EVER ANCIENT EVER NEW
I was driving from Houston to Dallas with Ben Lee a few weeks ago. We were right in the middle....
... of a mini-tour supporting our pal Rachael Yamagata, had just left ice-cold Chicago, and were listening to this insanely fun podcast called “Threedom” when Ben got a call from his wife, Ione. While he took the call I continued to drive and take in the flat Texas landscape, noting how American highways all kind of look the same and are also subtly different state to state. And then my mind began to wander, mostly towards my creative projects: The book I’m writing, possible scenes from a movie I’ve just begun work on, etc.
Ben was off the phone within ten minutes but it could have been an hour for all I knew. I was reminded how powerful it can be to just stare out the window and dream, how vital this seemingly uneventful time is. And I was struck anew at how dangerous our wired world can be for an artist, how I’ve been conditioned to be alarmed at boredom, that I reach for a device at the smallest pause in my day. And instead of my head being filled up with dreams, visions, plans, and ideas, that space is occupied by the latest op-ed, news article, political scandal, tweet, picture, or status update from someone I don’t know all that well and perhaps have never even met.
When my mind is filled up with other people's voices, opinions, jokes, and hot takes I've less and less room for inspiration and imagination. And that's a problem.
Surely I want to read and learn from others lest I drown in my own solipsism. That's not quite what I'm talking about. I'm just hyper aware lately that social media and the news seem to demand more and more of my time and attention. And daydreaming – this vital creative act – is being neglected. I’ve basically forgotten how to tap into the richness of 'non-doing.' To that end, I’ve been taking a break from Twitter for the month of February (And loooooooving it!) I have such a tortured relationship to that site. I never feel better when I’m done looking at it than I did before I logged on and yet I feel this twitchy, inexorable pull to see what’s going on on there. It’s real FOMO in action. I have a draft of my book due in a few weeks and I figured taking at least one distraction off the table couldn’t hurt.
By the way, the tour with Rachael was a blast. We played five shows with her: two in Chicago (which was, I feel the need to say again, no-joke cold) then three more in Texas: Houston, Dallas, and Austin. We’re going to be recording our second album in a few weeks. I love the new batch of Radnor & Lee songs and Ben and I are super excited for you guys to hear them. Oh and we just set up a mailing list. .
So I can't remember the exact details of the conversation but I was talking with Jon Marro about Millenials. We found our way to the subject after I shared a tweet from @HydroHaacker with him that I thought was really sharp and funny:
Boomers: When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.
Gen X: When life hands you lemons, create a startup to market lemon juice as a healthy, low-carb alternative to lemonade.
Millenials: Hahahaha, as if life would ever just *hand you* lemons.
And Jon - wordsmith extraordinaire - said: "What if, you know how there are Millenials? What if there were 'Perennials?'" And I immediately was like "Yes! This should be a thing: 'Perennials.'"
In gardening parlance, perennials are plants or flowers that grow year-round. Annuals come and go. Perennials stick around rain, shine, or snow. Which leads to the broader meaning of the word:
Continual, continuing, eternal, never-ending, recurrent, constant, everlasting, immortal, old, permanent, ceaseless, deathless, durable, imperishable, unceasing, unchanging, undying, unfailing, uninterrupted.
From a wisdom perspective, that which is ‘perennial’ does not change with the seasons or fashions. 'Perennial philosophy' - as outlined in Aldous Huxley's fantastic book of the same name - posits the idea that all religions, despite their seeming differences, are all pointing to the same Truth. That which once was true, is true, and will always be true.
What gives our lives meaning? What has stuck around? What would have inspired our ancestors that would still inspire us today?
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One of the many wonderful things Rob Bell talks about is the difference between treble and bass. I reached out to ask him to clarify this for me and he did a much better job describing this than I would so I am - with his permission - turning over the text he wrote me to you:
Treble: the higher frequencies that pierce the air with their urgency and punch
Bass: the low rumble that you feel in your bones
Treble: the challenge, the question, the full inbox, the issue pressing for a response right now
Bass: the low slow intention and growth as you become more and more a certain kind of person
Treble: the latest presidential tweet
Bass: the marvel that humans evolved to the point of inventing something called democracy in which the president has to win a majority of people over again after four years or someone else gets the job [**Note: I didn't challenge Rob on the fact that Trump lost the popular vote because of course I get his larger point and why get lost in treble at a moment like this...]
Treble: the barrage of articles and editorials and posts that were written yesterday
Bass: the ancient tradition of wisdom and insight and poetry and direction and sacred texts that people have been turning to for truth and guidance for thousands of years
Treble: people losing their minds on Facebook thinking that it’s never been this bad
Bass: the awareness that millions of people have faced situations a thousand times worse and they didn’t just survive they prevailed
How great is that??
We need both bass and treble. As Ram Dass says, ‘You need to remember your Buddha Nature and your social security number." But we're particularly hurting for those deep slower bass notes right now, which are missing from much of modern life. When we have too much treble in our lives and not enough bass, we need to adjust the knobs a bit. Perennial wisdom provides the bass notes. It grants up a much wider perspective - it slows us down, reminds us to breathe - so that we can access the better angels of our nature.
To be a 'Perennial' (since we're just now, like, inventing a thing) does not mean longing for some golden age or past era. It's not saying that things were somehow better long ago and that we must return to past modes of being and living. I want to be clear about this because it would be dangerous to conflate perennial philosophy with reactionary politics, which speaks to a misplaced desire to return to some status quo of old.
Reactionary politics is anathema to marginalized people who, obviously and understandably, do not wish a return to the status quo of yesteryear. So I would argue that one can honor both perennial truth and progress. The words of Jesus, for instance, are both incredibly progressive and perennially wise.
Often the most progressive revolutionary action we can take is to return to first principles: the dignity of every human being, a mistrust of earthly power, reminding ourselves that spirit is naturally in sympathy with the wounded, the marginalized, and the outcast.
I notice myself sometimes falling into banalities, talking weather, sports, or politics with a kind of folksy detachment. I think it’s fine to talk about these things but not to the exclusion of deeper, more meaningful topics. Poetry and philosophy from ancient wisdom traditions, for instance, put a brake on our narcissism. They remind us that people lived before us and concerned themselves with many of the same questions: How do we live a moral and ethical life? How do we forgive ourselves and others? How are we to connect with the numinous? I assure you none of that will be covered in Trump’s latest tweet.
There’s a moment in Alan Bennett’s play “The History Boys” when a character says: “The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.”
That's perennial, that hand reaching out from another time and taking yours, assuring you that you are not alone in your thoughts, feelings, longings, aches, grief, and pain. To know that there are a chain of hands stretching impossibly far back that we are holding and that we are providing the link for future generations who will be as lost, hurting, grief-stricken, and triumphant as us.
A sacred map that is available to us, a storehouse of myths and parables and sacred texts to guide us, breadcrumbs left from earlier generations and times, saying ‘This is what we learned, this is how we passed through the dark night and emerged wiser, saner, with more peace and gratitude.’
We’ve got to fight to be Perennials, to find those bass notes and allow them to echo. This kind of deep wisdom isn't introduced to us, it’s remembered by us. There are cellular truths flowing through our bloodstream and our job is make them conscious so they’re usable once again. Our bones know long before our brains.
Our culture is designed to distract and hypnotize us. Stretching our hands back towards our elders is a kind of revolution. To feel the embrace of timeless wisdom and infinite compassion, the unbreakable nature of love, is an antidote to what ails the modern soul. That which was, is, and always will be true. As St. Augustine wrote: "Ever ancient, ever new."
“Even when strength fails there is perseverance. And even when perseverance fails there is hope. And even when hope fails there is love. And love never fails.” A stunning sermon by Michael Gerson on depression and faith.
"Minding The Gap" on Hulu is a gorgeous documentary that I can't recommend highly enough.
I met Hannah and her mom at Café Gratitude and they started a super cool app called Womaze along with Hannah's two sisters. Check it out.
My pal Kat Foster has a terrific new podcast called Acting Real. I was her first guest and we had such a great conversation, ostensibly about being a professional actor but really about being a professional human.
Kathy Katims also has a lovely, moving, and frequently hilarious podcast called Saved By A Story
Katelyn Ohashi's perfect 10 floor routine is something else.
This really got to me: Third Graders Shave Their Heads to Support Their Friend With Alopecia
Gary Gulman is one of the funniest comedians alive. Here are three bits of his that I adore: Donald Trump & Bill Gates, Would Have Made A Great Millennial, and Postal Code Abbreviations.
A great piece on the playwright and actress Heidi Schreck in The New Yorker (I flipped for her play "What The Constitution Means To Me" which is about to open on Broadway)
This is a stunner: Nick Cave on whether a robot could ever write a great song.
And finally, an elegy for Mary Oliver, who passed away last month at the age of 83. The author says Oliver was a poet who had greatest hits, calling “Wild Geese” and “The Summer Day” her "poetic equivalent of an arena-rock ballad." There are few poems lovelier, more accessible (in the best way), or perennially wise than "Wild Geese," so I thought it'd be a fitting way to end things here:
Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
As always, if you're enjoying these please spread the word (people can sign up here) And if you're new to these check out past Museletters. JR