Muddling morning

Overnight during what was at times a restless and disturbed sleep marked by ephemeral interruptions of seemingly astonishing insight and creative flair, I forecast in my then inventive mind a production of indescribable consequence. One must always move forward; or, as my erstwhile physician is wont cryptically to observe, “Keep moving!” Period! There is simply no other way to calculate life’s productive motives whether physically, intellectually, psychologically or emotionally. Thus I too find the succinct denomination not entirely beyond relevance. It is a perfunctory mandate of the simplest instruction.

Approaching life in this forward-thinking  manner is relieving as well. Keeping one’s focus on the future, always looking at the mottled clouds on the distant horizon, maintaining a respectful distance from immediacy and most certainly never glancing backwards. There is no elevation to be derived from the past (though the warrant of the logic is often less than apparent). Always we are in search of who we are. What’s it like to be you?

The question admittedly is a strange one, not something you’d customarily hear directed at another, at least not in what is normally considered polite society. It harbours an element of nastiness as it oddly implies that you are different from others. What’s it like to be you? I suppose one could say that about anyone, that we’re all different.  But if the truth be told there are differences and there are those who are “different”. It is a nicety reminiscent of:

“in the language of Mr. Burke, they have changed the idol, but they have preserved the idolatry.”

Excerpt From: Gibbon, Edward. “Memoirs of My Life and Writings.”

I have enjoyed reading biographies and autobiographies, among them Vladimir Horowitz, Sir Alec Guiness, Stephen Fry and of course Edward Gibbon. Though there are clearly similarities among them – talent for one thing, gusto for life, occasional hardship and submission to societal influences generally – what distinguishes them if anything is attitude.  I won’t pretend to venture into an analysis of comparative attitudes of those or any other people. It is sufficient for this purpose to enquire into your attitude.  I am confident that if I understand your attitude I will know what it is like to be you.

From what I’ve seen you have a satisfaction with life which appears to border on smugness. You’ve mentioned that the posture has on accasion back-fired to the extent that your favourable gloss on things sometimes amounts to complaisancy, that in a word you’re not quite as stellar as you had imagined (though I understand the discovery hasn’t diminished your pleasure and undisguised self-absorption). You perhaps shelter yourself from comparative display by opting for insular activities. It is possible this fuels the ascription of more than mere singularity to your undertakings – I believe you aren’t reluctant to denominate much of what you do as more acute than most, or at a minimum that you nurture higher standards than are frequently tolerated in larger organizations for example.

It makes sense that forty years of being a sole practitioner has wrought some fine tuning on what ultimately passes as curmudgeonly behaviour. Understandably there is less forbearance of contradiction when one’s time is so precious as it must be when you’re the butcher, baker and candlestick maker – that is, the owner and the janitor all rolled into one. The pay-off for having the last word is that you have dominion over it all. I accept that you aren’t flippant when you quip that you were a “mere servant to the rich” – from which I infer that you took your duties seriously and performed them assiduously – but similarly I can see you built your empire with more than a little indulgent calculation.

Naturally the measure of any man isn’t his employment any more than are his furnishings or the car he drives. As distinguished as may be any one of those features they are nonetheless far too common to be of any distinction. Yet can we possibly dissolve the veil of modesty or personal secrecy to disclose the definable peculiarites of another?  More to the point, do you even know what defines those peculiarities?  Are you capable of perceiving yourself as an individual? Does one dare to peel back the veneer from our instinctual conduct?

I take the liberty of presuming that your material environment is an expression of yourself, that the manifest glitz and glitter of your stuff is illustrative of your character as your obvious affection for mahogany and oak. Not to mention the precious Persians and the erstwhile sterling silver, cast bronzes and Baccarat crystal. Surely these things exude your personal deliverance from equanimity and triviality. They are no doubt indicia of an exuberance for life! Though I hesitate to say so, the tactile features of these demonstrations speak to a reputed hedonism which I daresay approaches lasciviousness in another context. The visceral energy is unmistakeable. I believe that capitalizing on that resource was at one time a practiced weapon to accomplish less than flighty ventures.

Forgive me for saying so but you’re considered to be part of a minority. There is no need to reiterate the obvious especially as one man’s minority is another’s majority, which is to say that the expression of novelty or singularity must certainly be rooted in more than numbers. There are many instances of minorities having to endure less than favourable interaction. My impression however is that your minority never hindered you from your standpoint. In fact based upon what I know you have inevitably turned the tables of prejudice to your advantage, not in any diabolic sense but rather in the sense of making lemonade from lemons, turning a bad turn to a good one.

What captures my interest more than anything is your pronouncement that if you had it to do all over again you wouldn’t change a thing.  As usual it smacks of your characteristic arrogance though I confess there is no basis in logic upon which to object. Only last evening we were debating the significance of those proverbial “forks in the road”, how going one way as opposed to another irrevocably changed your life. I can’t presume that everyone has endured such pivotal moments in life but likely most people have had to make choices at one time or another, whether about a course of study or a place to live or maybe even a life-partner. What rings clearly in your particular circumstances is that the critical importance of the crossroads did not obscure your ultimate gratification in having made the choice you did. If nothing else this reflection has a foundation in reason for there is patently nothing any one of us can do to change the past – nor, if I understand you correctly, do you ever promote the ideal of being able to do so.

And finally I am intrigued by your comment that you relish the view from your windows, that whatever it is that you can see from there is to your liking.  How peculiar it is that you have turned on its head the adage that the “eyes are the windows of the soul”.  You have reversed the direction of insight outwards, not inwards. Certainly there is room to consider what is in a man’s heart but to know what he sees is also to know who he is. Unquestionably there are those whose view of the world is unpleasant and jaundiced.  This I cannot observe of you.  On the contrary you appear to derive unqualified glee in what you see and what you do. I only temper the enthusiasm by acknowledging that each one of us has his different tastes and preferences.  Once again it matters not what those tastes or preferences may be, only that they are yours.  Your attitude is to embrace it all, to see the opportunity for engagement.  That is what it is like to be you.