Kipling Again

I’ve decided to take a second shot at Kipling’s “If” poem. I’m not actually trying to run through this thing line-by-line, but I sorta can’t help it—there’s just too much to be had in there.

Immediately after the lines I wrote about previously—about not letting dreams become your master, or thoughts your aim—comes this curious creature:

“If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;”

When I first heard those bolded lines sung by Chuck E. Costa, (I link to him because I really, really want you to hear the song!) I found them very compelling, but I couldn’t say why. I mean, the idea of keeping a cool head throughout both triumph and disaster is very sensible and noble and all…but let’s be realistic. Does anyone actually think we’re supposed to treat those two imposters just the same? Why should triumph be an imposter? Don’t we strive for it, invite it, and incur it?

Well, sometimes. But sometimes it comes unexpected and unaided by our own skill or intent. Likewise disaster sometimes comes upon us wholly unexpected—and sometimes we invite it, or incur it.

That being said…I still narrowed my eyes at those lines so as to mull them over, for this is what I cannot help but picture:

You are at home, doing this that or the other, when someone steps through your front door—quite without asking—and it happens to be someone thrilling, charming and altogether enjoyable to be around. You welcome them with open arms. You have riveting conversation. He compliments you and your family, lifting your spirits, giving you trinket-y or not-so-trinket-y gifts. So long as triumph stays, sitting on your couch and sipping congenially whatever drink you offer him, you are flushed and in flight! When he leaves, you are rather down-hearted, but the memory of his visit still makes you smile.

Next comes a new visitor. He inevitably barges in at the most inconvenient time and does not wait for you to greet him before he begins to make himself at home. You don’t want to offer him a drink, but he takes whatever he wants anyway, getting drunk and rowdy and destructive in the process. You would love to kick him out, but he won’t leave. He insults you and your family, brings low their spirits, taking unoffered gifts from you left and right. So long as disaster stays, swallowing everything you never meant for him to have, you are uneasy and despondent. When he leaves, you lift up your head only to see the devastation he wrought, which now must be dealt with.

So I ask again…are we really to treat these two unexpected visitors the very same? It’s incredibly hard to imagine. On one hand, I don’t know that it is truly possible, or even always advisable; there’s something to be said for being able to genuinely relish a triumph, and no one expects you to put on a fake smile for disaster’s sporadic drop-ins.

But on the other: triumph can be coercive, sly and deadly. He can inflate your head and separate you from things—both trivial and vital—that gave you joy in simpler times before he came. And disaster, while cruel, can be an excellent teacher and can better expose the cracks in the veneer. Both can cause trouble, really. And both can bring about good. They just do so in such terribly, terribly different ways.

Until recently I would have left those lines mulling in the back of my mind, feeling that there was truth in them, but not understanding quite how. But a quote from Bonhoeffer brought it back to the fore.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer—who in his life became well-acquainted with that which we might call disaster, but which he called suffering—stands on viable ground when he asserts that personal suffering is a “more effective key, a more rewarding principle for exploring the world in thought and action than personal good fortune.” That is not to say that disaster is desirable or somehow virtuous by its mere existence—that’s a false greeting as well—but it should nevertheless be met with dignity. And I suspect that’s precisely what Kipling meant. Meet both these imposters with both full dignity and humility.

As Bonhoeffer said: “How can success make us arrogant, or failure lead us astray, when we share in God’s sufferings through a life of this kind?”

...a kind of life that joys in the Lord through triumph and disaster and confidently takes and appreciates all that can rightly be acquired from both, without fear of succumbing to the very real dangers of either.

Means and Ends

A musician by the name of Chuck E. Costa once decided to put a handful of Rudyard Kipling’s poems to music. For this I am deeply grateful because I have now memorized three-quarters of Kipling’s poem “If” although I’d probably have to sing it instead of say it if asked to recite.

“If” is a poem about virtues and honor in general, but in particular it’s about swearing to your own hurt. It’s about the hard virtues. The ones that don’t feel good. The ones that go against our grain. The ones that are almost impossible to remember in the moment of anger, betrayal or frustration. Or hard to remember in moments of triumph and superiority.

I had intended to post a video containing the Chuck E. Costa song, which is a slightly trucated version of the original, because it is beautiful the way he sings it. But I was unable to find it on youtube, so I simply advise it to you if your interested (the album is called "Never Seen a Jaguar" and the song simply "If")

Anyhow, here is the original:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

There is so much to talk about and delve into in this poem—not to mention one or two bits that might be points of contention for some—that I have chosen only two lines to expound upon—those highlighted in bold: dream and not make dreams your master; think and not make thoughts your aim.

Those two lines are more of a knife through the modern psyche than anything else. We would all most likely agree that it is wise to not become too proud, and noble to push yourself to spite laziness and fear, and virtuous to refrain from lying no matter that others are doing so about you. But in current thought processes dreams are a sort of master, and thoughts surely are the aim, are they not?

These lines hit me hardest because I do have the horrifying tendency to let dreams become my master—to drive my thoughts and feelings, thence to drive my anger and disappointment. The dreams are not wrong, but their preeminence is. If the loss or failure of them ruins someone—sunders them and puts them to the ground—then that someone held those dreams too high aloft. They gave them too much weight. They made them god and master.

A fairly predominate theme in so many inspirational movies these days is “chase your dreams.” And that’s not wholly bad. If someone is afraid of taking risks, afraid of stepping outside and making things happen, then they probably do need to be encouraged in that manner. But underneath that benign theme lies the potential to make dreams a master that rules you ruthlessly for your entire life. It’s strange how something so sunny on the surface can be shudder-inducing after the sheen’s rubbed off.

However, even more pertinent to face against post-modern thinking is the line “to think and not make thoughts your aim.” Such a subtle, elementary idea and yet it flies in the face of much of modern western academia and of youth culture. Sitting around in the coffee-shop and producing “thoughts” and things to “think about” and mulling over the “exchange of ideas” is often—rather than the means to an end—a goal in and of itself. It becomes a game of throwing thoughts out on the table like cards to see who has the best hand.

Thinking without purpose, thinking without aim—thinking without desiring or intending any true conclusion. Thinking, perhaps, without believing there can ever be any conclusion. That's post-modernism 'to a T'; it is more than happy to run on a treadmill, dutifully moving its legs, going nowhere—exercising the mind often without knowing how to use it in real contexts to reach real solutions…or find real answers.

It just so happened that while I had already decided to write about the “If” poem I happened upon this verse in Acts:

“All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas”

And a few of the Athenians actually listened, discussed and thought until they reached a conclusion but only a few, it seems. And we are a very Athenian culture these days—in ways both good and bad. It’s wonderful to be willing to hear, engage, argue and indeed “exchange ideas”—it’s deadly not to put all that to use in making concrete choices that follow from good thought.

Point being, I don’t want to be as some high-minded cook that will go on forever adding spices and ingredients without ever feeling a need to pause and taste what it is I have been concocting. That’s what thoughts being the aim is; cooking without tasting or eating; theory without application; experiment without viewing the results; or, simply, fear. Thought in and of itself is not going to sustain you when times get rough. Thoughts, however rich and good and enjoyable, are a means to an even better end.

I know I left the last post with a lengthy C.S. Lewis quote, but he keeps managing to have pertinent things to say, so here is a section from “The Great Divorce” in which a ghost from gray purgatory-like “hell” goes up to visit an old academic friend in Heaven and decide whether or not he might stay up there. One is referred to as the ghost (and occasionally the Episcopal ghost) and the heaven-living one is real or ‘the other one’.

(the real one)

“I have nothing to do with generality. Nor with any man but you and me. Oh, as you love your own soul, remember. You know that you and I were playing with loaded dice. We didn’t want the other to be true. We were afraid of crude Salvationism, afraid of a breach with the spirit of the age, afraid of ridicule, afraid (above all) of real spiritual fears and hopes”

(The conversation regarding this carries on, with the ghost saying things like “ah yes, that is a point of view. Certainly it’s a point of view,” until the real person invites the ghost into heaven)

“Will you come with me to the mountains? It will hurt at first, until your feet are hardened. Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows. But will you come?”

(and the ghost says)

“’Well, that is a plan. I am perfectly ready to consider it. Of course I should require some assurances…I should want a guarantee that you are taking me to a place where I shall find a wider sphere of usefulness—and scope for the talents God has given me—and an atmosphere of free inquiry—in short, all that one means by civilization and—er—the spiritual life’

‘No,’ said the other. ‘I can promise you none of these things. No sphere of usefulness: you are not needed there at all. No scope for your talents: only forgiveness for having perverted them. No atmosphere of inquiry, for I will bring you to the land not of questions but of answers, and you shall see the face of God.’

(the ghost): ‘Ah but we must interpret those beautiful words in our own way! For me there is no such thing as a final answer. The free wind of inquiry must always continue to blow through the mind, must it not? “Prove all things”…to travel hopefully is better than to arrive.’

(the real one): ‘If that were true, and known to be true, how could anyone travel hopefully? There would be nothing to hope for.’

(the ghost): ‘But you must feel yourself that there is something stifling about the idea of finality? Stagnation, my dear boy, what is more soul-destroying than stagnation?’

(the real one): ‘You think that,  because hitherto you have experienced truth only with the abstract intellect. I will bring you where you can taste it like honey and be embraced by it as by a bridegroom. Your thirst shall be quenched.’

(and finally, later, the heaven-living one says): ‘Once you were a child. Once you knew what inquiry was for. There was a time when you asked questions because you wanted answers, and were glad when you had found them. Become that child again: even now…Thirst was made for water; inquiry for truth”

‘Think and not make thoughts your aim,’ lest we grow afraid of finding answers. When the ghost fears stagnation, what he does not realize is that inquiry for the sake of inquiry is the stagnant and cyclical thing, NOT the finding of answers and the standing on solid ground. The first is the house on sand, the latter the house on rock. One washes in and out with the tides, the other holds strong and provides shelter. Our thirst will be quenched.