Circling back to the topic of A Renaissance Life today, I’ll start with etymology , one of those things that reliably lights up my brain. The word renaissance means "springing or rising into being again," from Latin renascentem, present participle of renasci "be born again". (https://www.etymonline.com/word/Renaissance). The “re” means again, as it does in so many English words, the “naissance” is French, birth, from Middle French, from nais- stem of naitre to be born. (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/naissance.)
If you are even reading this, the chances are good that you have consciously (and maybe unwittingly) experienced your own rebirth(s), those times that required you to “blow up your life” (as a friend of mine recently and potently described it.) The image that pops into my head is a ship at sea. If you are going to blow it up, it would be nice to be ready, willing, and able to jump overboard with your life jacket. But still being cast out to sea isn’t like landing on the island of Capri with pool boys serving you drinks. Landing in the churning, inhospitable sea is a metaphor for the ages, man against nature, perhaps our own nature. It seems to carry within it our own calling, our own depths. In Jungian dream work, dreaming of water can indicate something that is deep in us, but hidden. Time to put on our diving gear when this shows up. But I digress because what I really want to focus on is the rebirth part. How do we make it safely to the shore with a sense of new life with the truest self intact?
I am hardly a philosopher, but a lover of myth and story and fairy tale and images, including active imagination, all in service of helping us get ourselves through this crusty and curious life. I first learned about this “story” from Joseph Campbell, a mentor / guide for Lee and me when we were needing the courage to jump our own ships to be together in 1993. Campbell, as many of you will know, was a mythologist, taught at Sarah Lawerence for years and brought the stories to PBS as a series called Power of Myth in 1987. (I can’t recommend it enough as a fascinating primer to Western culture still today.) He shares a theory about human metamorphosis from Nietzsche as presented in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. I quote Campbell’s explanation here from the PBS series because how could I possibly do it better?
“When you are a child, when you are young and a young person, you are a camel. The camel gets down on its knees and says, “Put a load on me.” This is obedience. This is receiving the instruction, information that your society knows you must have in order to live a competent life. When the camel is well loaded, he gets up on his feet, struggles to his feet, and runs out into the desert, where he becomes transformed into a lion. The heavier the load, the more powerful the lion. The function of the lion is to kill a dragon, and the name of the dragon is “Thou Shalt.” And on every scale of the dragon there is a “Thou Shalt” imprinted. Some of it comes from 2,000 years, 4,000 years ago. Some of it comes from yesterday morning’s newspaper headline. When the dragon is killed, the lion is transformed into a child, an innocent child living out of its own dynamic. And Nietzsche uses the term, “ein aus sich rollendes rad”, a wheel rolling out of its own center. That’s what you become. That is the mature individual.”
In Nietzsche’s own words:
“Innocence is the child, and forgetfulness, a new beginning, a game, a self-rolling wheel, a first movement, a holy yes….”
I love the idea of a “Holy Yes,” by the way. Not just a “Yeh, sure.” Or “I guess so. Why not?” This is a Holy Yes to life!
And then to the punch line from Nietzsche, with bold highlights mine for effect:
“And he who hath to be a creator in good and evil – verily, he hath first to be a destroyer, and break values in pieces. Thus doth the greatest evil pertains to the greatest good: that, however, is the creating good. Let us speak thereof, ye wisest ones, even though it be bad. To be silent is worse; all suppressed truths become poisonous. And let everything break up which – can break up by our truths! Many a house is still to be built! Thus Spake Zarathustra.”
I have loved this story since I first heard it from Campbell. With just a bit of a rebel in my blood, the idea of slaying the dragon with all the “Thou Shalts” of the Over-culture and the Thou Shalts of the ancestors and the Thou Shalts of the Collective written upon its scales seems like such a gallant and courageous and necessary thing to do to finally grow up. At seventy, I have taken my sword to many of the scales of that dragon’s defenses, but not all of them. The dragon still snorts fire out of his nostrils now and then, raises up on his hind legs and snaps his tail in an effort to whip me into shape. Sometimes it works. He’s not very attractive with ½ of the scales dangling off his flanks. But what to do about the rest of them? How do I finish him off, a collective and personal shadow that would be better integrated than battled with?
So, last night, I saw something on Instagram that was the straw that broke the camel’s back and clearly turned me into a lion. Here’s the screen: a beautiful woman of about 60 years old wearing leggings and a fitted t-shirt. She is obviously a highly trained athlete with a BMI of about 16% says, “If you are a menopausal woman, you should be eating this diet.” Implying you could / should look like this if only you would do what I tell you to do. First, she is probably 5’10” tall, one of those ectomorphs who has been lean all of her life. I am 5’4” from peasant stock in Norway, Germany, England and Ireland. I will never look like you if I ate only paper. STOP TELLING ME WHAT I SHOULD DO! YOU DON’T EVEN FUCKING KNOW ME! I have been listening to the Over-culture tell us what our bodies / my body should look like for 60 fucking years. And I’m sick of it.
So, I shut off my social media. This is what marketing is. It is designed to make us feel bad enough to change our behaviors, i.e. to buy your fucking product, take your fucking pills, subscribe to your fucking program, and throw our hard earned money into your fucking tank. And after that, marketing will hook you by suggesting that now, you just need to take the next step, to make yourself a little more perfect, then the next until you don’t even know where you begin and end.
So, that felt good to get out!
It made me start down this whole rabbit hole and I ended up creating this list of Thou Shalts that have either influenced my life or been a megaphone of collective judgement during my time on this earth. Writing this was like participating in a Bacchanalian festival, quite fun! I thank Nietzsche for coming up with this brilliant image and idea!
I would love for you to add your own Thou Shalts to this list and / or to let us all know how the dragon has affected you personally? How have you been the Lion and worked at trimming the scales of the Thou Shalts? What were the benefits? How hard was it? Did you get grief from others who weren’t ready to slay the dragon, maybe threatened by your courage? Or your fear, but you did it anyway?
Anyhoo…make your own list, pick up your sword and start swinging it. I’m thinking of creating a new line of armor and chainmail for going to battle with the dragon.
Thou Shalt
Thou shalt not embarrass yourself at seventy by ranting.
Thou shalt keep mostly quiet.
Thou shalt be thin.
Thou shalt be pretty and hot, but not too hot.
Thou shalt be patient even in the line at Whole Foods on the day before Thanksgiving
Thou shalt put others first.
Thou shalt work hard. Thou shalt work harder.
Thou shalt put work ahead of everything else even when you are going into labor.
Thou shalt compare. Yourself to others. All the time.
Thou shalt keep score of who is winning and who is losing.
Thou shalt especially take note when others are winning, and you are not.
Thou shalt follow the rules. Thou shalt be punished if you break the rules.
Thou shalt be chill. Thou shalt be cool.
Thou shalt not get excited or overly show enthusiasm.
Thou shalt put up with a lot of bullshit.
Thou shalt sit quietly by while stupid things are happening.
Thou shalt understand you really have little power in this life and this world. Thou shalt especially understand your place in the hierarchy of all things.
Thou shalt understand You are not that special.
Thou shalt understand that men basically run the world.
Thou shalt not be angry about this fact or anything really.
Thou shalt be grateful for the attention of others, even if unwanted.
Thou shalt put up with abuse by bosses because they feed you.
Thou shalt have good grooming.
Thou shalt make other people happy even if you don’t like what you have to do for that to happen.
Thou shalt not make a scene.
Thou shalt take criticism with grace. This is another way of saying thou shalt take shit from people.
Thou shalt respect and believe people who think they are smarter than you.
Thou shalt keep your light under that bushel.
Thou shalt believe everything your ancestors told you because you owe them your life.
Thou shalt always be sexual. Even if you don’t give a shit anymore because other things seem more interesting.
Thou shalt keep up the training for the rat race, for that is all life is.
Thou shalt do what others think is best for you because what do you know?
Thou shalt not waste your time on spiritual things. They aren’t real.
Thou shalt ignore your intuition. It’s not real either.
Thou shalt not believe that nonsense that we are perfect just the way we are.
Especially, thou shalt not follow your bliss. What does that moron Joseph Campbell know about anything?
Beautifully written, Alecia - especially the Thou Shalt list. I would add: Thou shalt carefully edit who gets a front seat at your show (I’m looking at you, social media). Your writing continues to inspire me.