I believe souls don’t understand death the way bodies do. Souls don’t understand pain like bodies do either. Probably a sharp object penetrating the flesh feels like a twitch in the eye to the soul. Pain needs to pierce deeper than the flesh to leave an imprint on the soul. Way deeper into a vortex which is maybe located somewhere behind that rib cage. I don’t think it has anything to do with flesh, or muscle or veins. Not even blood. The soul goes deeper than those… somewhere in between the molecules. I believe the soul is ether and death goes beyond matter for it to feel its presence or lack of it.
I believe the body dies once while the soul dies a million times over and over again in every life. I might be terribly wrong here. Maybe the soul dies a lot more than a million times in each life, but I’m sure it does. It’s definitely not inconsolable because it is etheric and one cannot expect ether to be heavy with sorrow or suffering or any similar dense substitute. It’s waiting for the body to release it back to where it came from till it gets portioned into numerous other bodies. No wonder so much in each of us is similar and yet so much is different. Probably you and I have been caged in a common body before… before we parted and became others. Maybe a part of me is trapped in these words that you are reading while the other one-sixteenth is reading it on her iPhone in some vague location and wondering if she should go get some lunch. We are not so different - you and I.
I want to believe that the ether that I send out into the universe (once this body disintegrates) will carry with it the imprints of all the deaths that this body put it through; and parts of which will become a fragment of another body with a fraction of deaths from someone else. Probably we are all a culmination of deaths and imprints that added more spirit to it all. We are all fractions yet whole. Maybe that’s the reason behind emotions. The countless sentiments, intuitions and the overwhelming sense of fear or happiness are just those chemical reactions when the ether is exposed to a reparation or compensating fraction… wanting to be whole or to balance itself out. I want to believe that the only thing stopping it is the body which effervesces with these reactions because it needs to live and not disintegrate. The body needs the ether and cannot let it go.
The body is just the cage.
(Inspired by Haruki Murakami’s New York Mining Disaster - Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman)
'Ink-n-head' has always been a space that has been very personal and has always carried content that has been purely exclusive. The following post has not been written by me but every element in this commencement address makes me want to share it with every person I know and/or can manage to reach through my blog.
Tim Minchin’s commencement address,
University of Western Australia, Perth
upon receiving an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters
September 17, 2013
In darker days, I did a corporate gig for a big company who made and sold accounting software. In a bid I presume to inspire their sales people to greater heights, they forked out twelve grand for an inspirational speaker who was this “extreme sports” guy who had had a couple of his limbs frozen off when he got stuck on a ledge on some mountain. It was weird! Software sales people, I think, need to hear from someone who has had a long, successful and happy career in software sales, not from an overly-optimistic mountaineer. Some poor guy who had arrived in the morning hoping to learn more about sales techniques ended up going home worried more about the blood flow to his extremities. It’s not inspirational, it’s confusing. And if the mountain was meant to be a symbol of life’s challenges, and the loss of limbs a metaphor for sacrifice, the software guy’s not going to get it, is he? Because he didn’t do an Arts degree, did he? [laughter] He should have — Arts degrees are awesome, and they help you find meaning where there is none. And let me assure you, there is none. [laughter] Don’t go looking for it! Looking for meaning is like looking for a rhyme scheme in a cookbook — you won’t find it, and it’ll bugger up your soufflé. If you didn’t like that metaphor, you won’t like the rest of it.
Point being, I’m not an inspirational speaker, I’ve never lost a limb on a mountainside, metaphorically or otherwise, and I’m not here to give career advice, because I’ve never had what most consider “a job”. However, I have had large groups of people listen to what I say for quite a few years now, and it’s given me an inflated sense of self-importance. So I will now, at the ripe old age of 37.9, bestow upon you nine life lessons, to echo of course the nine lessons and carols of the traditional Christmas service, which is also pretty obscure. You might find some of this stuff inspiring, you’ll definitely find some of it boring, and you’ll definitely forget all of it within a week. And be warned, there’ll be lots of hokey similes and obscure aphorisms that start well and end up making no sense. So listen up, or you’ll get lost, like a blind man clapping in a pharmacy trying to echo-locate the contact lens fluid. [turns around] Looking for my old poetry teacher…
Here we go! Ready?
One: you don’t have to have a dream. Americans on talent shows always talk about their dreams. Fine — if you have something you’ve always wanted to do, [funny voice] dreamed of, like in your heart, go for it. After all, it’s something to do with your time — chasing a dream — and if it’s a big enough one, it’ll take you most of our life to achieve, so by the time you get to it, and are staring into the meaninglessness of your achievement, you’ll be almost dead, so it won’t matter. I never really had one of these dreams, and so I advocate passionate dedication to the pursuit of short-term goals. Be micro-ambitious – put your head down and work with pride on whatever is in front of you. You never know where you might end up. Just be aware, the next worthy pursuit will probably appear in your periphery, which is why you should be careful of long-term dreams — if you focus too far in front of you, you won’t see the shiny thing out of the corner of your eye.
All right? Good! Advice, metaphor — look at me go!
Two: don’t seek happiness. Happiness is like an orgasm. If you think about it too much, it goes away. Keep busy and aim to make someone else happy, and you might get some as a side effect. We didn’t evolve to be constantly content. Contented homo erectus got eaten before passing on their genes.
Three: remember, it’s all luck. We are lucky to be here. You are incalculably lucky to be born, and incredibly lucky to be brought up by a nice family that helps you to get educated and encourage you to go to uni. Or, if you’re born into a horrible family, that’s unlucky and you have my sympathy, but you’re still lucky — lucky that you happen to be made of the sort of DNA that went on to make the sort of brain which when placed in a horrible childhood environment would make decisions that meant you eventually ended up graduating uni. Well done you for dragging yourself up by your shoelaces, but you were lucky — you didn’t create the bit of you that dragged you up, they’re not even your shoelaces. I suppose I’ve worked hard to achieve whatever dubious achievements I’ve achieved, but I didn’t make the bit of me that works hard, any more than I made the bit of me that ate too many burgers instead of attending lectures when I was here at U.W.A. Understanding that you can’t truly take credit for your successes, nor truly blame others for their failures, will humble you and make you more compassionate. Empathy is intuitive, but is also something you can work on intellectually.
Four: exercise! I’m sorry, you pasty, pale, smoking philosophy grads, arching your eyebrows into a Cartesian curve as you watch the Human Movement mob wind their way through the miniature traffic cones of their existence. You are wrong, and they are right. Well, you’re half right — you think, therefore you are, but also you jog, therefore you sleep, therefore you’re not overwhelmed by existential angst. You can’t be Kant, and you don’t want to be. Play a sport, do yoga, pump iron, run, whatever, but take care of your body — you’re going to need it. Most of you mob are going to live to nearly a hundred, and even the poorest of you are going to achieve a level of wealth that most humans throughout history could not have dreamed of. And this long, luxurious life ahead of you is going to make you depressed. But don’t despair! There is an inverse correlation between depression and exercise. Do it! Run, my beautiful intellectuals, run!
Five: be hard on your opinions. A famous bon mot asserts that opinions are like assholes, in that everyone has one. There is great wisdom in this, but I would add that opinions differ significantly from assholes, in that yours should be constantly and thoroughly examined. [laughter] I used to take exams in here! It’s revenge. We must think critically, and not just about the ideas of others. Be hard on your beliefs — take them out on the veranda and hit them with a cricket bat. Be intellectually rigorous. Identify your biases, your prejudices, your privileges. Most of society’s arguments are kept alive by a failure to acknowledge nuance. We tend to generate false dichotomies, then argue one point using two entirely different sets of assumptions, like two tennis players trying to win a match by hitting beautifully-executed shots from either end of separate tennis courts. By the way, while I have science and arts graduates in front of me, please don’t make the mistake of thinking the arts and sciences are at odds with one another. That is a recent, stupid, and damaging idea. You don’t have to be unscientific to make beautiful art, to make beautiful things. If you need proof: Twain, Douglas Adams, Vonnegut, McEwan, Sagan, Shakespeare, Dickens, for a start. You don’t need to be superstitious to be a poet, you don’t need to hate GM technology to care about the beauty of the planet, you don’t have to claim a soul to have compassion. Science is not a body of knowledge, nor a belief system — it is just a term that describes humankind’s incremental understanding through observation. Science is awesome. The arts and sciences need to work together to improve how knowledge is communicated. The idea that many Australians, including our new P.M. and my distant cousin Nick Minchin believe, that the science of anthropogenic global warming is controversial, is a powerful indication of the extent of our failure to communicate. The fact that thirty percent of the people in this room just bristled is further evidence still. The fact that that bristling is more to do with politics than science is even more despairing.
Six: be a teacher. Please, please be a teacher! Teachers are the most admirable people in the world. You don’t have to do it forever, but if you’re in doubt about what to do, be an amazing teacher. Just through your twenties, be a teacher. Be a primary school teacher, especially if you’re a bloke — we need male primary school teachers. Even if you’re not a teacher, be a teacher. Share your ideas, don’t take for granted your education, rejoice in what you learned, and spray it.
Seven: define yourself by what you love. I found myself doing this thing a bit recently where if someone asks me what sort of music I like, I say I don’t listen to the radio because pop song lyrics annoy me, or if someone asks me what food I like I say I think truffle oil is over-used and slightly obnoxious. And I see it all the time on-line — people whose idea of being part of a subculture is to hate Coldplay or football or feminists or the Liberal Party. We have a tendency to define ourselves in opposition to stuff — as a comedian, I make my living out of it. But try to express also your passion for things you love. Be demonstrative and generous in your praise of those you admire. Send thank-you card and give standing ovations — be pro-stuff, not just anti-stuff.
Eight: respect people with less power than you. I have, in the past, made important decisions about people I work with — agents and producers — big decisions, based largely on how they treat the wait-staff in the restaurants we’re having the meeting in. I don’t care if you’re the most powerful cat in the room, I will judge you based on how you treat the least powerful. So there.
Nine: finally, don’t rush. You don’t need to already know what you’re going to do with the rest of your life. I’m not saying, sit around smoking cones all day, but also, don’t panic. Most people I know who were sure of their career path at twenty are having mid-life crises now. I said at the beginning of this ramble, which is already three and a half minutes long, that life is meaningless. It was not a flippant assertion. I think it’s absurd, the idea of seeking meaning in the set of circumstances that happen to exist out of thirteen point eight billion years worth of unguided events. Leave it to humans to think that the universe has a purpose for them. However, I am no nihilist, I am not even a cynic — I am actually rather romantic. And here’s my idea of romance: you’ll soon be dead. Life will sometimes seem long and tough, and God, it’s tiring, and you will sometimes be happy and sometimes sad, and then you’ll be old, and then you’ll be dead. There is only one sensible thing to do with this empty existence, and that is, fill it. Not “fillet”, fill it. And in my opinion, until I change it, life is best filled by learning as much as you can about as much as you can, taking pride in whatever you’re doing, sharing ideas, running, being enthusiastic. And then there’s love and travel and wine and sex and art and kids and giving and mountain climbing, but you know all that stuff already. It’s an incredibly exciting thing, this one, meaningless life of yours! Good luck! And thank you for indulging me.
Osira stood at the edge of a
cliff with her toes eager to take off. She could feel the wind sustaining her
intention on her back. No shivers. No fears. Afterall, the wind could not be
wrong. Her long black tresses curtained her face like a head covered before an
execution. Whispers in the wind sang out to her and called her names for being
a coward... in good humour of course. The dark curtain on her face hid a smile
that screamed of dares and adventure. She was about to listen to her friend –
the wind.
She nosedived. Neck cracked.
Blackout.
Drop 2
The wind was still calling her
names while she stood delicately this time. The face was still curtained behind
her wildly flowing locks. No smile.
The toes were curled and firmly gripping the edge. ‘Osira, you nitwit! Don’t
you believe in anything I say?’ howled the wind. She slapped her back
strongly against the wind. A broken neck was her recent trophy. With clenched
fists and rehearsed dynamics she jumped.
Got swept away and hit a rock.
Broke her legs.
Bloodied vision.
Drop 3
The wind felt somewhat stronger
now. Not that it was. ‘There has to be a
better way’, thought Osira. She leered over with her head hung low - trying
to map her way down. Blood trickled down her hair. She loved watching the drops fall and disappear after a while.
The wind cackled and gave her
little nudges this time. It was delightful to watch.
She had to figure it out right
away. Flung herself over.
Crash!
Drop 4
This needs a strategy. There’s
definitely a better way to do this. Osira is sitting with her legs dangling
from the edge of the cliff. Stooping and wondering. There has to be a better
way.
The wind’s name-calling is mere
noise now. She is swaying with it. It soothes her muscles and numbs her pain.
She is observing the blood
trickle down and disappear.
‘There is a better way’, thinks Osira while she is waiting to heal.
It’s a bold statement to make but
true and I drew these words out of my hilt while meaning every bit of it. For
me, champions are the ones that rise out of dust and shine like gold. Champions
wear their hearts on their sleeves to terrify cowards who fear to show their
own. Champions cry their fears out and waste no time in lament henceforth. They
drive their thresholds to peak each day of their breathing existence. They have
nothing to hide and are shrouded in their nakedness. They have scars. They have
wounds. They have fought.
Cowards, on the other hand, will
hide. Hide behind excuses. Hide their tools of torture. Hide the tools that
shaped them...into cowards. They have secrets. They have reasons for not being
there. A reason for each day, each moment and each millisecond of their
pathetic existence. They have reasons why one should have a reason for the sky
being blue. They need proof and evidence because they are too scared to
believe. This is my ode to all those
cowards who take pride in the stop signs that halted them in their tracks.
You can’t change them because
they lack belief. Do not try to make their lives better because that will never
happen. They have given up and do not possess the will to rise. Masochists in
true nature who enjoy their pain and writhe in misery. They fear to allow
anyone else the luxury of hurting them and self-inflict themselves to torture
of a different kind. The world is onto them and will never allow them to emerge
as winners. They believe winning is for losers – there’s no need to make an effort. Tears
and begging don’t work on this kind because their hearts are safely locked
somewhere deep inside, catching dust and turning into stone. Some might have
even thrown their keys away. Black holes of every human effort that will just take
and give nothing in return. All of this
and more makes them a true spectacle worth ignoring. Ignore the minute you
sense a coward near you. Run for your life the minute you sense their presence
and never look back. Take my two pennies worth of advice and avoid a coward the
minute you sniff its stale presence. It’ll save you a lifetime worth of happiness and
effort that's better put to something far more productive.
Because, seriously I cannot stand
anyone less than a champion!
Yes. If you love the hygiene of your deeds as much as the
deed itself, draw borders. Don’t let it infect your sanity with conundrums
polluting your way of life. And the consequence? You end up looking for a new place to squat every
time. Geez! Save yourself the effort. Isolate your dining areas. (If you know
what I mean!)
#45: The temperatures
remain the same. Thresholds increase.
Remember how people give examples of babies learning from
touching hot objects where they would never touch it again after the first
burn. I say that’s just a whole load of crap. The first burn just pushed your
threshold levels to a whole new level and you didn't even realize it. Burns are
good and you will get burnt every time. But that's no reason to stop playing with fire. Wear your scars like accolades. They push you to a whole new level.
#136: Travel Light
Easier said than done. There’s always something on the way
that just can’t be left behind. But trust me on this one. There is nothing that
can’t be left behind. Give away stuff. Donate some. Dispose off the baggage.
Make room for the next lot. There are always a lot more places to cover! The
bag will never get empty. Just lighter.
#3: Lessons always
have newer editions
Change the covers. Improve the style. The core idea may stay
the same. They sometimes may not. But that’s the best part about learning new lessons.
You’ve always got to unlearn. Revamp models. Jazz it up with the latest!
#860: There’s always
a better dress
Go on an impulsive buying spree. You like it. Buy it! Wear
it with all you can afford and see how it goes. There will be prettier ones down
the line. But that’s for another day. Remember, lessons need to be revamped.
