Beckett and Jefferson meet the Buddha on the Road for Their Birthdays
As far as Beckett (please click here to read his Wikipedia biography), I'd like to excerpt some of his work - but I think you really need to read one of his plays in its entirety to really feel him. And his work often takes more than one reading, much reflection, and more than one angle of interpretation. I suggest you begin with his Waiting for Godot. Your first reaction might be to wonder what the hell the point of it is. I find it helpful to think of the play's Godot as "God." And after you mulled it over from that perspective for awhile, you might want to throw out the God interpretation and try others. The play may seem simple and superficial on the surface. But nothing could be further from the truth. And the same could be said of much of Beckett's work, as well as of the man himself.
[Samuel Beckett]
[Irish Samuel Beckett stamp from 1994]
As for Thomas Jefferson, no one could reasonably call him simple or superficial either. We're talking about the author of the Declaration of Independence - and he could easily be called one of the greatest minds in history. These words from Wikipedia serve well as an introduction: "Jefferson achieved distinction as, among other things, a horticulturist, statesman, architect, archaeologist, paleontologist, author, inventor and founder of the University of Virginia. When President John F. Kennedy welcomed forty-nine Nobel Prize winners to the White House in 1962 he said, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House — with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone." (Please click here to read that article in its entirety.) The brilliant Jefferson was an eloquent and impassioned spokesman for liberty.
[Thomas Jefferson]
Yet Jefferson was also a slave owner. And this fact troubled me enough to inspire the following crappy poem (pardon the pun) I wrote while sitting on a cold, stainless steel toilet bowl in prison, contemplating liberty.
"Jefferson" [13 July 1997]
Turn the toilet page
Read as I rid,
How you fucked
long
Tall Sally Hemings
Kept her children slaves
Founded the University of Virginia
Freed them after your death,
Wipe my ass
And flush.
He freed them - which was quite uncommon at the time, and commendable. But he'd also kept them. This fact says to me a lot about so-called "great" people. It is a reminder that while we recognize the greatness in folks - and honor their excellent achievements and contributions to our world - we must never idolize any man (or woman). To do so is a disservice to truth, to history, and even (I believe) to the men and women we intend to honor.
Samuel Beckett wasn't perfect either - and I'm sure you can find his flaws if you try. I think greatness and weakness coexist, to varying degrees, in every human being - whether Beckett, Jefferson, me, you, one of our family members, Lincoln, Nixon, Jolie, Pitt, Spears, Shaw, Shakespeare, Socrates, Lao Tzu, Jesus, Buddha, Guevara, Rasputin, Kennedy, Obama, Clinton, McCain, Sartre, Nietzsche, Polanski, Scorsese, letter carrier, nurse, garbage collector, police officer, prison inmate, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief.... You get the idea.
No one's perfect - and some folks seem far less perfect than others. But we're all human beings. We're all in this together. And love and peace make a whole heck of a lot more sense, for a whole heck of a lot more reasons, than hate and war. That's why the Dalai Lama, despite the horrible persecution of his Tibetan people, reiterated on 13 April 2008 in Seattle the importance of maintaining a "genuine sense of compassion toward your enemy." Compassion trumps condemnation, it would seem. And that's a hard lesson to learn - especially if you're the exiled monk whose people and culture are being so horribly oppressed, or if you're the African-American who was kept as a slave in Jefferson's Virginia, or if you're the fellow who has spent 11 or 25 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.
We can always do better, even if we remain imperfect. There is always room for us to condemn less and commend more. There is always room for increased compassion toward our fellow beings. May we strive to be more human, to do a better job of recognizing the humanity of others, and to make these timeless words of Thomas Jefferson more real in our lives and our world:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
When one idolizes one implicitly places the achievements of the idol out of the realm of most humans. But anyone can be an achiever. We can all work on our dreams.
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I agree, Lady! Very well said....
You reminded me of a quotation - and while I was looking for its exact wording in my old journal, I came across this one, which may be better than the one I was going to cite in the first place:
"...to deify is to betray...."
[Lawrence Ferlinghetti, from Her]
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both of these men fall into the autism spectrum.
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I'd never quite thought of them in that way - but now that you mention it.... The idea intrigues me. Thanks for expanding my horizon, Meribeth!
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_speculated_to_have_been_autistic
http://a411.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/12/l_b0f4e7beb906900192db74f8f2bd9ee2.jpg
that image is from stacey's page.
http://www.myspace.com/electroluminesense
i'm sure angela could tell us more as well.
http://mtmomma.com/categories/Autism.aspx
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Very cool... thanks!
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you know, it occurs to me that if jefferson was indeed autistic, he could still write "the declaration of independence" and not even realize he was not including his slaves in the document. it would not have occurred to him to do so.
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Hmmm... interesting.... It's been so long since I've read my Jefferson biographies. This is making me want to dive back into them. Was going to dive back into Beckett, but apparently my books by him did not survive my incarceration (the TJ books did).... Of course I'm already in the middle of reading about ten other books. And I'm supposed to be writing one... LOL.
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love that 1st foto of beckett - looks like big bird's insane older brother.
all greatness is flawed. all great people are still people, all of whom suffer from the short-sightedness of their times.
except me of course - my only flaw is i have no flaws.
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Wish they'd had cameras in Jefferson's day - I might have been able to unearth an equally interesting photo of him.
The German poet Schiller wrote, "With stupidity the gods themselves struggle in vain."
And your third line, in addition to making me chuckle, reminded me of Oscar Wilde's famous statement upon arriving in America for a visit: "I have nothing to declare but my genius."
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Well... cool... you haven't done one of these blogs in a while. I'll have to come back and leave a comment later though. Just a sign of support for now.
I'm glad you did this, John...
I'll be back...
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Thanks, Chris! I look forward to your return.
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Amazing how you put together two great men and showed us again your ability to digest and contemplate their works along with their human imperfections. Also reading the biographical details of Beckett it somehow reminds me of Gibson, my Irish friend and writer, who like Beckett went to Trinity College and then to Belfast and moved to Spain where he writes in Spanish and translates it back into English for his publishers. Both are complex individuals and both Beckett and Jefferson are immersed in their love of freedom, both in their world views and their writings. And Gibson is the most outstanding writer in Spain on the Civil War and the poets and painters of that time. If you wrote this while semi-conscious and distracted as you say, I wonder what you could create if you were totally conscious and alert. lol Kudos for your enlightening blog.
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Thank you for your very kind words, Elena! Somehow Beckett, Jefferson and your comment have brought to mind William Blake's statement that "Without contraries there is no progression." The two personalities in many ways seem to be contraries - both within themselves, and in contrast with each other - and yet somehow we can progress to the point where we see harmonies. This seems to continue a theme I riffed on in John Cage Engaged and Uncaged.
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I somehow seems that it doesn't matter whom we attract but who and what attracts us. So much for Yuppies, Geeks, Rednecks and whatever. Yes I do see the theme in John Cage Engaged and Uncaged. I told you it was a kind of subconscious and stream of consciousness writing. I think Beckett is also in that category and beat poets as well, not to speak of the Beatles. All writers are lovers of words whether in English, French or Spanish and poetic thought loves word rhymes that are punning. How very cunning! LMAO and have a great weekend.
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You have a great weekend as well!
Oh... and I found the quotation I was trying to remember when I wrote that poem. It's from the composer John Cage's book Silence:
"Here we are concerned with the coexistence of dissimilars, and the central points where fusion occurs are many: the ears of the listeners wherever they are. The disharmony, to paraphrase Bergson's statement about disorder, is simply a harmony to which many are unaccustomed."
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Thanks for sharing this blog John it brings up some interesting ideas to think about. I especially appreciated your comments on greatness and weakness co-existing together in people especially in the honoured individuals of society. Because that is a veritable Truth of human nature a lot of people don’t accept and understand. My own opinion on that.
That when someone shines in one area of their life we expect them to shine in all areas… but that is not what being human is really all about. Being human is necessarily being flawed, I think, and aspiring to be more…. or we would be “super human”… like the great Saints and Teachers that you mentioned. And even they have weaknesses too… maybe not as glaring as ours, but they still have them.
That doesn’t mean you don’t admire them or that you denigrate them because they have flaws, it just means you appreciate them for their area of strength, that one thing or several things that they have that surpasses what anyone else has to offer.
I think it’s very natural for people to exhibit both strengths and weaknesses in their character. And the larger than life they are…. the larger than life their weaknesses are as well I imagine.
I guess the older I get the less it surprises me that people can be really very complex beings inside. I think it just makes people more interesting…
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Chris, The Minister found your comments to be so very profound... it's true that "when someone shines in one area of their life we expect them to shine in all areas", and it's just as true that perhaps "the larger than life they are…. the larger than life their weaknesses are as well". I especially like what you said about appreciating them for their areas of strength-- accentuating the positive, rather than overlooking or forgiving the negative. The Minister also agrees with you that the complex natures of the people he knows does make things more interesting... sometimes a little too interesting... but interesting, nevertheless.
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Thank you, Chris! You have great wisdom and make some excellent points. I agree totally.
I was sleepy when I began this blog, and didn't really know where I was going with it. I almost wrote one on Jefferson the night before - but didn't feel I could provide the right balance. I didn't want to be too effusive in my praise, considering the disturbing fact that he was a slave holder. But I could also understand why he was - though I was reluctant to say so, lest it appear I was excusing or sanctioning his being one. And I thought to bring up the slave issue might make people overlook his "greatness" - which I wanted people to remember - but I didn't want to sugarcoat him either. We humans have a tendency to look at things in black and white. We make sense of things (including people) by categorizing them. Good or bad, right or wrong, black or white, American or unAmerican.... But the truth never fits neatly (if at all) into these categories.
So when I tried to think about the blog, no blog came. But then I decided when I got up to just ramble on - not really try to sort things out or draw any conclusions, but just provide food for thought. As I wrote, my heart and thinking tended to clear a bit and I saw the answer wasn't in sorting, defining, or putting anyone into a nice box - but in throwing out the box. I don't feel I fit into any one box, so it seems foolish to try to box up and "explain" anyone else. Blogs where one takes a stand - whether I'm endorsing Clinton, boycotting the Olympics, or crusading against a particular law - tend to get the most views, the most comments, et cetera. But somehow - as I've been feeling lately (and I used to feel this way, though I'd lost touch with the feeling for a few months) - such cut-and-dried positions, though popular and provocative, tend to make nice, neat boxes out of the untidy and unboxable.
Boxes cage the truth. And I'm so very weary of cages.
So this blog, like the John Cage one a few days prior, was a bit liberating.
And anyway, I've always been much more comfortable being the question man instead of the answer man. The only answer I am fully comfortable with is peace (and its bosom buddies love and understanding).
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I think you're right it is a human tendency to think that if we categorize something or someone that we understand it... but all we've done is categorize it... that's all. We haven't really "understood" anything. What we need to do is as you said, take it out of the box and really understand, look at it in its totality, good and bad, to do that you have to through the box away.
Jefferson is interesting because he WAS such a mix of qualities and still accomplished what he did in spite of the flaws. I think that's were his greatness comes in, and the greatness of other men and women in history. That they made their mark in history despite the flaws they had.
I don't think we have to come to clear-cut conclusions on things for the very same reason... because the world isn't black and white as you said... it is a multitude of shades of gray... and that interests me... I'm not afraid of that.
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Thanks, Chris! Very well said....
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This totally rocked John. No wonder you didn't want Murdoch getting at this stuff for free!
Your flawed genius point made me think about poor Clinton. Bill. The man made it from single parenthood in a trailer to Oxford, but he was still human. I think we punished/punish him for that?
What were you in for? Ten years?? THAT'S a book.
How can you be so open-minded and compassionate when you were betrayed by your own country's legal system so horribly? So many are though aren't they? Just not all of them can express themselves like you do.
Don't ever stop talking/writing, your voice is important and powerful.
Hugs,
S.
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I agree with you on that... Suzette...100 %.
Your voice is important John... I don't think you realize the impact it does have.
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Thank you so much, Suzette. I absolutely agree about Bill Clinton (I'm tempted to say the same of Hillary and Barack, though it may be too soon to tell). Bill has always been one of my heroes, for a number of reasons - and yet some things he's done and said have disturbed me. Strange how a Clinton supporter (or an Anyone supporter) tends to want to overlook his flaws to make our case stronger... This is something I struggle with.
I had the opportunity to meet Bill this year - and if you haven't yet seen my blog about the occasion, you can find it here: http://crisisblog.crisischronicles.com/2008/03/03/bill-clinton-speaks.aspx.
I was in prison for 11 years and on parole for two. In retrospect, sometimes it doesn't seem like it could have been that long, and other times it feels as though it was a lifetime. I'm not always open-minded and compassionate, although I want to be and usually strive to be. Why? I guess in a way being closed minded and not having compassion feels like death to me. It's poisonous - and it never makes matters better, only worse.
I very much appreciate your kind words and support, my friend!
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Excellent blog, my dear. Even after all these years you still surprise me with the knowledge you possess. You are amazing.
Geri Lynne
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Thank you. And I'm glad you think so, despite my sometimes all-too-obvious flaws.
People comment on my supposed knowledge. But despite all my books, classes and experiences over the years, I often feel that I don't really know a heck of a lot about anything... lol.
In many ways, you're more amazing than I feel I could ever be.
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Yes...with you all the way on compassion....
I miss the ease of blogs on myspace from you.....
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Thanks, Elaine! I miss the ease of keeping in touch with friends like you there, too. I try my best - but sometimes it seems there are not enough hours in the day... lol.
I'm still working on ways to make this site more user friendly. One thing that might help - if you subscribe to my blog via email (there's a box for that somewhere in the sidebar on the left of this page), you can read and comment on this blog without even having to come to my site... lol.
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Dugg this
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Thanks, Nik!
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