"These young people who seek me out, they're wrong about me. ...they hear I live in a cave in a butte, so they jump to the conclusion that I lead a simple life. ... Simplicity is for the simpletons!
Life isn't simple; it's overwhelmingly complex. The love of simplicity is an escapist drug, like alcohol. It's an antilife attitude. These 'simple' people who sit around in drab clothes in bleak rooms sipping peppermint tea by candlelight are mocking life. They are unwittingly on the side of death. Death is simple but life is rich. I embrace that richness, the more complicated the better. I revel in disorder...
"But your cave isn't disorderly"
"I'm not a slob, if that's what you mean. Slobs don't LOVE disorder. They're ineffectual people who are disorderly because they can't help themselves. It's not the same. I set my cave in order knowing that life's disorder will only mess it up again. That's beautiful, that's right, that's part of the paradox. The beauty of simplicity is the complexity it attracts..."
"The beauty of simplicity, you say? Then you DO find value in simplicity. You've contradicted yourself."
"Of course I've contradicted myself. I always do. Only cretins and logicians don't contradict themselves. And in their consistency, they contradict life." - T. Robbins, ECGTB
I think this is a wonderfully life affirming, "take life by the horns and enjoy the pointy parts" type of attitude that makes me feel great about being alive. In fact, everything Tom Robbins writes is that way. That's why I like reading his books. There's no shame in living your life how you see fit. No matter what others say is "wrong" or weird or anti-nature, etc. It would be a boring world if everyone did everything the same way. So go on with your weird self.
I like that paradoxes are part of life. How two opposing things can be "truthy" and correct. Here's one more quote from Senor Tom:
"To live fully, one must be free, but to be free one must give up security. Therefore, to live one must be willing to die. How's that for a paradox?"
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2 comments:
Nick...we need to go to Kaldis. I am SO on the same page with you right now. I am watching a 1984 interview of Joseph Campbell on "THe Power of Mythology". He says the SAME THINGS!!!
Life IS Death. Look at Nature...it survives by regular death.
The paradox is what the Yin and Yang represent. Good cannot exist without evil, nor evil without good. Both are CORRECT and yet, both are wrong and don't exist, but rather it is the place between them that we are searching for. THAT is where you find your God.
Oh geeze...I can't wait for our camping trip..and I am not talking about the tent sharing part....
DAN! I've just learned about Joseph Campbell and read (a part) of one of his books. He's a very interesting character and I watched some interviews with him. He's a smart cookie and I like what he was studying/teaching. His work with mythology and how the same themes were simultaneously being thought of and spread through cultures thousands of miles apart without interaction is amazing. It says a lot about how we're all wanting, searching for the same thing.
Camping will definitely be fun.
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