After weeks of not writing in my note book I took it up again, and some change had taken place. A sense of naturalness has come, or of freedom. Is a sense of the naturalness of being old tranquillity? Then the old can be tranquil, but it is an achievement. If at the end we choose to represent tranquillity, as without us it might be missing, let it be clearly seen that tranquillity is not a grace waiting for us to take on as our right, but something we have to win with effort. It may not be our doing. It may be what facing age does to us. Then here lies our victory.
Man is truly astonishing. One would imagine his basic belief would be that struggle is natural and inevitable. I have supposed that the rock on which we all stood was that life was almost more than we could manage. But man’s history has much of the surprising in it, and it is now clear to me that from the beginning some human beings saw that the best way of taking life was lightly. Undeterred by what happened to him and to others, man has had a genius for ease. To be so unaffected by reality is inspiring.
I could understand his slowly but surely seeing that his own behaviour was the one thing it was within his power to control, somewhat, but he tossed this aside to be caught by those handicapped from birth with a conscience. He had no difficulty in avoiding that monolith that I assumed lay on the path of each, the granite fact that though life thwarted him at every turn it did ennoble his character. Only a few gloomy people saw this. The hordes of the ages with wits sharpened by experience rushed to get what was desirable, leaving to others what was difficult, even inventing the idea of duty to slow them up, while he reached ease quickly since to enjoy life was his true inheritance.
Early, very early on, there were those who claimed ease as their own, and who knew what to do with it. I have proof of this, and I got it at the zoo.
I was watching a young female monkey swinging from the top bar of her cage. She was pregnant and interested me. She turned, caught my appraising eye, and swinging gracefully down sat in the straw on the floor of the cage. Then with languid elegance she drew the straw waist high, as though it had been a carriage rug, casting on me so withering a glance that I withdrew with silent apologies. I remembered such glances cast on me from the occupants of great cars, if I stood on the curbstone waiting for them to pass, possibly in the rain. Yes, and I had felt in my own eye that sidelong look of unconcern when it was I who happened to be in a car.
I continue to be spellbound by ease for I recall a visit to a music hall some fifty years ago. A stout, knowing man, wearing his topper at an angle, strolled onto the stage lazily swinging a stick. He nodded intimately to distant points in the audience, and sang a song with sophisticated good nature that won him affectionate applause. Then he sang the same song silently; at moments moving his lips, giving a half twirl to his stick, lifting a finger as accent, living the rhythm with exquisite accuracy, and masterly indifference. When the song was finished his pleasure broke into a grin, and the audience roared its appreciation. They stamped feet, beat hands, their noisy admiration burst into a frenzy over the man who dared to be so unconcerned.
I too felt immeasurably relaxed.
Conversation must be near the top of human pleasures. Babies, even a few months old, have discovered this, and beguile themselves with what sounds like reflective conversation. They modulate sounds thoughtfully and subtly, in fact they enthrall themselves with the comfort of the human voice, as satisfying when alone as with a companion. If my youngest grandchild, at eight months, pauses as though he had offered all his observations for the time being, I say something like, “But there must have been more to it than that”, and he then continues as though he had indeed recalled another aspect of the subject.
The sound of speech and pausing for a friend to contribute sound is one of the earliest needs. Sleep would come first, then food, protest perhaps third, then the pleasure in showing happiness and affection, and speech as the fifth solid satisfaction.
My youngest grandchild uses silence as well as he does sound. He is consummate in making soft, confiding noises that bind the heart of the hearer to him. But for long periods he prefers to keep his own counsel. Then he looks forth on the world unblinking, unhurried, and with a dignity that should be the rite of Kings.
At times he gazes at me without interest; above self-doubt he yawns, a wide, slow, complete and uncovered yawn. He removes his gaze from me so that I wonder if I was seen, if I was present. With grave deliberation he discovers a hole in the arm of his chair so small that no one else could have had the calm to take it in, and he gives it his undivided attention. He gives all of himself to that hole which just fits the tip of his minute first finger, and I know that all hope of further conversation with him is over. I also know that I have been in the presence of perfect naturalness, and I feel chastened and uplifted.
Our earth began with fire, achieved water, and grew its infinite variety of vegetation. Animals evolved in a fantasia of form. Man struggled to consciousness, possessed imagination, endured self-awareness, and experienced the spirit within him. Can we do less than give fealty to such ascension?
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR