Self-help advice has long been a staple of American society, addressing many aspects of our lives. Bookstore shelves, Amazon recommendations, and Google search results are littered with books on things like success (“How to Win Friends and Influence People”), relationships, investments, losing weight, and even assisted suicide. The internet has only exacerbated the situation, and we are inundated with book reviews, inspirational posters, and Facebook prattle on how to live, become rich, and be happy, all by following a few simple rules. Gad.
Rather that such bliss ninny nattering, I prefer viewpoints that recognize that life is splendidly complex and not “solvable” by a simple list of dos and don’ts, be it from a book on real estate, a poster in a union hall, or the Ten Commandments, especially if those commandments are carved in granite and placed in a county courthouse.
That said, one of my favorite lists of advice is from Nelson Algren. In his novel “A Walk on the Wild Side” a criminal named Cross-Country Kline offers wise guidance to the protagonist. Algren’s biographer phrased the three rules this way: Never eat at a place called “Mom’s,” never play cards with a man named Doc, and never sleep with anyone whose troubles are worse than your own. That makes sense to me.
I realize I am too ignorant to offer any rules of my own that would top those. Instead, I want to share some elegant and wise suggestions from the poet Gary Snyder. He closes his poem “For the Children” with these words:
stay together
learn the flowers
go light
These three lines make eminent sense to me.
Stay together—Life is tough, too tough to face alone. We need each other, and we need to be part something larger than ourselves, to be part of a community of some sort, a community that not only nurtures us but one to which we contribute.
Learn the flowers—We are not only part of society—neighborhood, city, nation— but also of the natural world, a world that is our home and the source of our life, a world to which we have a moral and ethical responsibility. Understanding and appreciating the natural world is essential to fulfilling that obligation. Learning the flowers is a fine metaphor for understanding and appreciating. To name is to know. To know is to understand.
Go light—In this society we are distracted by things. We are inundated with advertisements for things to buy, and many of us think of ourselves more as consumers or customers than as citizens. As a result we have so many possessions (see my post on this topic: https://turnstonecom.wpcomstaging.com/humans-and-dung-beetles/) that they burden and distract us to the point that they begin to consume us. They possess us rather than we possessing them. By shedding this irrelevant foofaraw, we can free ourselves to live, to savor what is important in life, to engage more intimately with each other and with the natural world.
Thanks, Tom. Good words to reflect on.
Lorrie, as you well know from our time in the mycological society, one of the pleasures of mycology is that to be successful mushroom hunter, one has to be able to really see, to be aware. For example, a key factor in identifying mushrooms is habitat — for example is the mushroom growing on wood, on disturbed soil, near certain kinds of trees? And one has to know how to really see a mushroom, not just with the eyes but with other sense, too — does it have a cap and stalk? does it have a distinctive odor? does it have gills? And so on. Walking in the woods looking for mushrooms brings the surroundings into focus.
One rule I abide by is; Never buy a hotdog from a naked man.
That “rule” sets some sort of standard, but I hate to think of what it is.
Those aren’t bad, although they sound like a Unitarian sermon. Oh, wait, wasn’t Fulghum a Unitarian minister?.
Seriously, we would be better off as a society if every elected and appointed government official, as well as corporate manager and board member took a pledge to follow those rules. I am enough of a realist to know that greed, ambition, and arrogance trump (an apt verb in this case) such rules, even, or especially, the Golden Rule.
You forgot Robert Fulghum’s rules from Kindergarden, which apply to big people too.
1. Share everything.
2. Play fair.
3. Don’t hit people.
4. Put thngs back where you found them.
5. CLEAN UP YOUR OWN MESS.
6. Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
7. Say you’re SORRY when you HURT somebody.
8. Wash your hands before you eat.
9. Flush.
10. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
11. Live a balanced life – learn some and drink some and draw some and paint some and sing and dance and play and work everyday some.
12. Take a nap every afternoon.
13. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.
14. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Stryrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
15. Goldfish and hamster and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup – they all die. So do we.
16. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first workd you learned – the biggest word of all – LOOK.”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten book. I great read!