Thorough Observations

 From Walden, by Henry David Thoreau

“But whether we should live like baboons or like men, is a little uncertain.” – 60

“Why should they begin digging their graves as soon as they are born?”

“We are all poor in respect to a thousand savage comforts, though surrounded by luxuries.”

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Clothing

The purpose of Clothing: to retain vital heat, and to cover nakedness.

Thoreau:

“Yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience.”

He says it would be easier for them to hobble to town with a broken leg than with a broken or ripped clothing.

“We know but few men, a great many coats and breeches.”

We might as well address scarecrows as men, since we seem to dress ourselves with the same haphazard artifice. Our clothes, our adornments are not US, no matter what Tiffany and Old Navy ads suggest. They no more enhance or convey our personality than wearing certain kinds of exotic fruits on our heads. Perhaps this signifies wealth or position in some circles (tribes in Africa), but the symbols do not necessarily translate cross-culturally, and certainly not when viewed from Heaven’s eyes. Your pair of converse, or immaculate $200 Nike sneakers don’t inspire my confidence any more.

The “accidental possession of wealth” and beauty gleans esteem and respect. Meanwhile, those born below certain income levels are glowered at.

In many places one can go into a mall and it’s truly hard to tell who is wealthy, who poor as the clothing items have merged the gap. Tacky, frilly, silly, sparkly, glitzy, glam has become accessible to the masses ; and who can really spot a real Coach purse from afar.

Why are we so desperate to be acknowledged? We feel our value lies in our clothes merely.

Thoreau posits:

“A man who has at length found something to do will not need to get a new suit to do it in.”

“But if my jacket and trousers, my hat and shoes are fit to worship God in, they will do; will they not?” –But the irony is people now do dress up to worship God; although that’s not quite right. They dress up to impress their community* more than they even think what God thinks of their outfit. The logic of trying to impress God with your outfit is illogical, yet who does not think of Easter or Christmas Eve and not think it synonymous with dressing up?

On Shelter/houses

Thoreau:

“our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them.”

“the bad neighborhood to be avoided is our own scurvy selves. “ “While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them.

“Before we can adorn our houses with beautiful objects the walls must be stripped, and our lives must be stripped, and beautiful housekeeping and beautiful living be laid for a foundation. “

“Let our houses first be lined with beauty, where they come in contact with our lives.”

Work

Thoreau:

“Does wisdom work in a tread-mill?”

Thoreau speaks of a man in town who is planning on building a wall. “The result will be that he will perhaps get some more money to hoard, and leave for his heirs to spend foolishly. If I do this, most will commend me as an industrious and hard-working man; but if I choose to devote myself to certain labors which yield more real profit, though but little money, they may be inclined to look at me as an idler.”

People would be rather insulted if you insinuated their work as being nothing more than throwing rocks over a wall and then throwing them back, just to make money. But “many are no more worthily employed now.” Ouch.

“If the laborer gets no more than the wages which is employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats himself. Those services which the community will most readily pay for it is disagreeable to render. You are being paid for being something less than a man.”

Such is sadly the case.

“I do not need the police of meaningless labor to regulate me.” “I prefer to finish my education at a different school”

Henry speaks about someone of Native descent who realizes weaving baskets is something he can do, so he goes out to try to sell them, not realizing there has to be interest in buying. Thoreau also is aware he’s weaving subtler tapestries, but instead of studying how to ensure good buyers, “I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them. The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind.” And Society over-exaggerates the importance of the life of the Forced laborer.

As Laura Dassaw Walls suggests in the Biography on Thoreau “From ‘an observatory in the stars,’ would America’s ‘beehive’ of commercial activity really look like freedom? Hardly.”

Material goods bind us rather than free us, enslave us rather than emancipate us.

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”… “but it is characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.”

Crossing

 Why do we fall down, ? “To pick ourselves up.”-Alfred to Bruce Wayne, in Batman

 

“Why did the chicken cross the road?" To get a new perspective.

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*****Me: Door way dweller, door way walker*****

Sometimes we are the ones sitting on the sidelines. Sometimes we are the ones cheering in the crowd. Other times, the rare times, we are shooting, passing, dodging, playing in the game. Maybe it’s only for a minute, and we get called back to watch again. Maybe we have much to learn. Maybe we’re only beginning.

 

The times we sit on the sidelines are not the times to daydream. With every passing moment the game goes on, we should be watching as if our life depends upon it. We will have to get in the game sooner or later, and when that time comes, if we begin to fumble or even, god forbid, drop the ball (depending what game we’re talking about), it could be defeat for your whole team. How mortifying! We each have a responsibility not only for our own playing, but to be able to hold and win for our team. That’s being a team player: doing your portion of responsibility. It is ours to do as we see fit. Lets use it.

God sometimes asks us to say no to things we might prefer to say yes to. He closes doors we thought looked so inviting! Why is that? They say when god closes a door he opens a window. Perhaps the door was actually rotten and the promise behind it a mere façade. Perhaps the window is an entrance to Narnia, but we had no idea. God knows best.

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Why did the chicken cross the road?

I saw a woman cross the road the other week. I saw her sit on a stoop adjacent to her own home, large cup of frothy coffee in her hands, and I genuinely wondered what she was doing. I asked politely, but a little sarcasm seeped through. Finally, unclear what she was about, I too crossed the street and looked at our street from this 180 degree mirrored angle. She said she was able to admire things she couldn’t see from her own home. It made perfect sense, why had I dismissed it so quickly. Looking back at the house from the other side, I too began to notice things: features about the homes, remembering the neighborhood included us too, and not just “all of them”. It’s so easy to sit at our window, looking at the houses across the street as being somehow “Other”. But cross that divide yourself, and you see they’re not as different as you thought. In fact, it’s humbling to see it’s YOU they* are seeing as Other too (you thought only they* could be other, but surprise, it’s all relative!) We pin people down in holes, mark their identities in permanent marker and adhere them to the fixtures of their surroundings, as if people were glued to their house, their job, their skin color. We are more and less than anything we have set out to say we are.

The only determining factor is self determination.

People will no doubt see our failings, our shortcomings, our Being-ness, but all from their* perspective. They can only judge us from the circles they’ve swum in their life. The way they got jobs, connections, a partner. There will always be people who know what’s better for you than you know for yourself. However, this is their* version of better. We must not let our sense of Self be so construed as to lead to collapse because of a false narrative they wish to insert into our life. Our life is our own. That doesn’t mean we can’t use a good strong nudge, maybe even a genuine shove to get moving in the direction of our goals. We have failings. We are weak, and passive, arrogant, but we are also sublime, courageous, curious, fool hearty for Peace and Love, and we must honor our process if we see we are fighting for the ultimate fortune (self realization.)

Why did the chicken cross the road? Why did the woman cross the road? Why did I cross the road?

Maybe you are a multi-purpose painter. You have different brushes for different strokes of genius. Maybe art, maybe writing, maybe dance, theatre, business, psychic medium ship…curating in a museum…maybe you are all of these things. Maybe I am all of these things. And it’s OKAY!

“I say do not choose” –Emerson

Perhaps we do not have to choose. They say it’s weak, indecisive, small of us to have so many little desires. “That’s fine, but you can’t make money with it.” As if making money gave it REAL value. What if the value was in the using our gifts not what we received from them. “It can’t support you”. What if I* am supported by it, and in return support others with my art, writing, or energy work. As if God doesn’t support us in what we need when we go after his mission. I think this is the key, and those who are “supported” by their work are being led by God, and without effort helped others and aided their journey. We are merely the station through which God directs and speaks his message through to people.

But through speaking to one man, he speaks to all men. That which is innate in him, is innate to all.

Why did the woman need a new perspective? To see to the other side of her thoughts.

 Now looking around her, she sees the people who matter most are the ones, not left on the other side where she came from, but who embarked on the journey themselves, and showed her another way. She is not alone in her new perspective; the woman with the coffee cup sees what she sees too. Perhaps even if the whole city stayed in their own limited perspective, and judged her for crossing over, she would know she’s in good company. But what if that other woman never showed her the way first, would that perspective have come? Perhaps in time. We must not depend alone on others to show us our way. But sometimes guides, those who have gone before, share principles we long to inherit and adopt in mind. It’s not about following* in this case. It is about leading* with awareness of others. 

We must still make the effort, must still banish the doubt and sarcasm from our minds to transcend our limiting perspectives. Only we can do this. No one can cross the street who is being carried, pulled, dragged, or bullied across. To cross is an act of resistance, of defiance, of true self acceptance and dignity. We cross ourselves in the name of the father, the son, the holy ghost. It is close to our chest to cross. To be crossed is another thing. We do not ask to be crossed, but to be the ones crossing ourselves, and guiding others across the way. We are wayfarers, way finders, way showers, guides redeemers…..we ferry people across the bridges, the roads, the alleys of their back minds and into the sunny open fields of peace and wisdom. Out of the caves of our minds, into the Light of the All Being, which can be accessed at any street crossing, any back alley, any dark forest.

Why did the woman cross the road? To get a new perspective to find Her way.

On Heroism

From, "Heroism", by Emerson

“Our culture, therefore, must not omit the arming of the man (or woman). (170)

"Heroism feels and never reasons, and therefore is always right." (171)

"Heroism works in contradiction to the voice of mankind…Heroism is an obedience to a secret impulse of an individual’s character. Now to no other man can its wisdom appear as it does to him, for every man must be supposed to see a little father on his own proper path than anyone else."

"Self-trust is the essence of heroism. It is the state of the soul at war, and its ultimate objects are the last defiance of falsehood and wrong, and the power to bear all…It speaks the truth, and it is just…."

"When the spirit is not master of the world, then it is its dupe."

“We have seen or heard of many extraordinary young men [and women], who never ripened, or whose performance in actual life was not extraordinary. When we see their air and mien, when we hear them speak of society, of books, of religion, we admire their superiority, they seem to throw contempt on our entire polity and political state; theirs is the tone of a youthful giant, who is sent to work revolutions. But they enter an active profession, and the forming Colossus shrinks to the common size of man. The magic they used was the ideal tendencies, which always make the Actual ridiculous; but the tough world had its revenge the moments they put their horses of the sun to plough in its furrow. They found no example and no companion, and their heart fainted. What then?" (176)

"The lesson they gave in their first aspirations if yet true; and a better valor and a purer truth shall one day organize their belief. Of why should a woman liken herself to any historical woman, and think because Sapho, or Sevigne, or De Stael, or the cloistered souls who have had genius and cultivation, do not satisfy the imagination, and the serene Themis, none can,-certainly not she. Why not? She has a new and unattempted problem to solve….

"Let the maiden, with erect soul, walk serenely on her way, accept the hint of each new experiences, search in turn all the objects of her new-born being, which is the kindling of a new dawn in the recesses of space. The fair girl, who repels interference by a decided and proud choice of influences, so careless of pleasing, so willful and lofty, inspires every beholder with somewhat of her own nobleness. The silent heart encourages her; O friend, never strike sail to a fear! Come into port greatly, or sail with God the seas. Not in vain you live, for every passing eye is cheered and refined by the vision."

            "The characteristic of heroism is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and starts…But when you have chosen your part, abide by it and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common heroic.

Adhere to you own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant and broken the monotony of a decorous age."

 

"Times of heroism are generally times of terror…

I see not any road of perfect peace which a man may walk, but after the counsel of his own bosom. Let him quit too much association, let him go home much, and stablish himself in those courses he approves. The unremitting retention of simple and high sentiments in obscure duties is hardening the character to that temper which will work with honor, if need be, in the tumult, or on the scaffold.

Whatever outrages have happened to men may befall a man again; and very easily in a republic if there appear any signs of a decay of religion (America).

[But] We rapidly approach a brink over which no enemy can follow us.”

To Be Alive or To Know that one is Alive?

 

“I can scarcely believe that I have limits, that I am outlined and defined. I feel myself to be dispersed in the atmosphere, thinking inside other creatures, living inside things beyond myself. …To possess each moment, to link them to my awareness, like tiny filaments, barely perceptible yet strong. Can this be life? Even so, it might elude me. Another way of capturing it would be to live. But the dream is more complete than the reality…What matters in the end: to be alive or to know that one is alive?

What is someone to do who doesn’t know what to do with himself?

….

Within my inner self I find the silence I am seeking.

Yet surely those rare moments of self-confidence, of blind existence, of happiness as intense and serene as an organ playing—surely those moments prove that I am capable of fulfilling my quest and that this longing which consumes my whole being is not merely some whim?

I must never forget, I thought, that I have been happy, that I am happy, happier than anyone could hope to be. But I forgot, I was always forgetting.” –Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector