Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch (37 page)

When Bob Nash left Wild Cat Canyon to go to Furnace Creek, Death Valley, he
made application for a Guggenheim fellowship. I happened to read the outline of his “project”
because I was one of several who sponsored his candidacy. I doubt if the Guggenheim people
ever received an application such as the one Bob Nash sent in. It was simple, genuine,
sincere. It ended like this: “I suppose my ultimate goal is simply to remain on the road which
I am now on, to comprehend the universe.”

To comprehend the universe!
How those words must have bounced in the
plush surroundings of a foundation dedicated to throwing money out the window!

What I like about Bob Nash is that he went ahead with his project
“irregardless” of the Guggenheim award. If he gets it, I’ll stand on my head for a month—like
that yogi in the shadow of the railroad bridge.

Jesus did his work, and it was a mighty work, without a grant. So did Lincoln,
and John Brown, and William Lloyd Garrison. If their efforts were crowned with failure, as
some believe, it was not because they lacked financial support, or academic support. Can you
picture Jesus receiving an honorary degree—LL.D., D.D., or M.D.—the last in recognition of his
healing powers? Of all the degrees, “Doctor of Divinity” would have suited him least, what?
Today, of course, if you wish to do God’s work, you must first have a degree. Then, in lieu of
doing the work of the Lord, you preach. Social security solves all the ugly problems.

To simplify one’s life! It seems the most natural thing in the world to
undertake, yet it’s just about the most difficult. Everything stands in the way. Literally
everything. How did Thoreau put it? “I am convinced that to maintain one’s self on this earth
is not a hardship, but a pastime,
if we will live simply and wisely.”
*

That “if”! The whole nation seems dead set against living simply
and wisely. Our leaders talk about making common effort, but what do they
mean by it? Do they mean common effort towards the attainment of peace and understanding?
Hardly.

Socrates defied his judges thus: “I am certain, O men of Athens, I should have
perished long ago, and done no good either to you or myself…. He who will really fight for the
right, if he would live even for a little while, must have a private station and not a public
one.”
*

To create community—and what is a nation, or a people, without a sense of
community—there must be a common purpose. Even here in Big Sur, where the oranges are ready to
blossom forth, there is no common purpose, no common effort. There is a remarkable
neighborliness, but no community spirit. We have a Grange, as do other rural communities, but
what is a “Grange” in the life of man? The real workers are outside the Grange. Just as the
“real men of God” are outside the Church. And the real leaders outside the world of
politics.

Oddly enough, these lone travelers whom I’ve been talking about—fellows like
Jack, Bob, Hudson, Warren, Howard—have more real community spirit than those who talk
community. They think for themselves, they know where they stand, they travel light, and
they’re always available. They are not laboring to “establish peace and tranquillity in the
minds of others.” But neither are they indifferent to the plight of those about them. They do
not overlook, do not ignore, those who are less fortunate than themselves. (I am not implying
that they are unique in this respect; few, if any, here are capable of assuming such an
attitude.) What I wish to stress is that it is easy to get at them, easy to enlist their
support, moral or physical. They do not make problems of small issues. Nor do they make lame
excuses. (As do the rich.) They answer Yes or No. In addition, you know in advance what their
answer will be. You know it will be the right answer, whether Yes or No.

I spoke earlier as though they were guilty of undermining
the fabric of our commonwealth. In reality, along with thousands of other unknowns, they are
assisting in the creation of a new fabric, a simple, viable one, better able to stand the
stress and strain, the wear and tear of time. In practicing their own way of life they point
up the unessentials which make
our
way of life so absurd and futile.

Our tourists returning from abroad dwell on the poverty and misery of the
great masses in Europe, Asia, Africa. They speak with pride of the abundance which we in
America share. They talk of efficiency, sanitation, home comforts, high wages, the freedom to
move about and to speak one’s mind, and so on. They speak of these privileges as if they were
American
“inventions.” (As if there had never been a Greece, a Rome, an Egypt, a
China, an India, a Persia.) They never speak of the price we pay for these comforts, for all
this progress and abundance. (As if we were free of crime, disease, suicide, infanticide,
prostitution, alcoholism, addiction to drugs, military training, armament races and the
obsession with lethal weapons.) They speak of motorcars, of the latest fashions in clothes, of
superabundant produce, of refrigerators and deepfreezes, of washing machines, vacuum cleaners,
of vitamins and barbiturates, of dry cereals, of pocketbooks, and so forth. Or of social
security, pensions, dietary fads, automation, jet-propelled rockets, trips to the moon,
libraries, hospitals, universities. Or of the marvels of psychoanalysis and Dianetics. Or,
sentimentally, of the vanishing sea otter. They never speak of the degrading, senseless,
undermining labor which must be performed in order to meet food and rent bills, keep a car,
wear the proper clothes, pay the insurance companies, meet the tax levies with which to build
tanks, battleships, submarines, jet bombers and create more stockpiles of this bomb and that.
They are insured and secured, so they believe, against every emergency, every contingency.
They may or may not have money in the bank, but they are certain to be in debt, mortgaged to
the ears. They have, so they think, the most wonderful
medical service in
the world, yet they will succumb in the end to one of a thousand horrible ailments which even
American
citizens are heir to. Countless are those who will be maimed and mangled
in factories and mills, in mines and laboratories; more still will be injured, crippled or
killed in automobile accidents. More by the automobile than by the juggernaut of Mars. Disease
alone will carry off more than all the other fatalities combined. Many will be rendered
hors de combat
through excessive drinking, or through the use of drugs. And almost
as many from excessive eating, or from eating food products which have been robbed of their
natural nourishment. Legions die through fear and anguish, nothing more.

And
, to continue the story … those who were lucky enough to make a
fortune will, if they live long enough, see their clever gains pissed away by their children.
Those who have three cars, where only one was necessary, will end up in wheel chairs. Those
who save their money will see it eaten up by those who want to make money make money. Those
who work hard all their lives will receive in their old age a pension barely sufficient to
keep a dog alive. As for the worker, he fares no better than the drone. The hobo, almost
nonexistent now, lives a luxurious life by comparison. People are living on longer, but they
are no match, in health, vitality or longevity, for the poor, hardy mountaineers of the
Balkans. How many, in this land of plenty, are living to be eighty, ninety or a hundred, in
full possession of their faculties, not chronically ill, and possessed of a full set of teeth,
their own? How many of those who hang on until three score and ten may be said to be “living”?
(Have you seen the fantastic valetudinarians of southern California and Florida who scoot
along in motorized wheelchairs? Have you watched them idling the day away at cribbage,
checkers, casino, dominoes?)

And how do writers, painters, sculptors, musicians, actors, dancers, to speak
of the creative few, end their days? On a bed of roses? Does ever one of them look as Goethe
did on his deathbed? Notice
how the poets fade out of the picture. No man
in his sound senses would elect to be a poet in this land of kingdom come!

Yes, Hemingway leads a grand life, seemingly. Name a few thousand other
authors who do likewise!

It might be edifying to take time out and read how the great Milarepa died.
(After a vain attempt to kill him with poison.) Or how Ramakrishna, succumbing to the ravages
of cancer, comforted and cheered his disciples on his deathbed. Or how William Blake passed
away singing.

Strange, but despite all the benefits of science, people are not dying the way
these men did. They are dying miserably, here in America, though they have forked out the most
exorbitant sums to doctor, surgeon and hospital. They may be given wonderful funerals, but no
one has yet succeeded in making them die peacefully, nobly, serenely. Few enjoy the luxury of
dying in their own beds.

“The human body is not a happenstance. It was created on purpose and by
design. True, ‘it comes forth like a flower and is cut down; it fleeth like a shadow and
continueth not.’ This is the way of all material things. But the creative forces and the
natural laws that govern them are omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and eternal.

“The body springs from a cell less than one-hundredth of an inch in diameter,
which contains nothing of which it is built. Soon it grows into a material entity, of which
62,500 miles of blood vessels are only a small part. It lives and functions until abuse,
disease or some other force destroys it.

“Some bodies enter the world already dead. Others live various periods, the
average life expectancy now being about fifty-nine years. Some live to be one hundred or
more….

“Of the nine primary functions of the body, those of growth and repair are
most necessary to longevity. Creative processes resulting in growth appear to cease at
maturity but we … have found that they do not. They only go into partial retirement. To the
extent
that basic body materials have to be replaced for the maintenance
of life, they remain active. But without proper inducement they apparently grow tired and lag
in their work. When creative processes are in full predominance over body decay, 140,000,000
cells are created every minute. This means an 8% replacement of basic body constituents every
month, or a 96% new body every year.

“Could this creative rate be maintained, the average life expectancy might
well be several times what it is today. In fact, one might live almost indefinitely….”
*

The great hoax which we are perpetuating every day of our lives is that that
we are making life easier, more comfortable, more enjoyable, more profitable. We are doing
just the contrary. We are making life stale, flat and unprofitable every day in every way. One
ugly word covers it all: waste. Our thoughts, our energies, our very lives are being used up
to create what is unwise, unnecessary, unhealthy. The stupendous activity which goes on in
forest, field, mine and factory never adds up to happiness, contentment, peace of mind, or
long life for those engaged in it. Very, very few Americans enjoy the work they are obliged to
perform day in and day out. Most of them look upon their work as stultifying and degrading.
Few ever find a way out. The vast majority are condemned, just as much as any slave, any
convict, any half-wit. The work of the world, as it is so nobly called, is performed by
drudges. That so many of them are well-educated only makes the picture that much worse. How
little it matters whether one be lawyer, doctor, preacher, judge, chemist, engineer, teacher
or architect. One might just as well have been hod-carrier, stevedore, bank clerk, ditch
digger, gambler or garbage collector. Who really loves what he is doing day in and day out?
What holds one to job, trade, profession or pursuit? Inertia. We are all locked together, as
in a vise, feeding on one another, preying on one another. Talk of the
insect world, by comparison we resemble their degenerate offspring!

Dominating the show, supervising and regulating it, stands a government
composed of elected representatives of the people, which, for a collection of bunglers,
misfits, jokesters and miscreants, would be hard to match.

And our millionaires—are they happy?
They
, at least, should be gay,
jovial, light of heart. Is not the goal of all our striving to have even more than one wants?
Look at them, our poor millionaires! The sorriest specimens of humanity on earth. How I wish
the starving Asiatics could become millionaires overnight, all of them! How quickly they would
realize the futility of the American way!

Then there are the middle classes—the bulwark of the nation, as we blithely
say. Sober, steady, reliable, educated, conservative, self-respecting. You can count on them
to steer a middle-of-the-road course. Could there be any emptier souls than these? All living
like stuffed cadavers in a wax museum. Weighing themselves morning and night. Saying Yes
today, No tomorrow. Weather vanes, shuttlecocks, noisy amplifiers. Have kept up a good front
all their lives. Behind this front—nothing. Not even sandbags.

And the workers—the highest paid in all the world, as we proudly boast. Own
their own cars, their own homes. (Some of them.) But all loaded with insurance, war bonds,
cemetery plots. Children educated free of charge, schools equipped with playgrounds and
recreation centers, food approved by the Pure Food inspectors. Factories air-conditioned.
Toilets sanitary and always in good working order. Forty hours a week, double pay for
overtime. At a hundred a week they find it difficult to make ends meet. The government robs
them, the banks rob them, the merchants rob them, the labor leaders rob them, the boss robs
them, everybody robs them. They rob one another. I speak of the de luxe workers, who sometimes
make de luxe soldiers or de luxe politicians. As for the unwashed, the un-unionized, the
unheard of variety, they live like rats. They are a disgrace to the nation. This is one nation
which will
not
subscribe to poverty, filth, vice, illiteracy,
mendicancy, or idleness and shiftlessness!