Category Archives: Philosophy/Ideas

Train Dreams

Affinity, Movies, Philosophy/Ideas

 

There is another film that won my whole-hearted support this year.  It has not been in the news, but it should have been. It was not flashy, but it was truly meditative. It makes you think. I know not many people are interested in that these days, but I am.

There is a very interesting statement at the beginning of the film:

“There were once passageways to the old world, strange trails, hidden paths. You’d turn a corner and suddenly find yourself face-to-face with great mystery, the foundation of all things. And even though that old world is gone now, even though it’s been rolled up like a scroll and put somewhere, you can still feel the echo of it.”

 

There was a pair of old worn boots nailed into a tree with moss growing over them. Then you look up at an old tree, you can see it slowly falling down. That is the old world and it’s falling down.

 

Robert Grainier, the protagonist, who lived more than 80 years. He went west from Idaho to a place near the ocean, but never bothered to see the ocean. He didn’t need to see it. Why would he? He had lost his parents but he never how or why. No one ever told him. His connections were gone. One of his first memories is seeing the mass deportation of 100 or more Chinese families from town. Why was that necessary? No one has a good answer for that, just like none will have an answer for the current mass deportations either.  The narrator, who seems like the voice of God in this film, says, “Grainer was baffled by the casualness of the violence.” So am I. I know many people like it. I remember when I watched the 2020 Republican National Convention when people cheered with glee as Trump promised to bring about “mass deportation.” They loved it.

 

Graineir’s life was meaningless, until he fell in love with Gladys. Until then his life had little meaning. Suddenly it had some.  She told him, “She told him, “Right now I could just about understand everything there is.” Now that is meaning! The meaning of life. “All of a sudden, life made sense to Grainier, as if he’d been pulling hard the wrong way and was now turned around and headed down stream.”

 

He got a job working for a railway crew and wished he’d never done that. He saw a young Chinese man inexplicably pulled from his crew and tossed off a bridge into a deep ravine to his death. No one knew what he had done to deserve that.

 

The men built a bridge across a river and were told they had done something amazing.  But 10 years later a new and better bridge was built 10 miles away that rendered their bridge obsolete.  Amazing doesn’t last long. The old bridge was abandoned. Like old things often are.

 

As soon as Robert started to know he was back at home, it was logging season and time to leave again. “His work was populated with itinerant men. Most without homes, without families. They moved from job to job, state to state, as the work dictated.” Unconnected. Not rooted to the ground like old trees. “He once worked alongside a man for 2 months without saying a single word.” Trees talk more than that.  Someone asked the man if he had ever been to California and he just asked, “Is there no place where a man can get some peace?” And then he got up and moved. Those were the only words he ever heard the man speak.  Now that man was alienated. He had no connection with other men other than the work.  Words were no connection for him. He liked being unconnected.

 

One man lived in a hole in a big tree. Another faller, Apostle Frank, worked with Robert and kept talking continuously of God. And he spoke about the Bible as if he had been there when it was written down. Nice to have such certainty. As he told Robert, “Sometimes God has to find strange ways to tell you what you need to hear. Sometimes it’s a donkey talking to you.”

 

A logger, Arn, who came to blow up trees sang a song at night: “If the Lord was a redwood would you try to cut Him down? Or climb up His loving branches and look around?”

Robert asked Arn, “do you think bad things that you do follow you through life?”  Arn replied, “I don’t know, I’ve seen bad men raised up and good men brought to their knees. If figure that I could figure it out, I’d be a lot better-looking than you.” He did not feel connected to past mistakes.

The narrator said, “Grainier worried more and more that something terrible was following him, that death would find him out here, far away from the only place he really wanted to be.” That was his family. He was still connected but remotely.

When he got home and saw his daughter every time she seemed like a different person and he felt like he was missing his whole life. Which of course was true.

Even though money was tight, when he was home he later realized it was the happiest time of his life. Robert and Gladys just wanted to spend more time together with their daughter Katie.

Arn knew the work as hard. “That’ because it’s rough work, gentlemen, not just on the body but on the soul. We just cut down trees that have been here for 500 years. It upsets a man’s soul whether you recognize it or not.”  I agree. Lots of jobs are like that. Soul-destroying work.  Another logger said he would have $200 in his pocket after the work was done and that would not bother his soul. Who was right?

 

Arn said,  echoing John Muir, “This world is intricately stitched together. Every thread we pull, we know not how it affects the design of things. We’re but children on this earth, pulling bolts out of the Ferris wheel, thinking ourselves to be gods.”

 

Another logger said there were “enough logs to cut for a thousand years. And when the last ones cut, well the first one will be growed up as big as anything around today. Arn said he thought the same thing when he was young. Arn said, “My family is everywhere there is a smiling face. Never been somewhere I didn’t have some family there. Except for Kansas.  That state is filled with savage lunatics.” Unfortunately, much of the modern world is filled with savage lunatics, not just Kansas. They are all around.

 

One day a large of a tree hit him in the head and he was not the same. Somedays he could not remember his name. Yet, Arn  looked around and said, “It’s beautiful aint it?”  “What part?” asked Robert. “All of it, “ he said. “Every bit of it.”

 

Another day he was no longer a logger.  “The last few years he expected some great revelation about his life would descend upon him. But as of yet, none had. And he was beginning to doubt that one ever would.” He met a young lady, Claire, who said others had told her he was different.  Robert asked, “Ain’t everybody different?”  “No”, he said. She said, “It’s good to be different.”  I agree, but it’s OK if you’re not. She loved the valley because it carved out all the mountains. alleys. It’s where all the lakes come from. Referring to the time when massive gushes of water from melting glaciers cut deep into mountains and prairies alike, she said, “It must have felt like the world was coming to an end.” Yup, I think. Then she asked, “That’s where did all those myths come from, you know?  All those flood stories. All those different religions all over the world. It’s just the same story. Different slants…I don’t mean to be disrespectful about anything you believe in. The world’s an old place. Probably nothing it hasn’t seen by now.” They are all connected.

 

Robert told Claire how his wife and baby did not make it through the fire. He tells her, “Sometimes it just feels like the sadness is going to eat you alive.” She has a similar story. She lost her husband a year ago.

 

Claire tells him:

 

 “…And when it was over, it was like there was a hole in the world…I had more questions than answers…When you go through something like that, nothing you do is crazy…In the forest every least thing’s important. It’s all threaded together, so you can’t tell where one thing ends and another begins, if you really look at it. The little insects you can’t even see, they play a role as vital as the river. The dead tree is as important as the living one. There must be something for us to learn from that.”

 

Robert asks her, “What if you haven’t got anymore to give?” Claire replies, “The world needs a hermit in the woods as much as a preacher in the pulpit.”

 

One day he went to the big city and “wandered the city without much direction or purpose, as if looking for something he had misplaced a long time ago.”  Meandering. Then he went to a theatre of mysteries. They advertised that there would be “Sun Tzu, the holy man, will read your dreams.” Are those train dreams? The shill said, “pay you a dime to see a monster…Inside this theatre the mysteries of the world flit about like bats and insects. Here, all the answers to everything.” That’s a pretty big promise. The monster was only a boy in a costume. A puny monster. It made him cry. He saw his face in a mirror for the first time in a decade and could see the toll the years had taken. He felt that he was only just beginning to have some faint understanding of his life, even though it was now slipping away from him.

 

For $4 he got an airplane ride “to see the world as only the birds see it.’

He died in 1968.  As the narrator said,

 

“His life ended as quietly as it had begun. He’d never purchased a firearm or spoken into a telephone. He had no idea who his parents had might have been, and he left no heirs behind him. But on that spring day as he misplaced all sense of up and down, he felt at last connected to it all.”

He really was face to face with a mystery.

This is quiet film. Too quiet for most viewers who prefer loud action and computer generated mayhem. Too quiet to win the Academy award, but I like quiet films, that make you ponder. My kind of film.

 

What do Epicurus, Henry David Thoreau, Daniel Klein and my mother have in common?

Books, Philosophy/Ideas, The Simple Life, World of ideas

Daniel Klein the author of the book Travels with Epicurus, drew a lot of inspiration for that book from his reading of the ancient Greek philosopher, Epicurus. There was another brilliant thinker who also found inspiration there. This was the American thinker Henry David Thoreau.  I would say they were all kindred spirits.

Both men were profoundly content.

When I read Klein’s book, I was reminded of Henry David Thoreau, one of my heroes.  Thoreau lived simply in a plain cabin by a small lake, called Walden Pond. One day a friend arrived and offered him a floor mat.  Thoreau declined, feeling that the acquisition would not really enhance his life and would just create more useless work. He would have to pound it from time to time to get rid of dirt and dust. Not a big job, but an unnecessary one. What good would that do him?  He found no need for it. Therefore, he did not want it and declined the gift from a friend.

 

I remember my mother’s small senior’s apartment she moved into after my father was admitted into a personal care home.  In it she had a plaque which  read, “This is all I have, so it is all I need.”  She was making do with less by deliberate choice. She was nervous about her choice. I remember when she first moved in she referred to the apartment as her “dollhouse,” but within weeks she was entirely content. She did not need much so she reduced her wants and simplified her life. This made her life more joyful and meaningful. It was less dominated by things she really did not care about. I don’t think she had ever read Thoreau, but she was in her own way, a deep thinker.

 

I think all four of these thinkers had reached a conclusion that they wanted to know how to live the most fulfilling life in their present circumstances. Each of them in their own way worked on their own philosophy of life.  Perhaps Henry David Thoreau spoke for all of them when he said, “for my greatest skill has been to want but little.”

Greek Civilization

Books, civilization, Philosophy/Ideas, World of ideas

 

Some people think civilization was invented by the Greeks. I am not sure that is true, but they sure learned to practice it. Daniel Klein had come to Greece to figure out how best to live out his life in his old age. He thought he was in the right place and wrote about it in his wonderful book Travels with Epicurus. That book inspired me to meander off on all kinds of tangents some of which I have been blogging about. I too went to Greece many years ago in 1989.

 

Klein told a story about he and his wife getting on a train in Greece falling asleep quickly, and learning to their dismay when they woke up that they were going the wrong direction. They took the train going east when they wanted to go west. A pretty big mistake. What could he do about it?

 

He went to tell the conductor about his misery, but it seemed the conductor was ignoring the problem and kept pestering him about people he might know back in the USA.  Then all of a sudden, his train stopped and he noticed a train going in the opposite direction that also had come to a stop by an apricot grove.  People had disembarked the train and were enjoying the apricots and sun and were telling each other stories and just plain enjoying life.

 

Then he realized that this other train had stopped only for Klein and his wife. Someone had signalled them about Klein’s problem and stopped the train to help them out. No one on the other train that the Kleins got onto complained about the unscheduled stop. In fact, they just enjoyed it. They smoked, talked, and ate apricots. It was all good. They all had time to help someone out. No one was fussed. It was not big deal. They were content.

Then Klein later recalling the episode said that he knew “I had come to the right part of the world to meditate on the best way to live my old age.”[1] These people knew how to deal with small problems of life. He had come to civilization. Greek civilization.

Klein also said, by all accounts

 

“this was a civilization that liked to talk and made the time to do so.  Later forms of communication, like the frequently one-way media of our era, did not offer competition to daily dialogue…These people were talking about ideas.”

 

Imagine that people talking about ideas. Not the latest political news. They talked about ideas. And enjoyed it with apricots, and sunlight.

 

Kleins also mentioned something we had learned about when we went to Greece so many decades ago.  It was something about ancient Greeks. They loved to attend plays—dramas, often of a philosophical nature. As Klein said,

 

“Attending a performance at the Dionysus amphitheatre was often an all- day affair in which the audience was cast in the role of a jury that deliberated on which character’s actions and viewpoints was most worthy. After-theatre discussions about justice, proper conduct, and human frailties could get hot and heavy. These people were talking about ideas.”

 

Imagine that. Taking the time out of a busy day to talk about ideas. That is civilized.

 

As Klein said, “This, in the end, is the prime purpose of a philosophy: to give us lucid ways to think about the world and how to live in it.” Yes, Klein had come to the right place.

 

It was the place where great philosophers were born, like Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, and Epicurus. This was a place of great civilization.

 

 

Whisper words of Wisdom; Let it Be

Philosophy/Ideas, The Simple Life

 

One of my favorite fictional series of books was that created by John D. MacDonald. Each book in the series had a named color in the title. The series revolved around Travis McGee who lived on a houseboat in Fort Lauderdale and worked irregularly, as sort of a detective. His job really was helping women—usually beautiful women—in distress. Not a bad job if you can get it. He always claimed he was taking his retirement in instalments. He didn’t want to wait until he was old to retire. He couldn’t wait that long.

 

Daniel Klein, in his book Travels with Epicurus, was sitting one day on the terrace again on his favorite Greek Island, Hydra, drinking in the sun, enjoying the day deeply, when, much to his surprise he met an old classmate from Harvard. Both men were surprised to see each other. The Harvard man stepped off a yacht. Klein look dishevelled. He had not cut his hair since he arrived there about half a year earlier. When the Harvard friend asked him what the hell he was doing there, Klein explained, “I’m taking my retirement early while I can still enjoy it.” But Klein did not stay more than a year. Shortly after that, he had enough and returned home. He had no regrets. He enjoyed it immensely while he was there and then returned home. He was content.

 

I had a good friend Eugene Reimer. He was the best man at my wedding and he was a bit like Travis McGee. I know he enjoyed those books like I did. But unlike me, Eugene took that philosophy to heart. He was one of the original computer guys and found it very easy to find work.  At about age 40 he decided he had been working too hard. Those who knew him laughed at that suggestion. He never worked hard.  At least not for long.  When he actually worked he ‘gave ‘er’ But he decided that from now on, as soon as he made enough money for the year he would quit for the rest of the year. I remember one time inviting him over to our house in early December and he said he had just quit work for the year. I remarked, “You sure worked a lot this year.”  He replied, “well I just started November 1.” Each year when he made enough, he quit. Why work more? He was content. That year he worked less than 2 months.

 

I often admitted to him how jealous I was and he reminded me that I could do that too. The only difference he said was the he lived simply. I always thought I did that. I have lived in the same house for more than 50 years. His needs and desires were modest. In his house he still used the same sofa he had bought from the Salvation Army when he and I lived together as poor university students. And it still had the same spring sticking out that would grab you by the ass if you sat down on it.  It was good enough. Especially since he never had to sit in it. Only his hapless visitors like I got the dubious pleasure of sitting on the couch.  His only decorative item in the house  was a cheap pair of spectacles hanging on a nail on the wall of his living room. I never knew why. It seemed to be his only concession to ornamentation.

 

Eugene never bragged about it or got preachy about it; he just lived a simple life. And he enjoyed the rewards of a simple life, more time—a lot more time—to do the things he really liked and largely avoided doing the things he didn’t like.

 

Eugene was lucky for he died pretty young. That may sound odd. He was lucky in the sense that he did enjoy annual interim retirements. He was also lucky, because if he had waited to retire at age 65 he would never have retired at all. And he did fully retired at about 45. So actually, he wasn’t lucky. He was smart. He was probably the smartest guy I ever knew. And he retired young and enjoyed every moment of it. He knew how to live. Like Epicurus. Adn Travis McGee. Be content.

 

Eugene liked the philosophy of Travis McGee, and he lived it. Daniel Klein got his advice from Epicurus, but both might have got it from the Beatles, who said, “Whisper Words of Wisdom, let it be.”  What could be wiser than that? Too many of us waste our lives by striving forever. They can’t stop.  What a pity.

 

The End of the Day

Books, Philosophy/Ideas, Sunsets, The Simple Life, World of ideas

 

Many years ago, when my lads were young, we were travelling in Newfoundland for 2 weeks and stayed in a tiny motel in the tiny town of Cox’s Cove, at the far western edge of the town, which was right against the west coast of the province. It was a Friday night and people were coming home from work or going on a drive. I noticed a number of cars stopped at the end of the road, facing the oceans, and stopped for a few minutes. Then another car would come and do the same thing and then another and another. What was going on? I had to know

 

So finally, I buckled up enough courage and walked up to a stranger in a car parked at the extreme western edge of Newfoundland  and I asked him and his companion why everyone was doing that. Why were they coming to the edge of town on a Friday night to do that? “What were they doing?” I asked.  “We come to see the sunset,” the driver replied.  I was dumbstruck. They all came on a Friday night to see the sunset!  Didn’t they have anything better to do?  No. That was the point.

 

Wow. I thought about it. What a spectacular thing to do.

 

That is what I wanted to do. That might be the day I became an official inspector of sunsets. A life-long job.

 

Daniel Klein in his fabulous book Travels with Epicurus: A Journey to a Greek Island in Search of Fulfilment wrote about the friends around a table at the taverna on the Greek island of Hydra.  He was watching them from a nearby seat. They were sitting on the terrace in the Greek sun. Tucked behind the ear of one of the men was sprig of wild lavender that it took him considerable effort to pick up. He had to stoop to do it. He was an old man. Some things are hard for old men. During lulls in the conversation of the men, he removed the herb and took a few sniffs of it. Clearly enjoying the smell.

 

Klein was reading Epicurus on his trip to a lovely Greek Island, Hydra. He had come from America to Greece with that book in mind. It was an essential book for the trip. He was listening to the men at the table. They had a gentle conversation interspersed, from time to time, by a gaze out to the Peloponnesian Straits.  I have been on the island of Hydra, many years ago. It is a small island with a small village at the harbour. No cars are allowed. There are no roads. I was struck by the loveliness of the place so many years ago.

 

Hydra was a great place to look at sunsets. And have conversations. Like Cox’s Cove.

 

A philosophy of life

Books, Philosophy/Ideas, The Simple Life, World of ideas

 

In his book Travels with Epicurus: a Journey to a Greek Island in Search of a Fulfilled Life, Daniel Klein  really offered us a philsophy of life based on his reading of the ancient Greek Philosopher Epicurus, and his short life on the island of Hydra, Greece.

As Klein said, he wanted to “Figure the most satisfying way to live this stage of my life.” He didn’t want to theorize about it. He wanted to do it. He wanted to live that life. This was a philosophy of life.

 

When a man—particularly an old man—chooses radical freedom from everyday life and politics he is truly free. Such a man is able “to scale down and taste the sweetness of this freedom.” That is a life worthy living. Why strive for more? What more do you need?

Klein explained this choice of an Epicurean life in old age this way:

“Freed from ‘the prison of everyday affairs and politics,’ an old man needs only to answer to himself. He does not need to stick to a strict schedule or compromise his whims to sustain his life. He can, for example, sit for hours on end in the company of his friends, occasionally pausing to sniff the fragrance of a sprig of wild lavender.”

 

Like the old friends gathering in a garden. Wanting nothing else.

 

Old men can do that. Or old women. It  is more difficult for young men or young women  who are compelled to network, gain recognition, or tips for earning money. The convivial friendship of old men sitting around a small table in a garden is enough. That is the key. Recognizing when is enough. That takes real wisdom. Experience can help.

 

As Klein said,

“For an old man with the world of “everyday affairs and politics” behind him, this kind of camaraderie is the greatest gift that rarely, if ever, is fully available to the forever youngsters still immersed in their careers.”

It is a gift that is available to each of us. But we can’t give in to distractions or we won’t find it. We won’t find it we stay inside the prisons of our own choosing.

 

Radical Contentment

Books, civilization, Philosophy/Ideas, The Simple Life, World of ideas

 

When he wrote the book Travels with Epicurus, Daniel Klein was already an old man who wanted to “figure out the most satisfying way to live this stage of my life.”  He did not want to figure how a young man should live. It was too late for that.  The young man was no more. Klein wanted a philosophy that could be lived. I have always called that existentialism. Living philosophy. The young man was gone and beyond help, but he could help his old self. That old man wanted to live the best life in the time he had left. That would be as close to a fulfilled life as he could get. That is the philosophy he sought. A living philosophy for the old man who was living now.

 

Epicurus wanted to answer the fundamental question: ‘How does one make the most of one’s life?” Epicurus had thought deeply about this question. He concluded the best possible life one could live was a happy life or a life filled with pleasure. That does not necessarily mean he sought a sensual life, a life that some wrongly call Epicurean. That was not the life he sought. Pleasure for Epicurus was just the starting point. Often other pleasures are more satisfying than sensual pleasures which frankly are often fleeting and not deeply satisfying.  Epicureans were not “wanton hedonists” as their reputation would suggest. As Klein said, he was not looking for “a life of dazzling sensory excitement.”

 

In fact Epicurus much preferred the life of ideas.  Learning more was what he found fulfilling. That is what I have tried to do in my retirement. Learn more, without striving. Just do it and enjoy it.

 

 

According to Klein “The old folks of Hydra have always struck me as uncommonly content with their stage of life.” He wanted to be content with his own stage of life.

He wanted to be like those old men sitting on the patio or in the Taverna enjoying life in the here and now.

 

Klein thought the ancient Greek philosophers, who were famous for their wisdom, might help him to achieve wisdom too, particularly if he sought their help in their own homeland where their ideas had germinated. As Klein said, “The prospect of reading the ancient Greek philosophers while surrounded by the rocky, sunlit landscape where their ideas first flourished feels just right to me.” So he packed his bag with books, many of them books of the ancient Greek philosophers and set out for the lovely island of Hydra where he might find out how to live a fulfilled life at age 72.

 

Epicurus sought the life that was free from striving. A life of satisfied contentment.  He wanted a fulfilled life. I call that radical contentment.

 

Radical Freedom/ Freedom from Striving

Books, Philosophy/Ideas, Simple Life, The Simple Life, Wisdom

 

Daniel Klein in his book Travels with Epicurus describes the fulfilled old man as the man who is free from vacillations and like the Zen Buddhists who are free from “the emptiness of striving.” That is what radical freedom is—i.e., freedom from striving. The reason old age is so good is because by then, hopefully, one has achieved the fulfilled life and the striving is over and the enjoyment is all. One should be living rather than striving. If one has not started living, one must start before its too late.

 

Marcus Aurelius was a 2nd century CE Roman Emperor and also a philosopher.  Like Epicurus he was a Stoic who wrote a book called Meditations, which he wrote for himself, since he said he did not write to get favorable opinions from others.  According to the Stoics, virtue is good and only vice is bad. The things which most of us strive for are really indifferent to our happiness because our lives are not made good or bad by our having or lacking them. That is why things are not important. Living is important.

 

Marcus Aurelius was a bit like Epicurus.  This is what Aurelius said, “It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”  Henry David Thoreau had similar views.  He said that he did not want to come to the end of his life to find out that he had not lived at all. To both that was the point. Living life well. Not by striving; by living.  Thoreau also said this:

“Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake,  are so occupied with the fractious cares and superfluous coarse labors of life that is finer fruits cannot be plucked by them.”

 

In a word, too many of us allow striving to interfere with living. Instead we should be content.

 

Of course, in the modern world in particular commercial interests are expert at creating desires for things which will not satisfy us, but will satisfy them!  They will have their desires satisfied by our striving not us. We will never be content by trying to satisfying desires.

 

This is how Daniel Klein described the contented life of Epicurus:

“Epicurus may have predated Madison Avenue by a few millennia, but he already detected the commercial world’s uncanny ability to make us think we need stuff we don’t—and as the world of commerce keeps chugging along, to need ever newer  stuff. But when shopping for the latest thing—usually something we do not really need–Epicurus’s all-important life of tranquil pleasure is nowhere to be found.”

Commercial interests seek to keep us striving for ever more and better and newer stuff, but if we fall for that we will never get off the striving. We will be on a endless spinning cycle that never reaches the goal of contentment. We will never have enough.

 

Epicurus, ever the eloquent Greek put it this way: “Nothing is enough for the man to  whom enough is too little.”

Do you know anyone like that?  I know at least one. A famous president. But there are many like that.

This is wisdom. And radical freedom.