“He would sometimes say that if life were made what it might be, by good government and good education, it would be worth having: but he never spoke with anything like enthusiasm even of that possibility.”
Excerpt From: John Stuart Mill. “Autobiography.”
At Lido Key beach where I cycled this morning there were four young girls sunbathing nearby me where I lay in my shoreline demesne. I overheard them exclaim with exuberance how thrilled they were to be here. It reminded me of my impressions long ago when in university and traveling for the March Break. They were not the only young people on the beach. There were routine parades along the shore of young friends, couples and children.
“It would have been wholly inconsistent with my father’s ideas of duty, to allow me to acquire impressions contrary to his convictions and feelings respecting religion: and he impressed upon me from the first, that the manner in which the world came into existence was a subject on which nothing was known: that the question, “Who made me?” cannot be answered, because we have no experience or authentic information from which to answer it; and that any answer only throws the difficulty a step further back, since the question immediately presents itself, “Who made God?” He, at the same time, took care that I should be acquainted with what had been thought by mankind on these impenetrable problems.”
Excerpt From: John Stuart Mill. “Autobiography.”
Being happy is as much about what you don’t do. Don’t eat so much; spend less; “say little but think much” (by late father’s favourite); avoid confrontation; don’t be accusatory of others; “flattery is a net before another man’s feet” (my personal favourite); “do what you do best, outsource the rest” (another one I have learned to live by – the hard way, naturally); if it doesn’t feel good, forget it (a variation on “trust your instincts“); let it go; accept that for the most part, nobody’s listening and nobody cares; don’t bother saving the world; know when to quit; don’t assume you know what they’re thinking; don’t care if they know what you’re thinking.
Things here were activated by no later than 7:00 am this morning. It was “spa day”, our routine three-week visit for manicures and pedicures. Frankly I am unaccustomed to seeing the sunrise. It was a gleaming pink sky over Sarasota Bay. Except for a glass mug of chilled black coffee and the sliced green apple which I had, there was no breakfast at home today. Instead we had planned as usual to go to the Blue Dolphin after our appointments. Not unexpectedly when we arrived there we ended having to wait at least thirty minutes for a table. No matter, it is always worth the wait. While lingering we amused ourselves by shopping the windows of the little mall. I also sat on a bench and read more of the autobiography of John Stuart Mill (who interestingly was born 1806 not long after Thomas Paine’s writings were making the rounds). While reading I curiously overheard the characteristic chatter between New Yorkers who were also waiting. They were unabashedly loud and intentionally self-congratulatory about all they accounted.
You don’t have to be a car buff to notice the proliferation of SUVs. Every manufacturer seems to have one. They started years ago with the productions of Lincoln Navigator (undeniably a truck tarted up to be expensive), Cadillac Escalade (the competitor’s answer to absurdity) followed by others with preposterously Freudian names like Pilot, Armada, Tahoe, Land Cruiser and the ubiquitous Land Rover (a designer Jeep for the real cowboy). The German-based vehicles like Audi, BMW and Mercedes and many of the Japanese manufacturers had the dignity to preserve complicated letter codes for identification. Meanwhile the iconic American sedans such as Cadillac and Lincoln have translated their flagships into Chevrolets and Fords respectively, all very nice (and in some instances surprisingly so) but distinctly passé. Even Jaguar, Porsche, Bentley and Rolls-Royce have compromised their once elegant symbols of leather-gloved driving to oversized road warriors for people who drive while sitting sideways with one hand on the wheel and their left elbow on the top of the door panel. The only American sedans of note which will survive are the muscle cars like Camaro and Mustang which never qualified as mere sedans in any event – just toys.
For reasons I cannot decipher an uncommon sense of bien-être insinuated me upon awakening this morning. Granted I had had a good sleep for the statutory eight hours. The favourable development had begun overnight when I noticed I was able to stretch my limbs and sigh to the pleasure of relieving cracks in the process. When fulfilling my ablutions and preparing my breakfast I was able to stand more easily. It therefore mattered not that the air was cool or that the sky was clouded – I had every intention of enjoying my constitutional bicycle ride.
Anna Maria Island was our target today. The plan had been made to lunch there with old friends at Rod and Reel Pier. As we traveled late this morning from Longboat Key through Bradenton Beach the atmosphere graduated from the gated communities of the Bourgeoisie to the subtropical beach milieu of Anna Maria Island. Suddenly we were surrounded not by secluded vast compounds behind guarded entries but quaint colourful homes with white picket fences overtaken by palm trees and ferns. It forced me to reconsider who in fact is living the caged existence.
When the erstwhile appetites dwindle – as they surely must – there is no reason not to replace them. Much of the consternation about what to do instead arises from the mistaken belief that the past had it all. The past however quite literally disappears in the present. It is accordingly no indignity to contemplate what else one might do to fulfill whatever ambition of production persists. When I was in prep school in the Upper Sixth Form preparing for final exams in May of 1968 I occupied what little leisure I had by going to the back field behind the tennis courts and lay in the sun to get a tan. Afterwards in June I flew to Europe where my parents, my sister and I spent a month on the Costa Brava near Barcelona. By the time we subsequently reached Paris en route to Stockholm I was so brown that my friend Ricardo Schmeichler who arranged to meet me on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées didn’t recognize me.
Though I certainly have been to the beach many times since our arrival on Longboat Key last October today was oddly the first time I feel I spent a day at the beach. My mission this morning wasn’t as qualified. I started on my bicycle by going to Lido Key in the same manner as I have done a number of times before. Not long into the cycle however I began to formulate the decision to investigate another part of the beach than the one at the south end to which I usually go. This modification required some investigation; specifically to see whether there were a rack on which to secure my bicycle. Almost by accident I found one secluded appropriately enough near the entrance. There was only one space left on the rack. I took it.