A Walk with Freddy

What men call passion is the friction of the soul with the Universe.

Herman Hesse wrote these words (roughly paraphrased) in The Glass Bead Game.  Of the many words in that long, dull book (I couldn't bring myself to finish it), these were instantly seared onto my brain.  Why?  Because I understand them.

I suspect this is one of those "if you have to ask" situations.  If you have to ask, you can't afford it.  If you have to ask, you won't understand.  But let's try, shall we?

Truly great art -- whether visual, written, or philosphized -- can only stem from great torment.  Think about it.  What does calm, peaceful, serenity give you?  Beautiful but vapid Monets.  Socially poignant but emotionally flat Jane Austen.  Saccharine Emily Dickenson.  But what does the tormented soul produce?  Van Gogh, Sylvia Plath, Nietzsche!  Stormy seas, these people have sailed -- and their art is so much more meaningful and profound because of it.

Monet painted beautiful pictures, Jane Austen wrote fine novels, and I suppose someone out there likes Dickenson.  But one's enjoyment of them does not plow the depths of one's soul.  On the other hand, even the most placid of Van Gogh's paintings evokes an emotional energy so raw that it is palpable.  Plath -- who can read her poems and not feel a sense of self-recognition in their darkness?  And Nietzsche -- he went so far off into the universe that he ended up in the nuthouse.

And sadly, that is a common fate for such friction-filled souls.  Why did Van Gogh cut off his ear, Friedrich get carted away to the asylum, and poor Sylvia off herself in her early 30s?  Why do such brilliant minds, with such insight into reality end up mentally unstable?

Because such souls are few and far between, and at the end of the day humans are social creatures.  If one doesn't have another like mind, someone who understands, it takes its toll.  Even the accepted-but-social-oddity of the absent minded scientist or out of touch and solitary philosopher eventually cannot resist the innate need for companionship.  And so these souls spend their lives alone, adrift, trying to find their way in a world that does not understand them. 

Some, like Plath, give in to despair and the desire for release.  But those who lack emotional stability to begin with or who simply refuse to assimilate end up in asylums --or today, find themselves in a lifelong relationship with Xanax.  I suppose it is to be expected -- what else would a society do with its "crazies"? 

I wonder how this phenomenon will change in the modern world.  The internet and social networking make it so much easier to meet people far and wide.  Will this lessen the solitude of such souls?  Will feeling less alone reduce their friction enough to make life bearable? 

I've outlived both Sylvia and Vincent, so I guess I'll have to let you know when I get to my padded cell.

Can we just move on already???

September 11, 2001, was a terrible day.  A day that shall live in our nation's memory.  A day when we were attacked on our own soil, when innocent lives were lost in the name of fanaticism.  A day when so many brave souls died trying to help those in the Towers, and when so many more did not die but contracted lifelong diseases from all the crap they inhaled.  A day when brave citizens gave their lives to prevent a fourth plane from crashing into whatever its target may have been.  These people should be remembered and honored.

But can we please move forward already????

I'm not going to be very popular for saying this (I can hear the pitchfork's being sharpened as I type), but it was 9 frickin years ago, people.  Nine years!!!!  Are we still going to mope around and cry over something that has long since past? 

Nine years isn't that long, you say.  Well, I grant you that.  I'm sure that after WWII ended, Veterans' Day was still pretty solemn.  And I don't know when we started Memorial Day, but I'm pretty sure that it wasn't always a beer-guzzling, hot-dog eating fantasma of headonism. 

But nine years is long enough to move forward.  To not be mourning anymore, but rather to honor the dead and act to make sure their deaths were not in vain.  That's right: to sit here and cry about being attacked is bullshit.  You want to honor the fallen of 9/11?  Get your ass out and vote!  Defend freedom and civil liberty!  Educate yourself and your neighbors!  Don't wrap yourself up in a flag and act sanctimonious. 

Why?  Because that's exactly the problem.  To the rest of the world. we are a nation of whiney cry babies with a too-big sense of entitlement.  Yeah, that's right: I said it.  So when we refuse to get over something like 9/11, or Katrina, or any other damned horrid thing that happened, "the terrorists" win.  We only reinforce their reasons (if you can call such irrationality "reason") for hating us. 

Look: the families and friends should absolutely feel sadness and loss, and do so as long as they need to.  But as a nation, we need to put our big-girl panties on and deal.  It happened.  It was awful.  And it's over.  A long time ago.  You wanna mourn something, how about mourning for the lives of our soldiers in Afghanistan, or the state of our budget that has been robbed to pay for it?

But looking to the future requires a maturity and courage that we as a nation just don't have.  So much easier to watch Dancing with the Stars and to blindly regurgitate the crap Hannity spoon feeds us than to actually think and stand up for something.  To actually move beyond the horrible thing in the past and move toward a positive future. 

Yeah, yeah -- I know you are ready to throw stuff at me.  But you know what?  I don't care.  I am not going to blind myself to the world with a blanket of 9/11 self-pity.  I am going to see the event for what it was, and do my best to move us and the world beyond it, into a world where that shit doesn't happen again.  But by all means, if you must, go wave your flag and wallow in it. 
While you're doing that, I'll be having a hot dog.