Song of Myself
1
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.Walt Whitman from “Song of Myself”
For years when I thought of “the concept of myself,” I would automatically think of Whitman’s long poem “Song of Myself.” Upon first reading this poem in college, I fell in love with it. It stated more eloquently than I could ever hope to express an image of myself that I hoped to attain in my lifetime.
Yes, I knew even then that this was a romanticized, idealistic view of mankind, just as the Christianity I was brought up with offered an idealized view of man’s ability to attain perfection if only we could follow Christ’s example. But this view also fit in quite well with the Transcendentalist view of the world and the Romantic tradition in England that I admired so much in my early years in college.
Though my later experiences with people, particularly as a soldier in Vietnam and as a caseworker, would certainly call into question this view of human nature, I think I still held to it unconsciously. It was my inspiration for my work as a caseworker and as a teacher. I felt, given the right opportunity, people would find the best in themselves and become better people.
Perhaps it wasn’t until I taught a literature class that included Lord of the Flies and When the Legends Die that I really re-examined these beliefs. I grouped these novels and accompanying short stories into two opposing views of human nature. The first group suggested that man was inherently evil and that only society’s rules kept mankind from slipping into anarchy and crime. Having taught 9th graders for several years, I could certainly see where Golding got his inspiration. The second group suggested that man was inherently good and that society’s evils corrupted some men and drove them to crime. The story of an Indian youth nearly destroyed by the “white man’s” school seemed just as convincing as Golding’s vision of boys run amuck on a deserted island.
When students wrote essays justifying one view or the other, I accepted either answer as correct because intellectually there is little convincing evidence to prove one view’s superiority over the other.
Deep down, though, I knew I was living my life believing that man was inherently good and society corrupted him. That was probably the only way I could have operated as a caseworker and as a teacher. I couldn’t have taught if I had had to maintain absolute discipline in the classroom and crush any student who dared to challenge my authority. I was there to help students, not control them.
That doesn’t mean, however, that I have been immune to the apocalyptic vision of mankind. It’s hard to reject out-of-hand visions like those in Road Warrior or Matrix. It’s even harder to ignore the capitalistic greed that continues to sacrifice the environment to meet an insatiable need for things, useless or not. It’s almost as hard to believe this will ever change considering that Emerson decried over a hundred years ago that “Things are in the saddle/And ride mankind.”
In moments of despair, I even envision a Malthusian world where the nature can no longer support the hordes of people overwhelming it. With such a vision in mind, it’s hard for me not to justify environmental radicals who defy the law to preserve the wilderness. In the end, though, my faith in man’s ability to learn from his mistakes hand, causes me to contribute generously to environmental groups rather than to pick up my shotgun and defend what’s left of my favorite western wildernesses.
My intellect at times goads me into believing this is a corrupt world driven by individual and corporate greed, but my heart, defying all logic, still wants to believe Whitman’s view is right on the mark.
Doc Searls offers a tribute to Whitman and an interesting compilation of lines from "Song of Myself."
Looking for Myself
The Civil War
I am torn in two
but I will conquer myself.
I will dig up the pride.
I will take scissors
and cut out the beggar.
I will take a crowbar
and pry out the broken
pieces of God in me.
Just like a jigsaw puzzle,
I will put Him together again
with the patience of a chess player.How many pieces?
It feels like thousands,
God dressed up like a whore
in a slime of green algae.
God dressed up like an old man
staggering out of His shoes.
God dressed up like a child,
all naked,
even without skin,
soft as an avocado when you peel it.
And others, others, others.But I will conquer them all
and build a whole nation of God
in me – but united,
build a new soul,
dress it with skin
and then put on my shirt
and sing an anthem,
a song of myself.Anne Sexton from The Awful Rowing Toward God
It frightens me how much I like this poem, not to mention this whole book of poems. The anguish in these poems is so intense, so palpable, that I know immediately, no matter how uncomfortable I may be, that I am directly in touch with a human soul in anguish. The poems must appeal to my shadow, my darker side, because they’re not the kind of poems I’m usually drawn to, at least I hope I’m not.
But there is something so authentic, so powerful, so frightening in this poem that I am irresistibly drawn to it – like it or not. What I find most frightening of all in the poem, though, is the last line, “a song of myself,” with its allusion to one of my favorite poems, Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself.” Although her stated goal may be the same as Whitman’s goal of becoming One with the Oversoul, the means of doing so are so frighteningly different that both poems are cast in a new light.
The poem begins calmly enough with feelings that I, and most readers, have certainly felt: the desire to conquer opposing forces drawing you different ways so you can go where you want to go. And certainly pride is as much a problem with me as it is with most people. (It’s hard to be humble when so many people are drawn to your web site:)
Thank God, though, I’ve never thought about taking “scissors” and digging my pride out. If I had feelings like this, I would damn sure keep only child-safe scissors in my house. Like most people, I, too, have felt that whatever goodness is in me is fragmented and leading nowhere, but using a crowbar to pry out the “broken pieces of God” certainly is not a pleasant prospect. And trying to put a giant puzzle of God together, especially since I have no idea what he looks like, would probably take the patience of Job, not just a chess player.
It’s even harder to identify with the images of God that appear in the next stanza, particularly the one of God dressed up as a “whore in a slime of green algae,” though maybe that’s just because I’m a man. The image of God dressed as an old man somehow reminds me of Blake’s Nobodaddy, and the image of the child certainly brings up images of the newborn Jesus. However, the image of the child as a soft avocado peeled without skin is a deeply disturbing one. God only knows what the “others, others, others” are. Are they so horrible that she can’t even describe them? A truly frightening thought.
I want to believe the narrator will be able to conquer all these elements of herself and build a new soul and sing an anthem of herself. However, it seems unlikely she will be able to “conquer” all these pieces of God, much less “build a whole nation of God.” Can one conquer even one omnipotent God? I’m somehow left with the feeling that if she puts on a shirt it will be a “hair” shirt as a sign of her self-flagellation.
While her despair seems so great that it is almost unthinkable that she can overcome it, this is precisely what we most wish for her. In the end, though, all I am left with is the slight hope that somehow through her ability to articulate her despair so brilliantly and through her deep insights into herself she will be able to conquer these demons that haunt her.
Change is Inevitable
Although I was unwilling to change to fit my ex-students’ way of seeing and dealing with the world, like it or not, I have begun to change the way I see the world because of my recent throat cancer surgery. Although some of these changes are relatively minor, others seem far-reaching.
Unable to eat for over a month and being forced to rely on cases of Hershey’s ProBalance, fondly referred to as "yellow sludge," I may never again eat a Hershey’s candy bar. I did, however, gain a new respect for Round Table pizza, for me the ultimate measure of recovery. I will celebrate my victory in the hard-fought battle to re-learn to eat with a feast at my local pizza parlor.
Constantly fighting for breath and trying to clear my tracheotomy gave me a new appreciation of the problems my brother, and others, went through fighting asthma. It is truly terrifying when you can’t breathe, even if you know that you will be able to breathe in a few moments if you do what you need to do.
Not sleeping a whole night through for over two months gave me more empathy for a friend who suffers from intermittent sleep problems. It’s hard to take much of anything seriously when you’re always tired.
Being unable to speak for over a month and only being able to communicate through writing, I realized how frustrating and alienating such a disability can be. Unless people really reach out to you, it just seems easier to withdraw into yourself and forget about trying to communicate with others. The longer you go without communicating with others, the greater the temptation to withdraw further into yourself. Such alienation can be confusing and frightening, even when you know, as I did, that it is only temporary.
On a more positive note, such a withdrawal is almost like entering a monastic retreat where you can look deeper into yourself, because there are no outside distractions. That’s what I chose to do. When you spend a month doing little besides examining yourself, you’re bound to gain new insights, for better or for worse.
The greatest realization is one that should have always been obvious, but wasn’t. Life is finite. While recovering from this surgery, for the first time in my life I wasn’t sure I was going to make it, wasn’t sure I wanted to endure this kind of pain. I never once had that feeling in all my fire-fights in Vietnam. I never had that feeling with my first encounter with cancer twenty-three years ago.
The only time I have ever vaguely felt that way was when my father died after several ravaging heart attacks and when my mother died after suffering from Alzheimer’s. My time, like there’s, is limited. And I have never lived my life as if that was true.
Some people live their life in the past like “Richard Cory” or “Glory Days,” but that’s never appealed to me. Figuring there’s little I can do about the past, I have few regrets in my life. Why regret what you can’t change? My daughter once accused me of being the “least sentimental” person she ever knew. In a sense, she may be right. I love where I am now; so, why should I spend time looking back?
I have, unfortunately, lived much of my life in the future. “When I retire, I’m going to:” Read all the books I started buying when I was in college. Learn electronics. Take advantage of all those neat woodworking tools I haven’t had time to use. Finish the yard. Change my life. Attain enlightenment
Now, however, it seems that trying to live in the future is just as destructive as trying to live in the past. Both deny the moment its due.
Perhaps I’ve sensed this for a while now. Maybe my increasing interest in Zen was the result of realizing that I’ve tended to live beyond the moment rather than in the moment, and that in doing so I wasn’t really living at all.
Be that as it may, I have resolved to change my ways: to start reading the books I’ve stored up for the future (I hope I still find them interesting) instead of buying new ones, to use the tools I have now rather than looking for new ones to buy (unless, of course, I absolutely need it to finish an old project), to master and apply old skills rather than trying to learn new ones, and to finish old projects rather than planning new ones.
I’m going to try to live my life as if there is no tomorrow, not in the hedonistic sense of “eat, drink and be merry,” though there’s certainly nothing too bad about that, but in the sense of trying to make the most of every day and finishing what I’ve started rather than leaving loose ends around for someone else to have to pick up.
The Last Reincarnation
Reinventing yourself at my age is no easy task. One of the reasons I left teaching was because I was beginning to feel like a dinosaur and didn’t want to change my values to fit those of another generation.
Now, one of the things I always liked about teaching was that I felt it kept me young. Constantly being around teenagers affects the way you see the world. If you’re lucky, it keeps you plugged in to the positive changes going on in the world. If you’re unlucky, it makes you view the world more and more pessimistically.
Fortunately, I liked most of the kids I taught over the years and sympathized with their viewpoint. Most of them seemed more positive and optimistic than the adults I knew. I enjoyed working with them, and they gave me hope that the world was becoming a better place.
Unfortunately, I began to lose that feeling the last few years I taught. It’s not that I didn’t like the kids just as much, I did. I even liked some of the kids whose attitudes I was no longer willing to adjust to and put up with.
More and more, students came to class with an “attitude.” They came with every intention of getting in the teacher’s face. Don’t misunderstand me, though, I’m all for “attitude.” I have “attitude” and always have had. Having "attitude" helps you to stand up for what you believe in a world that often doesn’t give a damn what you believe and would gladly steamroll you into some mindless conformity. But having an attitude doesn’t mean you have to show it all the time.
I spent most of my grade school years fighting because I had an attitude. When I get angry, and thank God that doesn’t happen very often, I have way more “attitude” than any sane man would want. I think I inherited it from my father who became an All-City tackle in Seattle by “getting mad” in games. It’s probably not entirely irrelevant that my favorite comic character is Donald Duck who’s famous for his outbursts.
As a teacher I enjoyed teasing kids and having them tease me back. It was often an easy way to defuse an emerging problem, and most kids thought it was fun to tease the teacher. Personally, I always thought school, and life in general, should have been a hell of a lot more fun than it was. After all, this was learning, not torture, and learning is what life is about. Isn’t it? So, why shouldn’t learning be fun?
But the last generation of kids I taught was different. They came in sounding like rappers, WWF clones, or spoiled athletes who think it’s cool to taunt their opponent. The simplest request was often met with belligerence, no matter how reasonable the request. Boy or girl, made no difference.
Sadly enough, I felt too old to adapt to this new style. I wasn’t willing to put up with it, no matter how much I liked a kid. I knew that it was just a fad, part of the current culture, but I wasn’t willing, or able, to adapt to the style, understand it or not.
Simply put, at some age it gets harder and harder to change your values and your ways of seeing the world. I’m afraid I’ve reached that age.