Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch (36 page)

All of them have demonstrated that it is possible to live happily on next to
nothing. All are married, or have been. All are extremely capable, in many ways. As cabinet
ministers they would be perfect. Under their guiding hand there would be no need for
revolution, they would run the country into the ground in no time.

Whether they know it or not, that is precisely what they are trying to do.
Their goal is not a bigger and better America but a world made for man. What they are seeking
is a new old way of life, one consonant with human aspirations and equated with human
proportions. Not back to the safety and security of the womb, but—
out of the
wilderness!

When I said a while ago that the aim of these individuals is to become
self-sufficient, I hope I made myself clear. What they are after is to become as undependent
as possible. Interdependent would be more like it. Hudson Kimball, who pushed the idea
furthest, found it extremely difficult. In attempting to live his own life he grew a vegetable
garden, raised goats, chickens, rabbits, geese, kept bees too, if I am not mistaken, yet his
wife had to give music lessons and he himself had to work in town a few days a week in order
to raise the indispensable cash needed to meet the exigencies of even the simplest mode of
life. He had no vices, no indulgences. He neither smoked nor drank, neither did his wife. They
lived just about as frugally as two people can, with a child of eight or nine, but they
couldn’t make a go of it.

Jack Morgenrath, on the other hand, does pretty well. In fact, I would say
very well. He works as little as possible—at anything. Just enough to earn the few dollars
needed to provide for a wife and three children. Jack has two cars, whereas the Kimballs had
none. (When the latter went to town, they had first to walk almost two miles to the highway,
then grub a ride. They went to bed at dark, to avoid the expense of fuel and kerosene.) When
his car
breaks down, Jack takes the motor apart himself; I believe he
could build a new body for it if he had to. Jack needs a car—and a truck—in order to hire
himself out. Otherwise he wouldn’t dream of owning one.

As for Warren Leopold, an architect, a builder, a painter, a fine carpenter,
he has a wife and four children, probably the best behaved and the most contented children in
the whole community. (Aside from the Lopez family.) His idea, or ideal, is to so manage that
they won’t need a house—they will all live together in a tent—or under a rock. Warren loves to
build houses but loathes his profession. And with good reason. For, until one can establish
himself as another Frank Lloyd Wright, one is condemned to design homes that will suit the
taste of people who have no understanding of architecture whatever. In short, one must do the
very opposite of what one believes in. To circumvent this dilemma, Warren had the very
sensible idea of building a house according to his own ideas, living in it for a while, then
selling it to anyone who took a fancy to it. Once he got a contract to design a house for a
wealthy woman who paid him a handsome retaining fee. Warren didn’t altogether approve of the
kind of home the woman demanded, but he decided to do the best he could. He had two children
then, one of whom had to undergo several very expensive operations. (It was just before the
child was stricken that we met on the street in Monterey one day. Warren was still dazed by
the amount of money he had collected as a retaining fee. He would have preferred no fee and a
free hand in carrying out his architectural ideas. But here’s how he greeted me. “Can’t I give
you a few hundred dollars? I don’t know what to do with all this money.” It never occurred to
him to improve his standard of living. He wasn’t even tempted to do so. When I refused his
offer he said: “Look, you’re always sending food and clothes to Europe”—it was right after the
war—“Take the money and give it to those who need it.” I refused again, this time with less
conviction…. But that’s the sort of chap Warren is.)

Warren can earn good money as a first-class carpenter. He
doesn’t want to. He wants a little piece of land, just enough to raise some fruit and
vegetables, rabbits and chickens, and to hell with your $12.50 per day—or is it $20.00 a day
that first-class carpenters now earn?

But perhaps I can better convey the feeling of frustration and disillusionment
which carpenters, bricklayers, engineers and architects in America are prone to by quoting a
few passages of a letter I once received from an Egyptian student whom I had hired to serve as
a messenger when I was hiring and firing for the Cosmococcic Telegraph Company. It was in the
spring of 1924 and Mohamed Ali Sarwat had left our employ to seek a better position in
Washington, D.C.

E
STEEMED AND
M
OST
H
ONOURABLE
S
IR
:

I must write and let you know what sorrow’s hand has done in my heart, and it
grieves me very much to overburden you with my internal pains, but I feel extremely gratified
to know that you are a rare and gracious soul.

Here I am, a wrecked ship dashed and broken into pieces, by the huge rocks in
the wide, dark and rolling ocean of America. My dear sir, I have often heard people speak
highly of this country, that its imaginary beauty had infatuated me and drew me hither from
the calm East very vehemently.

Very shortly after I had landed here I found what I have taken for granted is
but a mere poetic sentiment; and the magnificent and gigantic mansions of hopes were but
dreams and foundationless. I am very much disappointed, dear sir. There is a quotation of a
Persian poet that runs:

“And there must be a humanitarian soul in which you have to deposit your
pains and sufferings, and in which you will find a balsam to relieve your ulcerated
heart.”

You know I left New York City as I was unsuccessful to earn the means of my
livelihood there. I found myself lost
among the crowds of the
Materialistic rush in the very busy streets of the Western Metropolice. Then I have carried my
knapsack of travel in the psychological attitude of Jean Valjean, the hero personage of
Les Miserables
, by the French Hugo and stepped forward hither with the absolute
hope to earn easily the means of my living, but to my ill luck and misfortune I found all of
Washington is like what I have previously had an introduction. What a pity! A man like me
unable to eat his bread in the alleged garden-spot of the world. That is a great disaster.
Whenever I think of the existing circumstances in this great country the lines of Longfellow
run into my memory:

“Something, something done
has earned a night’s repose.”

And I also think of America according to Shakespeare’s words in
Hamlet:
“Something is rotten in the State of Denmark!”

What can I say more, my dear sir? The flourishing rose of my hopes had
already faded. Conditions are awfully bad here. Capitalism is enslaving Labour in the midst
daylight of the twentieth century, and Democracy is but a word of no meaning.

He who has money is terribly tormenting he who has not, simply because he has
to feed him, and he who has money is degraded from his spiritual sentiments. That is the main
point of weakness. That the mistake of society.

Kindly write me whenever you have a chance to do so. Advise me what to do.
Shall I be patient, and my patience come to its limits? Will conditions be continuously bad in
the United States as they are now? Is there any hope of the sun shining to kill the dark
clouds and enlighten the obscurity? I hardly believe so. Here is what I am thinking of: I find
it a black spot in the white page of my life to come to America and return back to Egypt with
failure, and I would rather die than so do.

My soul is very ambitious, and it is imprisoned within the cage of clay, the
body! Shall I release it to enjoy liberty and boundless freedom? I like to return back to New
York and
shall not do so unless I know what my determination there will
be. I want to be employed by you as a sergeant to look after the clothes, no matter what long
my hours of work will be, as long as I shall be under your direction and will be leading a
sedentary life. I am sure your heart will sympathize with my state and you will resume your
endeavorings to put me in some position and see me settled. Do help me, please.

I shall come back to New York when you will be able to put me in such a work
and send me a word to report myself to your kindness. Don’t care much about the people, as I
have no faith in them. I have only a very unshaking faith in
you
. You will be able
yourself to solve my problem.

Don’t hesitate to help me as much as you can. I want you to employ me as a
sergeant, or elsewhere in a decent work. I am unable to afford being out of work for such a
long time. I cannot exist.
Read this letter again!
Read it over in your spare time
and write an answer please.

I have taken a very long time from yours. I must close. With very good wishes
and kindest regards, I beg to lay under your feet my most respectful homage.

Your obedient servant always,
(signed)
M
OHAMED
A
LI
S
ARWAT

As often as I’ve read the Gospels I’ve never run across a single reference to
the baggage that Jesus toted around. There is not even mention of a satchel, such as Somerset
Maugham made use of when walking about in China. (Bufano, the sculptor, travels lighter than
any man I know, but even Bennie is obliged to carry a shaving kit in which he stuffs a change
of linen, a toothbrush and a pair of socks.) As for Jesus, by all accounts he didn’t own a
toothbrush. No baggage, no furniture, no change of linen, no handkerchief, no passport, no
identity card, no bankbook, no love letters, no insurance policy, no address book. To be sure,
he had no wife, no children, no home (not even a winter palace) and no correspondence to look
after. As far as we know, he never wrote a line. Home was where-ever
he
happened to be. Not where he hung his hat—because he never wore a hat.

He had no wants, that’s the thing. He didn’t even have to think about such a
menial job as wardrobe attendant. After a time he ceased working as a carpenter. Not that he
was looking for bigger wages. No, he had more important work to do. He set out to prove the
absurdity of living by the sweat of one’s brow.
Behold the lilies in the field
….

The other day, glancing through one of our illustrated weeklies, I noticed an
advertisement for a new Lincoln. The caption read: “For those who are never satisfied with the
ordinary.” The new car was described as one suitable for “modern living and magnificent
driving.” Further on, in this same weekly, there was a photograph of a great new bridge, a
railroad bridge, I believe, in the city of Calcutta—or was it Bombay?—and on the riverbank,
right in the shadow of this engineering triumph, a yogi could be seen standing on his head,
clad only in a loincloth. He gave the impression of being able to stand in that position
forever, if he chose to. Obviously, he had no need of that new bridge, nor of the new Lincoln
“suitable for modern living.” Whatever his needs, they were, like Jesus’, few and far
between.

“The world problem,” said Krishnamurti once, “is the individual problem; if
the individual is at peace, has happiness, has great tolerance, and an intense desire to help,
then the world problem as such ceases to exist. You consider the world problem before you have
considered your own problem. Before you have established peace and understanding in your own
hearts and in your own minds, you desire to establish peace and tranquillity in the minds of
others, in your nations and in your states; whereas peace and understanding will only come
when there is understanding, certainty and strength in yourselves.”
*

If I were running the World Order of Human Merit, I would
make Warren Leopold a Chevalier. When Warren has to pack and move (with a wife and four
children), and he’s done it time and again, he can do it in an hour or two. After he quit
building houses according to other people’s ideas, Warren traveled up and down the Coast a
number of times. Always on the lookout for “a little land and a living.” As he said to me
once—“There’s so much land everywhere, surely someone ought to be willing to part with a
little. All we need is a half-acre.” In one of the northern counties of this glorious state he
one day found a spot of land. The man told him he could have it—for free. With wife and kids
helping, Warren cleared the land, built a cabin to live in, started a vegetable patch, and
just when everything seemed to be under control he had to clear out. The neighbors didn’t like
him. He wasn’t their kind: he wore a beard, he refused to join the Grange, he chummed with the
Indians and other no-good people, his ideas were too radical, and so on. Finally it turned out
that the man who had given him the land didn’t own it. He only thought he owned it. So they
moved on. And always it was the same story:
“You don’t belong.”

Well, nobody belongs who’s trying to simplify his life. Nobody belongs who
isn’t trying to make money, or trying to make money make money. Nobody belongs who wears the
same suit of clothes year in and year out, who doesn’t shave, who doesn’t believe in sending
his children to school to be miseducated, who doesn’t join up with Church, Grange and Party,
who doesn’t serve “Murder, Death and Blight, Inc.” Nobody belongs who doesn’t read
Time,
Life
, and one of the Digests. Nobody belongs who doesn’t vote, carry insurance, live on
the instalment plan, pile up debts, keep a check account and deal with the Safeway stores or
the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company. Nobody belongs who doesn’t read the current best
sellers and help support the paid pimps who dump them on the market. Nobody belongs who is
fool enough to believe that he is entitled to write, paint, sculpt or compose music according
to the dictates of his own heart and conscience. Or who
wants to be
nothing more than an artist, an artist from tip to toe.