20040509
Today is Mother’s Day, and I’ve done nothing; no call, no card, no email, nada. I am the big suck. Still, at least I didn’t die on Mother’s Day, as Alan King did. ’Course, he died at 76, so his mother’s probably not around.
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Yesterday while talking with Andrew I made a synecdoche between all the conventional social behavior I dislike and “prom”; that is, “prom” stands for everything in contemporary “normal” activity that I, well, hate’s probably not too strong a word for it. As a plus, “prom” actively sounds bad to me; it’s ugly just as a word, with some of the same ring as “pompous” or “dumb” or “lame.”
Usage: Balancing a checkbook is so prom. Yuck.
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The thing to write is still «”The Time of Your Life.”»
In the time of your life live—so that in that good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches. Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding-place and let it be free and unashamed. Place in matter and in flesh the least of the values, for these are the things that hold death and must pass away. Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption. Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world. Ignore the obvious, for it is unworthy of the clear eye and the kindly heart. Be the inferior to no man, nor of any man be the superior. Remember that every man is a variation of yourself. No man’s guilt is not yours, nor is any man’s innocence a thing apart. Despise evil and ungodliness, but not men of ungodliness or evil. These, understand. Have no shame in being kindly and gentle, but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret. In the time of your life, live—so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.
And a nonsexist rewrite:
In the time of your life live—so that in that good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches. Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding-place and let it be free and unashamed. Place in matter and in flesh the least of the values, for these are the things that hold death and must pass away. Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption. Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world. Ignore the obvious, for it is unworthy of the clear eye and the kindly heart. Be the inferior to no one, nor of any one be the superior. Remember that every one is a variation of yourself. No one’s guilt is not yours, nor is any one’s innocence a thing apart. Despise evil and ungodliness, but not folk of ungodliness or evil. These, understand. Have no shame in being kindly and gentle, but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret. In the time of your life, live—so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.
William Saroyan wrote this paragraph as a preface to his 1939 play The Time of Your Life, which Seattle Repertory Theatre put on 020040212-0307. Saroyan also wrote the short story “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze,” which sounded too catchy to have been his own title, and is not; it’s from an 1867 British music-hall song.
