"Look at your hand. It’s one of the most incredible instruments in the universe.
Of all the bones in the body, one fourth are in the hand.
Forget the hand. Look at your thumb; that wondrous mechanism that separates us from the other animals.
The world-famous opposable thumb, that amazing device,that has transported more students to college than the Boston post road. Ideal for sucking, especially as a baby, and lauded in song and story as the perfect instrument for pulling out a plum.
Or, in the case of the Caesars, for holding it down for the gladiator to die, or holding it up, which means "See you later at the orgy." My friends, for getting up and down the pike, in your pie, in your eye, I give you the thumb.
Have you any idea, Farmer Brown, of the incredible complexity of this piece of human apparatus?
Of course not. Never having spent any time at Sol and Sol’s swilling borscht and jamming Latin into your brain while trying to imagine if Lefty the waitress is wearing a garter belt, you have no idea of the balletic interplay of parts that make up the human thumb.
The flexor ossis metacarpi pollicis flexes the metacarpal bone, that is, draws it inward over the palm, thus producing the movement of opposition. And the Boy Scout salute. Because of this magical engineering, we could do this. And this. And this.
But our greatest triumph comes not from flexing the metacarpal bone and making a fist,
which always seems to be thirsting to be clenched…No, no, no, no, no.
Our greatest moment is when we open our hand:
Cradling a glass of wine, cupping a loved one’s chin. And the best… the most expert of all…
keeping all the objects of our life in the air at the same time. My friends, for your amusement and bemusement, I give you the human person. Thumb and fingers flexing madly, straining to keep aloft the leaden realities of life: ignorance, death and madness. Thus we create for ourselves the illusion that we have power,that we are in control, that we are… loved"
My friends, if you believe, as I do, that we are the sum of everything that has happened to us...that we are nurtured into what ever it is that we are, than this quote from MASH is probably as good as any in coming to an understanding of why I am the way I am. I grew up on MASH, the combination of humour and humanity that made that show one of the best ever helped to mould and form my way of being and thinking. I am Hawkeye....that Alan Alda shares the same birthday as me confirms it in my mind.
But my being the way I am is not really what I wanted to talk about. Rather how his semi soliloquy from the show, where Hawkeye finds himself stranded in the arms of a Korean family after rolling his jeep and suffering a concussion, has always stayed with me as one of those brilliant illumination events. You know the ones I am talking about...where maybe your world makes a little more sense after having the light shone on it from an outside source. Music and movies have done this countless times for me. A number of times people have stepped up and showed me the way and on a few occasions I've even woken from dreams with this sense of definition.
I remember watching this episode and being struck by the simple but pure truth behind it. Those 27 bones in our hand have the power to do so much, both good and bad, and what we choose to do with them really depends on where we are in our lives and in our heads and how we came to be at that point. As an illustration, I really only had one fight growing up...one where I purposefully swung my fists to injure. Not because I am a pacifist extraordinaire or anything like that, I just never felt the need to fight and usually tried to diffuse the situation before fists were a flying. This has almost always been the case, even verbally...I don't care to fight and I certainly don't care to carry anger and resentment with me, so I, by nature, try to make the peace if the peace is breached. That one fight on the bus home ended in a couple of swings by us both and the driver kicking us off. I don't recall what it was over but I'm sure it was trivial. No harm done to my knowledge.
Conversely I remember thinking that G.W. Bush was the wrong guy at the wrong time when 9/11 happened. Absolutely a hard response was needed, but not the way he did it and to the extent that he responded. Call me crazy but maybe the Muslim world really does have some legitimate beefs with the west. The extremists way of responding ends up feeding the fire even further by ensuring a like minded response, but what if instead of bombing the shit out countries that farm rocks for a living we sat down and talked to them. There is bad blood and history that goes back to biblical times...I get that, but surely any long and painful discussion is infinitely better than worrying about if the next guy walking down the street has a suicide vest under his coat or if that buzzing in the air is a drone about ready to drop it's load on my family. Bush wouldn't see this as an opportunity to do anything other than to feed the war machine in the search for "revenge". It seems that clenching that fist is just easier. I wonder what Drumph does when an attack happens...do you think the "art of the deal" will come into play here? Yeah...me neither.
The wisdom of Solomon might not be able to solve any of the serious issues that we face. Is it simply too much? Would we be better served by everyone simply acknowledging we have issues and than turning our attention to finding a solution together? I wish I knew but I can't help but feel that opening those 27 bones instead of clenching them into a fist is the way forward.
Perhaps taking those 27 bones and holding on to life and all that it offers, metaphorically and literally speaking, is a good way of showing respect for the marvels of the human body and spirit. As 2016 winds down, a year I would like to see in the rear view mirror, we naturally come to a time of reflection. My own reflection on the year has me trying to look forward to more positive times to come...2016, in too many ways, sucked ass. It wasn't all bad by any stretch but all the same I'm ready for a kick ass 2017.
I read an op ed piece just this morning in the NY Times and I think I may have found a buddy spirit in one Roger Cohen. He writes well and with a certain amount of passion, something to aspire to for myself and my new career goal....a recluse writer with an affinity for wine and women..the three W's. While 2016 does it's disappearing act and we can declare "fuck you 2016" we should be looking up to 2017 with excitement and anticipation, actually everyday we should be doing this, why wait for a new year. But since we are in that season, when in Rome....you know the rest. Read the piece here if you like Do Not Go Gentle
Grab the coming year with all those bones and do as Mr. Cohen exhorts, borrowing from Dylan Thomas "Love more, love better. Do not......go gentle into that good night."
Ciao
D
But my being the way I am is not really what I wanted to talk about. Rather how his semi soliloquy from the show, where Hawkeye finds himself stranded in the arms of a Korean family after rolling his jeep and suffering a concussion, has always stayed with me as one of those brilliant illumination events. You know the ones I am talking about...where maybe your world makes a little more sense after having the light shone on it from an outside source. Music and movies have done this countless times for me. A number of times people have stepped up and showed me the way and on a few occasions I've even woken from dreams with this sense of definition.
I remember watching this episode and being struck by the simple but pure truth behind it. Those 27 bones in our hand have the power to do so much, both good and bad, and what we choose to do with them really depends on where we are in our lives and in our heads and how we came to be at that point. As an illustration, I really only had one fight growing up...one where I purposefully swung my fists to injure. Not because I am a pacifist extraordinaire or anything like that, I just never felt the need to fight and usually tried to diffuse the situation before fists were a flying. This has almost always been the case, even verbally...I don't care to fight and I certainly don't care to carry anger and resentment with me, so I, by nature, try to make the peace if the peace is breached. That one fight on the bus home ended in a couple of swings by us both and the driver kicking us off. I don't recall what it was over but I'm sure it was trivial. No harm done to my knowledge.
Conversely I remember thinking that G.W. Bush was the wrong guy at the wrong time when 9/11 happened. Absolutely a hard response was needed, but not the way he did it and to the extent that he responded. Call me crazy but maybe the Muslim world really does have some legitimate beefs with the west. The extremists way of responding ends up feeding the fire even further by ensuring a like minded response, but what if instead of bombing the shit out countries that farm rocks for a living we sat down and talked to them. There is bad blood and history that goes back to biblical times...I get that, but surely any long and painful discussion is infinitely better than worrying about if the next guy walking down the street has a suicide vest under his coat or if that buzzing in the air is a drone about ready to drop it's load on my family. Bush wouldn't see this as an opportunity to do anything other than to feed the war machine in the search for "revenge". It seems that clenching that fist is just easier. I wonder what Drumph does when an attack happens...do you think the "art of the deal" will come into play here? Yeah...me neither.
The wisdom of Solomon might not be able to solve any of the serious issues that we face. Is it simply too much? Would we be better served by everyone simply acknowledging we have issues and than turning our attention to finding a solution together? I wish I knew but I can't help but feel that opening those 27 bones instead of clenching them into a fist is the way forward.
Perhaps taking those 27 bones and holding on to life and all that it offers, metaphorically and literally speaking, is a good way of showing respect for the marvels of the human body and spirit. As 2016 winds down, a year I would like to see in the rear view mirror, we naturally come to a time of reflection. My own reflection on the year has me trying to look forward to more positive times to come...2016, in too many ways, sucked ass. It wasn't all bad by any stretch but all the same I'm ready for a kick ass 2017.
I read an op ed piece just this morning in the NY Times and I think I may have found a buddy spirit in one Roger Cohen. He writes well and with a certain amount of passion, something to aspire to for myself and my new career goal....a recluse writer with an affinity for wine and women..the three W's. While 2016 does it's disappearing act and we can declare "fuck you 2016" we should be looking up to 2017 with excitement and anticipation, actually everyday we should be doing this, why wait for a new year. But since we are in that season, when in Rome....you know the rest. Read the piece here if you like Do Not Go Gentle
Grab the coming year with all those bones and do as Mr. Cohen exhorts, borrowing from Dylan Thomas "Love more, love better. Do not......go gentle into that good night."
Ciao
D
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