RUDIMENTS, pt. 113
Making Cars
Well, over time I've been roughed up pretty
well - but that's just the old man part of
me; the rest still feels like a kid mostly,
in outlook anyway, and I get therefore to
plod along. Most of my life, without any
great effect, I've been pretty much a jerk.
Back when I was at Elmira College, I had
a Philosophy teacher - cool enough guy,
about 38 maybe, trying to stay 'down' with
kids about 20 (I was about 27 at this time,
myself, and on to other things disconnected
to the others). Anyway one day somehow
the discussion, (I forgot to mention, his
name was John McLaughlin, but NOT
the famed guitarist-jazz guy with the
Mahavishnu Orchestra, which all was
big time then too), turned onto me. We
used to hang around a bit, after classes,
across campus, all that, and what I was
thinking of doing with 'writing,' as I
working at both that and art (see Gandy
Brody, way previous, earlier chapter).
I was always a pretty dutiful 'student' in
the really old sense, meaning I found the
most value in listening, not talking, and
in the professors and teachers and not so
much at all in the 'place' or the other bums
around. Every so often I'd see a movie,
one or the other, usually British, that had
always someone as dweeby as I was then,
in it. The student kid who plodded on,
deadly serious, always intent, forging on
with ideas or learning or cause, internal
cause. That was me. So, like an idiot, I
said to McLaughlin that what I was seeking
to do was write something so perfect and
staggering that upon reading it, the world
would end. Yes, go ahead, read that again
because it's exactly what I said. That sort
of stupidity has it in for everyone. Did I
mean the world would end for that one
reader? No. I meant it universally. Then,
you would say, how could that be unless
everyone was reading it at the same time?
That's a good question! When I said this
to him, of course, I immediately realized
what a dumb thing it was. It wasn't even
philosophy, so I wasn't even sure why
he'd led me there and at that moment
that alone was enough to anger me a
tad - in his direction - perhaps for
setting me up, which, in some sense,
is betrayal, especially in an unequal
relationship as that was. Problem was,
there's no way of getting that across really,
either, to a superior. So I figured to just
shut up, shut it down, and listen. I think
the phrase I'd also thrown in was that
I wanted it to be so good that 'everything
would come crumbling down after one
read it.' Grandiosity, false pride, and the
rest. I'll get back to this in a moment,
because his reaction to me was blessedly
simple too, though rife with 'the possible.'
-
I've always carried another theory
within me, kept to myself, that the
fault of Mankind is Pride. This little
theory is contemporaneous with me
now and it has little to do with the
McLaughlin thing I was just mentioning -
which is why I just skipped ahead some.
It has to do with historical re-creation :
all those little sites and houses you see
around which purport to be of another
day, colonial era or olden times, people
in dress-costumes, playing at the old
baker-stove, the false blacksmith toiling
away as he fans his flames at the fire,
etc. I've seen tons of these things,
from Bethlehem, PA to Corning, NY,
Speedwell Furnace, NJ, Walpack and
Savannah and St Augustine and Carmel
too. They're all the same. Re-enactors;
Father Junipero Serra, direct to you.
You see, the world behind us has been
destroyed - and by us. I think that's a
serious offense, which we'll eventually
have to pay for. That demands a humility.
It calls out for acknowledgement, by us,
in a form of sadness and sorrow/guilt for
what we've done. But I never see that.
What I see instead is Pride. Pride in a
monument. Pride in a re-enactment, a
falsity, a mis-representation, an altered
reality. The place of Man on this planet
was to be husbandry - to take care of,
and preserve, the world presented, so
that it could grow and take on its own
consciousness to prosper and to continue.
We've destroyed all that, from the day
they invented concrete, until now, to be
facetious about it. But I never see humility;
instead all I see are people proud of their
accomplishment - overweeningly prideful
in fact, over how well that can portray the
role, be that Friend's Meeting House player
in costume (Old City, Philadelphia), or
the baker at the fiery hearth (Scotch
Plains, NJ) in some salvaged house.
Some of this, as well, had to do with
why I'd wished being able to write
something that could make it all crumble.
I suppose, beneath it all, is an unease,
and anger and anxiety, on my own part
for having to tolerate a world in such
throes of worn and evil pride. Corporations
never stop, businessmen never stop,
profit-makers never stop, along the way,
to see what they are doing to our world.
They just always want more. To them it's
all just take, take, take, and ruin. And
they get away with it all. A re-enactor
then, has to bow, and accept, and take
the charade for its fake value. Pretend.
Everything bespeaks 'Pride' at the
preservation and the re-enacting. You
can't just continue advancing that scenario,
whether you're in 18th century breeches
with a ringing hand-bell, or not.
-
What John McLaughlin said back to me,
about that writing piece to shut the world
down, was surprising. He said, 'You're not
alone in that thought. There have been many
people along the way who've voiced that
same feeling.' That in itself surprised me,
because, yes, I actually thought it was a
'new' thought. In any case, as I approximate
it, he continued : 'Where you're going to
go wrong with that is in the subjectivity
aspect of what you're saying. In that sense
you're being no better than the worst absolutist
who may have ever lived, thinking that
everything is the same for everyone, that
there is one truth and one approach to it
and that only you can tap it - for everyone.
You're taking it upon yourself here to
state that there is one way, your way,
and that once it's pronounced, properly
and the way you have it, everything else
will end. Or be allowed to end. And, by
the way, there's a difference there too you
ought to consider. This 'end' whatever it
is or may or may not be, will little need
your approval or your permission to be
set into motion.'
-
I thought that was pretty cool and
level-headed. It wasn't 'Philosophy' in
the big sense, but I do think he talked
me down off my high horse rather nicely.
And that was 40 years ago already. I'm
still here, and, I guess, so is everything
else. Even those damn re-enactors.
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