifice time with loved ones to study or work; we forego new relationships to avoid being hurt. But that sustained act of self-denial can have a deadening effect upon us: repeatedly denying ourselves of the things that bring us joy eventually begins to erode our capacity to feel joy. At least this is what Yeats would have us believe when he speaks of a heart turned to stone, and I have found that he's usually worth listening to...
Monday, August 13, 2007
Will Not Compute
...friends, every day do something that won't compute.
- Wendell Berry
The poem from which this line is taken is about living your life in a way other than that prescribed by bureaucracy and business interests. The line asks us to do things that don't seem "normal" and which may confuse anyone who lives their life according to "common sense." Why challenge or resist common sense? Well, because common sense is just that - a system of beliefs and ideas that are held by the majority of the people around you. To live your life according to the precepts of the majority means that you trust VERY STRONGLY that the majority of people in your town or city know exactly what they're doing. That's probably not very likely.
Especially because the majority of people around you aren't operating solely on what they have figured out for themselves or as a community. No, much "common sense" is also a product of the suggestions and images we receive from the government, media, schools, business, and various other institutions with interests they hope to promote by cultivating particular germs in the larger store of "common sense." French critics have a more precise term for this kind of common sense - idees recue (received ideas). Received ideas are those notions that have filtered out into society and are accepted as valid simply because they are repeatedly stated. "Green consumerism" is an idea that has enjoyed a good deal of uncritical reception, for example, but which holds some problems upon closer examination (i.e. that often the "greenest" thing you can do is curb your consumption).
How to avoid the pitfalls of common sense and received ideas? Take actions and think thoughts that "don't compute" in the network of common sense. The poet from whom I took the quote suggests doing things like "planting sequoias" and "asking questions that have no answers."
For my part, yesterday I bought the ingredients to make bread and waited 18 hours for it to rise, when I could've just bought a loaf for $1.50. But can you really put a price on the satisfaction that comes with making your own ball of baked dough?
*******
Excerpt from Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
By Wendell Berry
Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag.
- Wendell Berry
The poem from which this line is taken is about living your life in a way other than that prescribed by bureaucracy and business interests. The line asks us to do things that don't seem "normal" and which may confuse anyone who lives their life according to "common sense." Why challenge or resist common sense? Well, because common sense is just that - a system of beliefs and ideas that are held by the majority of the people around you. To live your life according to the precepts of the majority means that you trust VERY STRONGLY that the majority of people in your town or city know exactly what they're doing. That's probably not very likely.
Especially because the majority of people around you aren't operating solely on what they have figured out for themselves or as a community. No, much "common sense" is also a product of the suggestions and images we receive from the government, media, schools, business, and various other institutions with interests they hope to promote by cultivating particular germs in the larger store of "common sense." French critics have a more precise term for this kind of common sense - idees recue (received ideas). Received ideas are those notions that have filtered out into society and are accepted as valid simply because they are repeatedly stated. "Green consumerism" is an idea that has enjoyed a good deal of uncritical reception, for example, but which holds some problems upon closer examination (i.e. that often the "greenest" thing you can do is curb your consumption).
How to avoid the pitfalls of common sense and received ideas? Take actions and think thoughts that "don't compute" in the network of common sense. The poet from whom I took the quote suggests doing things like "planting sequoias" and "asking questions that have no answers."
For my part, yesterday I bought the ingredients to make bread and waited 18 hours for it to rise, when I could've just bought a loaf for $1.50. But can you really put a price on the satisfaction that comes with making your own ball of baked dough?
*******
Excerpt from Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
By Wendell Berry
Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Local Celebrities
The people I loved were celebrities, surrounded by rumor and fanfare; the places I sat with them, movie lots and monuments. No doubt all of this is not true remembrance but the ruinous work of nostalgia, which obliterates the past, and no doubt, as usual, I have exaggerated everything.
- Michael Chabon, in The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
When I lived in Massachusetts, one of my very good friends was a Greek guy by the name of Vasilis. Vasilis is a very charming, polite, witty, and wonderfully controlled personality - he has a habit of saying the right thing at the right time. For example, when I asked him once why he chose to leave a party at 11:30, he responded, in the staccato rhythm required because of his slight discomfort with English, "you should always leave them wanting more." He was not at all egotistical, and that's why I cracked up when he said this.
But from that point on, I started referring to Vasilis as a "local celebrity," and he did the same to me. We were poking fun at each other's actual insignificance; but at the same time, in a tight knit group of a dozen or so friends, it was easy to feel that we all were celebrities, the focus of each other's "rumors and fanfare," the topic of conversations that others reserve for chatting about Hilton and Richie around the water cooler.
The point, of both the quote and my story, is that in the finer moments and finer situations of our lives, it is possible to feel that the people you know are the center of a universe (albeit your own small one), the only people you really need to or care to know.
Postscript: The Mysteries of Pittsburgh is Chabon's first novel and, in reading it, I've decided that he's awesome (he also wrote the screenplay for Spiderman 2). He lived in Pittsburgh for several years, proving again the sheer awesomeness of the 'Burgh.
- Michael Chabon, in The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
When I lived in Massachusetts, one of my very good friends was a Greek guy by the name of Vasilis. Vasilis is a very charming, polite, witty, and wonderfully controlled personality - he has a habit of saying the right thing at the right time. For example, when I asked him once why he chose to leave a party at 11:30, he responded, in the staccato rhythm required because of his slight discomfort with English, "you should always leave them wanting more." He was not at all egotistical, and that's why I cracked up when he said this.
But from that point on, I started referring to Vasilis as a "local celebrity," and he did the same to me. We were poking fun at each other's actual insignificance; but at the same time, in a tight knit group of a dozen or so friends, it was easy to feel that we all were celebrities, the focus of each other's "rumors and fanfare," the topic of conversations that others reserve for chatting about Hilton and Richie around the water cooler.
The point, of both the quote and my story, is that in the finer moments and finer situations of our lives, it is possible to feel that the people you know are the center of a universe (albeit your own small one), the only people you really need to or care to know.
Postscript: The Mysteries of Pittsburgh is Chabon's first novel and, in reading it, I've decided that he's awesome (he also wrote the screenplay for Spiderman 2). He lived in Pittsburgh for several years, proving again the sheer awesomeness of the 'Burgh.
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