It was nearly a week alone at the small cabin, no electricity or cell phone or visitors, and I felt the pang of cabin fever in mid-summer. Like most of the Great Lake states, it has been wet and cool, and in the north woods, this means one great thing - mosquitoes! So bad that in the cabin, which has no plumbing, I took to using a bucket to recycle cup after cup of tea, for opening the door only led to a dozen or three dozen or who knows how many mosquitoes coming in willy-nilly and uninvited. Oh, I took a long daily walk, but returned in relief, closing the door behind me and then spraying on another coat of DEET (which they say might have some adverse side-affects, but they never say what. Is it DEET, after all, which is the cause of all my problems?) before putting on another kettle of water. Cabin fever, so much so that I simply had to walk out each night to see the stars, only to bring in another batch of unwanted guests that would pester me all night long until the first hint of dawn at 5 AM rescued me from that kind of fitful hell that is the relentless struggle to find oblivion. Booze would work but it leaves hangovers. Going home would work, but I was on vacation, even if it was alone (and for good reason. They all KNEW), and damned if I wouldn't enjoy myself.
Guitar and books, then, those were the tickets, until I had played Rocky Mountain High one too many times, where I began to wonder: was our hero in the song also rhapsodic over mosquitoes? Why, it is even known that caribou will leap from cliffs to certain death just to escape them. Might a man "born in the summer of his 27th year" also do the same? There was the project to build a wood shed as well, but are you kidding? Unless that could be done under a secure mosquito net, that wasn't going to happen. And so it was books. The ones I had gotten from the library were not meant for philosophical meanderings, but entertainment, picked in a rush a day before leaving and a few minutes before doing the cabin shopping. Malcolm McDonald's "David and Goliath" popped up, as well as a new biography on Jack London (who had known mosquitoes) by Earle Labor titled "Jack London - an American Life." Not books that would enter a blog like this, one would think. Naturally, after reading them, I was forced to think again. Oh, there was plenty. They were about life, after all, and life is nothing but choices and reasons and the meaning behind the two, and meaning always leads to the bigger stuff.
In Jack London, one of the obvious topics, given his time, was that of socialism in a country where government was intended to play a minimal role. The industrial revolution ended that dream, leaving myself to ponder the paradox of freedom and government control, of trusting some people with our lives rather than others or ourselves. That, however, will wait for another time. It is rather about success that the books made me think, for this was central to both. In the first, Gladwell talks of people who were born with impediments of one kind or another, either emotional, from miserable childhoods, or biological - many in his dissertation had dyslexia or ADD - or economic - most were from modest to miserable economic strata. In the other book, Jack London fit all of the above; a bastard in a time (late 1800's) when that was considered a scandal of the highest order, desperately poor, and given to bouts of drinking that he could not or would not control. Underlying most of the examples in Gladwell's book, and with Jack London himself, was the desperate need to succeed. Writing to one of his female friends as a very young and very poor young man, London said he would do anything for success, and if he were a woman, "would prostitute myself to all men" for the recognition and money he craved. In Gladwell's book, many were driven by the same need to be recognized. And just like London, many achieved their dream against great odds only to find that success never ended their need, but rather abated it only momentarily, like a brief sleep caught between mosquito bites. To be honest, there were some who, besides coming from obscurity, seemed normal enough, but even they had problems with family and life like everyone else. Most, however, possessed a drive - a demon I call it - that would not let them rest. Mosquitoes of the mind.
It is a cliche, this, and I will not overdo it. We mere mortals who never make it big have our problems as well, some in spades, so I will not try to make anyone feel better about his lack of success with examples of successful people who are miserable as well. We all have our bites to scratch. Not that wouldn't like to. A few weeks ago I wrote about seeing the houses of the very wealthy on a tour of Geneva Lake, and how it made me feel both disgusted at the excess of the wealthy elite, but also very small. Not all who made it big were crooks and swindlers. Those in Gladwell's book were more often than not driven but honest people who simply did not waste time like the rest of us. They were, in everyday eyes, superior people. London's success as an author also made me feel small. He busted butt and was single-minded in obtaining his goal in a way I could never be. Yes, most of us take time to smell the roses, but then have nothing to take home from our walk. For many of us, life is a brief encounter here and there with this and that, and then over. We leave no monuments to our genius or our efforts because we do not deserve them.
Yesterday finally came the long ride home, and it was a sad departure because finally the air had turned crisp and the winds strong so that the mosquitoes were held at bay to a more normal minor annoyance. But such are obligations, and back I went, first on the long roads through the woods, then the highway through the industrial Fox Valley of Green Bay to Oshkosh, and finally the trip on the smaller road that rolls and curves through minor farm towns and hamlets. "Hamlet" seems an archaic word, but it works for some of these little places that have little more than a grain elevator and a cluster of houses that look on the only road in town with a sad longing for a greater dream, or maybe with a peaceful and more willing resignation, coached under old maples to simply live. It was while driving through one of these hamlets that I saw the one grouping of monuments where most of us will indeed be recognized, the cemetery, and in a flash it came to me almost like the voices of the dead. There it is, the answer to our needs, always right before our eyes: death. With this thought I could fulfill the cliche by saying, "forget about achievement and smell the roses, for death awaits us all," but I will not. Death is not meant as the great leveling of rich and poor, of smart and stupid, although it does do that for the status-conscious mind. Instead it is the FACT of the endless mystery of the world and the poignant reminder that it is our place in it to discover and explore. To seek social approval through wealth and success is indeed a trivial thing, but to gain it incidentally through living the real task of life is neither good nor bad, but simply a corollary and a possible byproduct. It is not the goal, though, and death teaches us this. It also teaches us, if we look at the light shining on the thin stands of marble and limestone, that life is not hopeless and futile. Instead, those familiar monuments advise us that we, embedded as we generally are in our society, hardly know a thing about the miracle of existence. It is ours to get to know as much as we can, either through our work or after work or within our work, and the rewards have no bounds. Unlike the little cemetery and the hamlet which seem so bounded, death serves as the top of the mountain to show before us an unlimited and untamed land just waiting to be explored. We can do this best without the incessant whining and biting of mosquitoes both internal and external, but even with those, we can still do it. That is the real lesson of David and Goliath, although along different lines. And it was the lesson in London's greatest novels, where he caught a glimpse of something eternal that London the socialist and atheist would not call God, because that was such a bourgeoisie and embarrassing word, but which was God none- the- less. Open, boundless, free into eternity, that is our view from cemetery hill, a mansion for everyone and a self realization far greater than anything London could get from his public.
I slip into cliche again, but the truth and the cliche run side-by-side. Yet freedom is only in the truth, not the cliche. If the buzzing of inadequacy in the success of others bothers me again, I will use the view of death as my DEET and will walk outside anywhere I choose, mosquitoes and gnats regardless. FK
Guitar and books, then, those were the tickets, until I had played Rocky Mountain High one too many times, where I began to wonder: was our hero in the song also rhapsodic over mosquitoes? Why, it is even known that caribou will leap from cliffs to certain death just to escape them. Might a man "born in the summer of his 27th year" also do the same? There was the project to build a wood shed as well, but are you kidding? Unless that could be done under a secure mosquito net, that wasn't going to happen. And so it was books. The ones I had gotten from the library were not meant for philosophical meanderings, but entertainment, picked in a rush a day before leaving and a few minutes before doing the cabin shopping. Malcolm McDonald's "David and Goliath" popped up, as well as a new biography on Jack London (who had known mosquitoes) by Earle Labor titled "Jack London - an American Life." Not books that would enter a blog like this, one would think. Naturally, after reading them, I was forced to think again. Oh, there was plenty. They were about life, after all, and life is nothing but choices and reasons and the meaning behind the two, and meaning always leads to the bigger stuff.
In Jack London, one of the obvious topics, given his time, was that of socialism in a country where government was intended to play a minimal role. The industrial revolution ended that dream, leaving myself to ponder the paradox of freedom and government control, of trusting some people with our lives rather than others or ourselves. That, however, will wait for another time. It is rather about success that the books made me think, for this was central to both. In the first, Gladwell talks of people who were born with impediments of one kind or another, either emotional, from miserable childhoods, or biological - many in his dissertation had dyslexia or ADD - or economic - most were from modest to miserable economic strata. In the other book, Jack London fit all of the above; a bastard in a time (late 1800's) when that was considered a scandal of the highest order, desperately poor, and given to bouts of drinking that he could not or would not control. Underlying most of the examples in Gladwell's book, and with Jack London himself, was the desperate need to succeed. Writing to one of his female friends as a very young and very poor young man, London said he would do anything for success, and if he were a woman, "would prostitute myself to all men" for the recognition and money he craved. In Gladwell's book, many were driven by the same need to be recognized. And just like London, many achieved their dream against great odds only to find that success never ended their need, but rather abated it only momentarily, like a brief sleep caught between mosquito bites. To be honest, there were some who, besides coming from obscurity, seemed normal enough, but even they had problems with family and life like everyone else. Most, however, possessed a drive - a demon I call it - that would not let them rest. Mosquitoes of the mind.
It is a cliche, this, and I will not overdo it. We mere mortals who never make it big have our problems as well, some in spades, so I will not try to make anyone feel better about his lack of success with examples of successful people who are miserable as well. We all have our bites to scratch. Not that wouldn't like to. A few weeks ago I wrote about seeing the houses of the very wealthy on a tour of Geneva Lake, and how it made me feel both disgusted at the excess of the wealthy elite, but also very small. Not all who made it big were crooks and swindlers. Those in Gladwell's book were more often than not driven but honest people who simply did not waste time like the rest of us. They were, in everyday eyes, superior people. London's success as an author also made me feel small. He busted butt and was single-minded in obtaining his goal in a way I could never be. Yes, most of us take time to smell the roses, but then have nothing to take home from our walk. For many of us, life is a brief encounter here and there with this and that, and then over. We leave no monuments to our genius or our efforts because we do not deserve them.
Yesterday finally came the long ride home, and it was a sad departure because finally the air had turned crisp and the winds strong so that the mosquitoes were held at bay to a more normal minor annoyance. But such are obligations, and back I went, first on the long roads through the woods, then the highway through the industrial Fox Valley of Green Bay to Oshkosh, and finally the trip on the smaller road that rolls and curves through minor farm towns and hamlets. "Hamlet" seems an archaic word, but it works for some of these little places that have little more than a grain elevator and a cluster of houses that look on the only road in town with a sad longing for a greater dream, or maybe with a peaceful and more willing resignation, coached under old maples to simply live. It was while driving through one of these hamlets that I saw the one grouping of monuments where most of us will indeed be recognized, the cemetery, and in a flash it came to me almost like the voices of the dead. There it is, the answer to our needs, always right before our eyes: death. With this thought I could fulfill the cliche by saying, "forget about achievement and smell the roses, for death awaits us all," but I will not. Death is not meant as the great leveling of rich and poor, of smart and stupid, although it does do that for the status-conscious mind. Instead it is the FACT of the endless mystery of the world and the poignant reminder that it is our place in it to discover and explore. To seek social approval through wealth and success is indeed a trivial thing, but to gain it incidentally through living the real task of life is neither good nor bad, but simply a corollary and a possible byproduct. It is not the goal, though, and death teaches us this. It also teaches us, if we look at the light shining on the thin stands of marble and limestone, that life is not hopeless and futile. Instead, those familiar monuments advise us that we, embedded as we generally are in our society, hardly know a thing about the miracle of existence. It is ours to get to know as much as we can, either through our work or after work or within our work, and the rewards have no bounds. Unlike the little cemetery and the hamlet which seem so bounded, death serves as the top of the mountain to show before us an unlimited and untamed land just waiting to be explored. We can do this best without the incessant whining and biting of mosquitoes both internal and external, but even with those, we can still do it. That is the real lesson of David and Goliath, although along different lines. And it was the lesson in London's greatest novels, where he caught a glimpse of something eternal that London the socialist and atheist would not call God, because that was such a bourgeoisie and embarrassing word, but which was God none- the- less. Open, boundless, free into eternity, that is our view from cemetery hill, a mansion for everyone and a self realization far greater than anything London could get from his public.
I slip into cliche again, but the truth and the cliche run side-by-side. Yet freedom is only in the truth, not the cliche. If the buzzing of inadequacy in the success of others bothers me again, I will use the view of death as my DEET and will walk outside anywhere I choose, mosquitoes and gnats regardless. FK
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