He not busy bein' born is busy dying
Following on from my 'Inner Child' posting of a few weeks ago, I noted this piece from the excellently political psychologist Oliver James in the Observer. Watching the Dylan documentaries has encouraged him to think about the virtues of kidultery:
It's very hard to be adult in a developed nation and retain the spontaneity and inventiveness found in three year olds, without being mad, personality disordered or employed as an artist. I believe that creating the context in which these child-like attributes can flourish in adults should be the principal goal of politics; they are the cornerstone of mental well-being.
The words 'change' and 'dreams' have dominated the political party conferences this year, but they referred to improved Having rather than Being. Dylan was right that he who is not busy being born (emotionally maturing), is busy dying.
And (just because I'm in a connective mode) let me add to that this morning's Radio Four discussion about the ancient Cynical philosophers on Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time series. (Which as any podcast fule kno, are available on an MP3 download for one week only). The pic above is of Diogenes, the Cynical philosopher who jerked off in the public square (sounds like Glasgow on a Saturday night). From the intro:
Eating live octopus with fresh lupins, performing intimate acts in public places and shouting at passers by from inside a barrel is behaviour not normally associated with philosophy. But the Cynics were different. They were determined to expose the meaninglessness of civilised life by action as well as by word. They slept rough, ate simply and gave their lectures in the market place. Perhaps surprisingly, their ideas and attitudes were immensely popular in the ancient world.
But how coherent was cynicism as a philosophy? What was its influence on literature and politics and is there any truth to the contention that Jesus himself was influenced by the Cynics?
And just coz I'm riffing, let me also point you to a powerful justification of this bodily, trangressive kynicism, as against our more negative contemporary reading of the word - Peter Sloterdijk's Critique of Cynical Reason.
Too many ideas, too little time...
