The Heart of Saturday Night/ The Heart of a Dog

I was walking around Leeds over the weekend watching everybody tricking themselves into believing that they were having a good time. The lack of imagination was, as you can imagine, unimaginable.

At the risk of getting into keynote speech territory here I wish to share my idea of what the good life is with you. A keynote speech is the speech given to students graduating from their degree. The kind that is formed of platitudes orchestrated together to try and make some kind of life lesson. It is usually given by someone with a significant reputation, who has reached a certain level of success within their field. I, having only the five pounds in my pocket and beer in front of me to show for a lifetime's work, am not qualified to give one. However, I distrust qualifications. Humour me a while. I'm going to give you some advice. (I talk to you as that anonymous you. The you that could be anyone or no one depending on the your predilection. I write to you as I write to anyone I do not know. Idealistically. As if you are a child of light and a dark horse growing up in a mad world taking their point to point navigation from confused stars.)
  The advice is this, when you next wake up in the morning with all those unremitting engagements inevitably playing on your mind over and over as if it were a needle skipping back on a faulty groove, take a moment out and then afterward make this following commitment to yourself, I'm going to give the day to me as a gift. Think of the following lines from a poem..

I'm letting the day be what it is:
a place for a large number of things
to gather and interact-
not even a place but an occasion,
a reality for real things

Then do just that. Be open to the possibilities. Possibly you could draw a bath and watch the steam rise before you dip your head under the water to listen to your hair in the altered acoustics. There are zen masters you can learn from. For example, Huckleberry Finn. He spent a whole book floating down the Mississippi with an escaped slave called Jim. Two drifters off to see the world. It's true, there's such a lot of world to see. Be open to the beauty in it. Take it to heart. This is economical for it saves the cost of going to heaven. Remember, there's a world that's all about us, there's a world within. Find a place where you can just sit and watch the world go by. I could sit in The Cock Tavern on Mare St or the Volkstheatre Café on the Neustiftgasse for a thousand years and still come out as young as a kitten. An observation that I've made is that one is only as kind to one's self as the company he keeps. Surround yourself with good people. they shall teach you how to love. Be open to them. let Susan take you down to her place by the river. Do not become overly reliant on the company of others. Do not partake in society. Do not implement societal expectations on others. Do not allow them to implement them on you. The happiest dog is not the chitsu, the daschund, or the spaniel; it is the dog that is allowed to be a dog; an indo-to-exothermic blob of life made of dream and love, all encased within a finite shell. Once again I advocate learning a thing or two from Huckleberry Finn. Learn from Ferris Bueller. Life moves pretty fast. You can't stop that. Stop holding on so tight. When you form a fist it means nothing else can grace your palm. Hold onto the moment as if holding onto a bird; holding without holding. Let go of the thought, I wish I'd brought a camera. Let Venice sink. Let the crazy and beautiful idea be what it is, a crazy and beautiful idea that for a while almost looked as if it was going to make it. We often preserve the past at the detriment of the future. Culture thrives everywhere folks. Stop bringing out zombie Shakespeare all the time just because he has been certified art. Try something new goddamit. Love literature. You will love people in their purest form, their ideas. What could be nicer than a day in bed with Oscar Wilde or Anne Michaels? Friends, I'm going to wrap this up. If you want a sermon from a bum in  his early 30s you can read the beatitudes you can read the new testament. To bring this to a close, if you give the day to that little bit of you you call me, you will find out who me, in his or her myriad of forms, is. You will come to find out it is a very different thing to that miserly creature, the self. If you find that this is worthwhile, what I would further suggest is that the next week when you wake up in the morning with all those unremitting engagements inevitably playing on your mind over and over, take a moment out and make another commitment to yourself, I'm going to give this life to me. Now that's my idea of a good time.

S.K.

This also,
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