A Decent Age

Though he watched a decent age pass by,
A man will sometimes still desire the world.

Sophocles
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Hello Val
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Now here's an interesting question. Are we now in a decent age or has our decent age passed by? Did we have a decent age and as we didn't notice it passed us by? Or is our decent age still to come?

What constitutes decency in an age? Is it the way people behave, the way they treat others and themselves? Is it an attitude toward the world and the human race, is it a rich cultural age, a flourishing economic age or an age of major military victories? Is it an age of great peace (whenever has there been any of those)?

In my childhood the country had emerged from the great depression and was beginning to show it's strength, although the cars were still black, the umbrellas were black, the rain coats were black or gray, when out of a nation of great literature. great philosophy and great, great music arose a monster named Adolf Hitler and the world turned it's head into an even more depressing, indecent age. We painted the top half of the headlights black on our black cars. When the siren screamed in pain we turned off all our lights. It was a black out, because we thought German planes were flying over New York. And they were.

We killed the monster's men and won the war. Then colors began to happen on the streets. Cars became blue and green and yellow, multi colored with fancy shapes and fancy headlights that couldn't be painted black. Now I was a teenager and I saw another age pass by when everything became red.

A mad man in Congress began investigating everyone suspected of being a Communist or a Communist sympathizer. Important American heads rolled. People turned each other in. Accusation, betrayal, black listing (there's that color again), careers and reputations ruined. We finally got rid of the
congressional monster but the damage, just like the damage in Europe, was done.

Then the wars started, against the Communists, to make the world safe for Democracy and to prove that we weren't Communists. Korea, Viet Nam. Now I was in my 20's. Have I yet seen a decent age pass?

Protests, Selma, Equal Rights. Assassinations, JFK, Bobby , Martin, Gandhi, Anwar. Kent State, Oklahoma City, the World Trade Center.

Now I'm in my 70's. Fundamentalism, regressive politics, anti Semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, the proliferation of guns, drugs.

A decent age may still come and, I hope, not pass, and there may be a better world to desire. Come with me and let us try to find a place where a decent age can be.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never give up.
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The Big Search

This is the 1,737th edition of Vagabond Journeys. You might think I'm making that up, but I'm not.
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Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.

Blaise Pascal
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Hello Jon
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I don't read philosophy to discover truth. I read it to discover the ideas of some great thinkers who are also looking for it. I don't know what Pascal finds so restful about it. My search generally puts me in a mental turmoil. The universe of ideas is full of unanswered questions and some of them are vital.

The is the "Merry Month of May" and I am very sad today, not just because it's gray and gloomy, but also because, as one recent commenter wrote: someone stole something from me more valuable than money, and also because there are too many unanswered questions.

Normally facing the ironies and ambiguities of life gives me a chuckle. I haven't chuckled or had a good laugh in many days, make that months. I look forward to some joy in my life. Sophocles writes that there will come a time when we will never know joy again. I summarily reject that idea with a swift and sturdy kick in the ass. I believe we need to eliminate those things that rob us of our joy, and if it has to be done with a scalpel, a bull dozer or a moving van so be it.

The search for truth should be a vigorous activity. It involves, observation, study, investigation and reason, both inductive and deductive, and it's not for the squeamish.

I've heard it said that if you could understand a great work of art, a Michelangelo statue or a Dostoyevski novel, so thoroughly that you knew it better than the artist did, the experience would lead you to truth, because you would be getting in touch with the universal spirit of inspiration.

Another way is to assume there is a total, universal truth and then start looking for ways in which it expresses itself.

Neither of those ways sound restful to me. But maybe there's a third way Pascal knows about, which can be done sitting in a recliner, on the front porch, at the beach. I must read on.

As for that something someone stole from me that's more valuable than money? Money can be replaced, and so can that something. Joy is another thing that deserves a sincere search. I believe it.

Remember, there is nothing that can stop, block, obstruct, delay, deflate or divert the blessing that is yours today.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
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In The Morning

Live your life as though there is great joy to be experienced.

Meladee McCarty
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Hello Linda
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In the Sophocles play "Oedipus the King" Jocasta, Oedipus' wife and mother has a speech in which she states that she has come to that point in life where there can be no more joy, implying that it is a point we will all inevitably reach. The first time I heard that speech I had a strong negative reaction to it. A hopelessly joyless life may be what she looks forward to considering the tragedy that has unfolded before her. But that certainly doesn't need to mean the permanent loss of joy for all of us.

There is no joy in my life currently. It was taken from me in early February by an unfortunate set of discoveries and realizations just as Jocasta faced in her life. Though hers were much more tragic than mine the resultant disappearance of joy was the same. To find out as Jocasta did and as I did that we were living in a lie, living with a lie, for years and not knowing it is an agony of unspeakable depth.

Since that time I have been repositioning myself, mentally, emotionally and physically to rediscover the joy I had. Though I can sympathize with her I don't have the same attitude Jocasta had. I believe the joy is in me and I will experience it again.

There are many things that can deprive someone of their joy. Fear and pain are two big ones. In fact those two horros are major villains in everyone's life. And they must be fought against with vigor and persistence every day. The joy of standing on the summit of the mountain can only be attained by the dangerous struggle to climb it.

I go back to the metaphor of the radio that only plays two stations. One is blaring all the fearful thoughts that trouble me and cause me pain, and the other has the soothing voice of reason, harmony and truth. But the ornery dial keeps switching back to the negative station and if I'm not careful I find myself listening to it. One station speaks of loss, loss of joy, loss of everything, the fear of never again having the life you had. The other station speaks of life, future, freedom. joy. And that's the doctrine I accept.

The struggle against fear and loss is harder than I thought it would be but I've won enough battles to know I will win the fight, and that will be a joyous day.

Dana Bate - Vagabond
Never give up.
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Satisfactory Service 8/06/09

I played it right because that's what you're supposed to do - play it right and with respect.

Ryne Sandberg
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Smile, you're on Candid Journal.
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"Jus' 'cause it ain't by Shakespeare don't mean it ain't no good."

I used to do public readings of new plays for a playwright's workshop way over on the East Side of Manhattan. One evening I read a major role in a political drama. A year later the playwright called and asked if I would come back and read it again. I did, and before the reading she said to the audience "A playwright is one who if she changes a line from 'I want to meet with you' to 'It's important that I meet with you' that is a major rewriting of the play and therefore needs to be read again. She was half joking, but she made a valid point about how important the lines are to the playwright and the play. They need to be respected.

I was doing the role of Cassio in Shakespeare's "Othello" at a theatre in New England. After one of our late rehearsals, close to opening, the stage manager, who was a nice, polite, benign fellow, came up to me with a sheet of paper and said "I thought you should see the difference between the way you are speaking the speech to Desdamona and the way Shakespeare wrote it." I was stunned. I had almost completely rewritten that speech.

That was early in my career, but from that day on I have always made sure that I spoke the lines the way they were written. That's called playing it right and with respect.

It's not just the lines that need to be played right. I saw a production of Sophocles' "Electra," In that play Electra's brother Orestes enters with a friend, Pylades. Sophocles has given no lines to Pylades. It is a completely silent role. But he is on stage with Orestes the entire time. I watched an actor named Maurice Breslau play that role and if I didn't know that he had no lines I would have sworn he spoke. He was mentally, emotionally and physically involved in every moment of that play. That's playing it right and with respect.

I did many original plays while I was with the Circle Rep Lab in New York. There were excellent actors in that Lab. We were professional, working actors. It was a great challenge and an invigorating experience to take on the problems of a new play and solve them. The playwrights were usually around and had a hand in rewriting if they felt they needed to. But we played them right and with respect.

Some actors and directors think nothing of messing around with a script, rewriting things, cutting things and rearranging the scenes, adding characters and dropping characters. That's not playing it right. Playwrights worry over every line. They should be respected.

I was in a show in New York in which the leading actor got the same line wrong every night. He bungled it because he didn't know what it was and he never went back to the script to find out. He will remain nameless. He was a famous actor, but he was a lazy bum.

Whatever you do, do it right and with respect.

DB - The Vagabond
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Grasp some joy today and don't let go of it.
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SUMMER QUIZ
This is not a contest.



A young man out west just took home 88 million dollars from the lottery.



Whether you play the lottery or not, if you suddenly had 88 million dollars, or the equivalent of whatever your currency is, what are the first three things you would do with it?



You have all summer to answer if you wish.

19 responses so far.



DB



Thus on the edge a screwed up miss is egotistical. (9)



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