Lost and Unfound
She would rather be a riddle
But she keeps challenging the future
With a profound lack of history
--Knight Moves, Suzanne Vega
Living out a total misconception,
Reality, a false perception.
--Cliches of the World (B Movie), The Kinks
Everyday in the morning when you get up
and you crawl out of bed
If you look in the mirror it's your father's face
And the thin grin, the thin grin, the thin grin
--Jack Gets Up, Leo Kottke
He's as blind as he can be,
Just sees what he wants to see,
Nowhere man can you see me at all?
--Nowhere Man, The Beatles
_____________
(This is all Jim, no Lisa.)
This is dedicated to all the lost souls out there. You know who you are and so do I.
It dawned on me that I am a lot like Joan of Arc. This doesn't mean that I wear iron pants and need a sex change; it means that the voices guide me. Rock and Roll lyrics often serve as inspiration for the thoughts you read here. Their voices guide me.
I write as Ranger because it is easy to objectify my feelings. Because I look at reality and I often don't feel real. I am disconnected and don't care that I am. I understand desperation and fear and there is nothing that I can do about it. What started this? The Kinks kicked me off with their "reality of false perceptions." That says it all.
We live our lives in cliches -- patriotism, religion, wars, marriage, political campaigns, ad infinitum. We feel that we are living our lives and being free, but like Suzanne Vega sings, we are living a false wisdom.
I accept these things. We live, we love, we die and it was all an illusion.
I'm a lost fucker, but that's what separates me from most of the others. I accept it.
Labels: ranger is lost
posted by rangeragainstwar at 6:15 AM
21 Comments:
When the world and I were young, just yesterday
Life was such a simple game a child could play
It was easy then to tell right from wrong
Easy then to tell weak from strong
When a man should stand and fight
Or just go along
But today, there is no day or night
Today, there is no dark or light
Today, there is no black or white
Only shades of gray
I remember when the answer seemed so clear
We had never lived with doubt, or tasted fear
It was easy then to tell truth from lies
Selling out from compromise
Who to love and who to hate
The foolish from the wise
But today, there is no day or night
Today, there is no dark or light
Today, there is no black or white
Only shades of gray
It was easy then to know what was fair
When to keep and when to share
How much to protect your heart
And how much to care
But today, there is no day or night
Today, there is no dark or light
Today, there is no black or white
Only shades of gray
Only shades of gray...
yeah, finally my perspective has reached the philosophical level of 1960's pop music. . .
girl, if i wasn't trapped
i'd be losing my way
tom waits.
MB,
I would be very sad if your perspective has matured to that of a 60's pop song! :(
[We can expect these sort of things from Ranger. . .]
Yesterday a child came out to wonder
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar
Fearful when the sky was full of thunder
And tearful at the falling of a star
Then the child moved ten times round the seasons
Skated over ten clear frozen streams
Words like, when youre older, must appease him
And promises of someday make his dreams
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
Were captive on the carousel of time
We cant return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game
Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now
Cartwheels turn to car wheels thru the town
And they tell him,
Take your time, it wont be long now
Till you drag your feet to slow the circles down
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
Were captive on the carousel of time
We cant return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game
So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty
Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true
Therell be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
Were captive on the carousel of time
We cant return, we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game
Joni Mitchell
I hear what you're saying Ranger. Or as carpenters say: I'm picking up what you're putting down.
Terrible
-first i must say-you should change your screen name.Every time I see the terrible name I brace for the worst and then your comments are always refreshing.
-on my new england trip I got to see Tom Rush in concert. He was the 1`st to cover the Circle Game. One of his albums was the CG which I purchased in the PX at Baumholder , germany in 69.
-I'm in that mood-probably my 40th college reunion done done me in.
jim
THIS
This destiny of destinies.
Supporting a proliferation of ideas
to force an existence that confounds
and berates my sensibilities.
-D.C. Massey
I'll keep the fire lit, Brother.
BILLION
A billion, billion heavens smile cruel light down upon me.
I oft fancy that I am one with purpose here among my fellow monkeys.
Yet in that mystic heart of hearts I know all is false.
Am I smote by reason, or be this madness? What is the difference 'twain?
Bourbon and smoke provides the feeblest of sparks...I have become unable and unwilling to venture anything further.
This persistent melancholy has me chained, shackled, damned.
My whims are fleeting...sometimes fantastical, most often banal.
It resounds tiresome in my psyche...again and again and yet again.
This tired repetition of resolve.
To what end but the end?
I look out on to the Cosmos and see nothing there but the cold, violent , silent chaos of it all. Recycled, it's all recycled...just like me.
-D.C. Massey
Far better to be lost and know it than to dedicate oneself to any dogma (religious or political) that deludes you into thinking you're "found." That's when the corpses start to pile up.
MC,
Not only are you the official poet of Ranger, you are now the designated keeper of the flame.
jim
Dale,
"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. . ." As poet Mary Oliver asks, "What will you do with your one wild and precious life?"
LOSS AND GAIN
When I compare
What I have lost with what I have gained,
What I have missed with what attained,
Little room do I find for pride.
I am aware
How many days have been idly spent;
How like an arrow the good intent
Has fallen short or been turned aside.
But who shall dare
To measure loss and gain in this wise?
Defeat may be victory in disguise;
The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Dale,
Excellent Longfellow. As Yogi Berra said, it ain't over 'til it's over.
Ranger's favorite poem is The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock. To me, that is a sad poem because of his self-imposed stasis. Sad because Prufrock is a man of some sensibility who wastes it on people who will always disappoint. He is afraid, too timid to call a spade a spade. Ego too fragile. He makes of things more than they are; people, better than they are.
I disdain whining, lies and excuses. Everyone faces the same life, more or less. I'd prefer Big Country's:
"I'm not expecting to grow flowers in the desert,
"But I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime..."
At least that.
labels and names and expectations to live up or down.
i'm not sure i have even read them well. i may have read them backwards.
"Sometimes the best maps cannot guide you,
You can't see what's 'round the bend.
Sometimes the road leads through dark places;
Sometimes the darkness is your friend.
It's as if the thing were written
In the Constitution of the age.
And you find yourself
Pacing the cage."
B. Cockburn,
The whole fucking world is illusion-- ever read quantum physics or the Tao Te Ching? Some call it Maya, some call the Universe a hologram. Whatever, it ain't real. We invest it with reality by our perceptions. Cleanse the Doors of Perception.
Hi jim; i've been away for awhile. Good to see you again.
pzykr,
Huxley was right about cleansing our Doors of Perception. It is such a strong human impulse to see through the occlusion of dogma. Just observe, without preconception . . .
I guess people don't want to be taken for fools, or be seen as Pollyanna-ish. Sad thing is, as they rack up these "life experiences" they just get locked tighter in their box.
"Are you confused by the chaos in everyones wondering eyes?
Do you dream of runnin naked in warm rain?
Are you confused by the chaos, its no, its no surprise
We all stand next to Jesus `cause to Satan were all the same"
Love and Rockets
fnord,
Thanks -- that ought to set him straight :)
"Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."
"What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun?
"Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.
"The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
"The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course.
"All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again.
"All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing.
"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
"Is there anything of which one can say, "Look! This is something new"?
It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.
"There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow.
"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest."
Ranger, some find Ecclesiastes very depressing. I find him inspirational. He tells me that we get only one shot at it and that we'd better make the best of it. Or, as it's been said, "life is not a rehearsal."
We're all lost souls. Every one of us. You're not alone. I'm not religious, but I do know the only way we can make any sense of this gift (or curse) of self-awareness we've been given is to do whatever we can to better ourselves and to help our fellow beings.
Since I don't expect anything after this time around, I want this one to be as good as I can make it. Lost soul that I am, I savor every. fucking. minute.
Publius,
Right-on! No whining about purposelessness, slings and arrows, futility -- none of it. Don't burden people. Make the most of every moment. Better yourself. Live in joy, and try to be a joy to others.
There is not much else, but that is enough.
Well thanks for that Ranger! I don't know about changing screen-name though. It is my 'adult name' that was giving to me here in Vermont soon after I got out of my 3 year hitch in the service 25 years ago. I don't think the service had that much to do with earning me the name though. Anyway it's a name that those on both sides of the battle line can learn to respect.
I don't think I've heard the Tom Rush cover but will look for it.
hehehe Ranger I was just thinking/remembering that when I was in the 567th we used to have a saying "Do you really want to get your feelings hurt?". I think bringing that attitude back with me to civilian life may have played a role in my being given the name I was. Sort of a 'damn the torpedoes' and 'take no prisoners' type attitude.
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