A SAD BUT TINY TALE OF COSMIC DESPAIR MADE SMALL
(Kilroy was here, but few notice and even fewer care.)
(Kilroy was here, but few notice and even fewer care.)
It is no great task to write of great men, for they are often three-dimensional and have complex personalities such that there is not too little of interest to write about, but far too much. It is easier to whittle than to build.
A great adventure, a great insight, a great invention, a great deed often gets lost in the sheer volume of the things that great men have done and accomplished in their far too short lives. Theirs are lives with chapter headings that are written in neon. The world misses them when they pass on and is the lesser for it. However, the great and existential task today--for those who so choose--is not to write of great men, but of little men.
This is so because little men offer an archetype as distinct, but opposite, as the archetype offered by great men.
When we look for examples of how a meaningful life has been lived, we naturally look to the great men.
But, as instructive as this may be, it fails to teach the subtle differences that often exist between greatness and littleness. In so failing, it leads those who might aspire to greater things to mistakenly live little meaningless lives.
In contrast to great men, little men are often one-dimensional and have simple characters and would go largely unnoticed save for the fact that in this age of the internet some of the little men now share their littleness with us in the form of blogs as they try to find meaning in their otherwise meaningless lives.
They raise high their standards of shallowness and unoriginality.
In prior ages, it was only great men--men of high intelligence--who wrote their thoughts and passed them on. This was so, because it was often both costly and difficult to pass on thoughts with primitive printing methods. Few would want to just print meaningless babble.
Today, however, the little men--men of low intelligence--can and do pass on their little meaningless babble via blogs. These are the prophets of the ordinary and the obvious. Due to their dim intellects they are often spared the embarrassment of realizing how trite they often are.
A great adventure, a great insight, a great invention, a great deed often gets lost in the sheer volume of the things that great men have done and accomplished in their far too short lives. Theirs are lives with chapter headings that are written in neon. The world misses them when they pass on and is the lesser for it. However, the great and existential task today--for those who so choose--is not to write of great men, but of little men.
This is so because little men offer an archetype as distinct, but opposite, as the archetype offered by great men.
When we look for examples of how a meaningful life has been lived, we naturally look to the great men.
But, as instructive as this may be, it fails to teach the subtle differences that often exist between greatness and littleness. In so failing, it leads those who might aspire to greater things to mistakenly live little meaningless lives.
In contrast to great men, little men are often one-dimensional and have simple characters and would go largely unnoticed save for the fact that in this age of the internet some of the little men now share their littleness with us in the form of blogs as they try to find meaning in their otherwise meaningless lives.
They raise high their standards of shallowness and unoriginality.
In prior ages, it was only great men--men of high intelligence--who wrote their thoughts and passed them on. This was so, because it was often both costly and difficult to pass on thoughts with primitive printing methods. Few would want to just print meaningless babble.
Today, however, the little men--men of low intelligence--can and do pass on their little meaningless babble via blogs. These are the prophets of the ordinary and the obvious. Due to their dim intellects they are often spared the embarrassment of realizing how trite they often are.
Some of these little men--these sad little computer exhibitionists--spread the electronic graffiti of their littleness far and wide in the hope that this will leave their mark before the great nothingness turns them back into dust. These are the bathroom-stall writers of the internet age.
In many cases we can silently pity the little men and feel sorry that they have wasted their lives.
But in some cases it is not pity we should feel,but enmity. This is so because some little men have turned bitter and angry and they attack others out of their bitterness and anger at having wasted their lives. This striking out puts them, by their own words and deeds, in the arena where they are not only fair targets but necessary ones.
The little men can be found all over the internet with blogs bearing names that the little men think are clever, but which are mostly just as predictable as are their musings about whatever new shiny thing has caught their fleeting attention for the moment.
As with most things in existence, there are degrees of littleness among the little men--a relativity in flesh--such that one might actually, and odd as it may sound, posit a great little man among many less great little men. But, the greatness of a great little man is found not in any desirable traits or qualities, but in undesirable ones. The use of the word "great" to describe them is both a burden and a deficit of the language; for by greatness is meant that a little man is more of a little man--is more of a nothing and a nobody.
We come now to specifics; for we have under our microscope a little worm of a man who has crawled out from under his rock where he hides with the other loathsome creatures and who deserves to be dissected; not for any good qualities, but precisely because he lacks such good qualities and because he is as vapid and vacuous as any wine-and-cheese-sweater-over-his-shoulders-impotent-self-indulgent-yuppie-scum-little man as can be found.
In many cases we can silently pity the little men and feel sorry that they have wasted their lives.
But in some cases it is not pity we should feel,but enmity. This is so because some little men have turned bitter and angry and they attack others out of their bitterness and anger at having wasted their lives. This striking out puts them, by their own words and deeds, in the arena where they are not only fair targets but necessary ones.
The little men can be found all over the internet with blogs bearing names that the little men think are clever, but which are mostly just as predictable as are their musings about whatever new shiny thing has caught their fleeting attention for the moment.
As with most things in existence, there are degrees of littleness among the little men--a relativity in flesh--such that one might actually, and odd as it may sound, posit a great little man among many less great little men. But, the greatness of a great little man is found not in any desirable traits or qualities, but in undesirable ones. The use of the word "great" to describe them is both a burden and a deficit of the language; for by greatness is meant that a little man is more of a little man--is more of a nothing and a nobody.
We come now to specifics; for we have under our microscope a little worm of a man who has crawled out from under his rock where he hides with the other loathsome creatures and who deserves to be dissected; not for any good qualities, but precisely because he lacks such good qualities and because he is as vapid and vacuous as any wine-and-cheese-sweater-over-his-shoulders-impotent-self-indulgent-yuppie-scum-little man as can be found.
This mewling little man whines out to an uncaring universe and asks to be noticed, but he is generally unnoticed except by his fellow little men. The thoughts he thinks that spur the words he writes are pedestrian and small and have been thought a million times a million times before by other little men. But, as with most little men with deficient brains, he thinks what he writes is original.
So, since little men are so little, why then would anyone want to write of little men or of this particular little man? Surely, such people silently fill the graves of the earth and are like undifferentiated grains of sand on a beach. Why are they of interest? And, how has this one particular little man come to our attention such that we would write of him?
The answer lies in an accident of time and place and the fact that this little man offers us a glimpse of what can quietly go wrong in lives that are not led intentionally. This little man is a walking parable for teaching others how not to live one's life.
Our Little Man--for let us now turn him into a proper noun, but let us also keep him anonymous with that sobriquet (a fitting position for one so little)--is a "Hey you," and "What's his face" non-personality Willy Loman of our time and place. But, unlike the fictional Loman, our Little Man is in even a worse state of decomposition.
For Loman, for all his seeming littleness,had at least succeeded in nature's single most important command to all living things--he had children; but not so our Little Man.
If Loman didn't get it right in life, his DNA would carry on to give it another try; and thus did Loman escape from littleness. Not so with our Little Man.
Is it not instructive to write of the quiet despair that such little men face as they grow old and who on rare lucid occasions realize for a moment that everything they have done in life is for naught and that every thing that ate up the years that they thought was important is not, and was not important, and that they might as well not have lived at all and that they are complete dead ends?
Read on, but look for no great drama or adventure here with the Little Man. There is nothing out of the ordinary. He is the human version of Warhol's Campbell's Soup Can.
If the great men pose archetypes to which we might aspire, then the little men pose archetypes from which we must recoil. But lest we be thought to be too harsh and too grounded in the mundane, let us quickly say, without a hint of new ageism muddled philosophy, man, that we are all star dust.
The answer lies in an accident of time and place and the fact that this little man offers us a glimpse of what can quietly go wrong in lives that are not led intentionally. This little man is a walking parable for teaching others how not to live one's life.
Our Little Man--for let us now turn him into a proper noun, but let us also keep him anonymous with that sobriquet (a fitting position for one so little)--is a "Hey you," and "What's his face" non-personality Willy Loman of our time and place. But, unlike the fictional Loman, our Little Man is in even a worse state of decomposition.
For Loman, for all his seeming littleness,had at least succeeded in nature's single most important command to all living things--he had children; but not so our Little Man.
If Loman didn't get it right in life, his DNA would carry on to give it another try; and thus did Loman escape from littleness. Not so with our Little Man.
Is it not instructive to write of the quiet despair that such little men face as they grow old and who on rare lucid occasions realize for a moment that everything they have done in life is for naught and that every thing that ate up the years that they thought was important is not, and was not important, and that they might as well not have lived at all and that they are complete dead ends?
Read on, but look for no great drama or adventure here with the Little Man. There is nothing out of the ordinary. He is the human version of Warhol's Campbell's Soup Can.
If the great men pose archetypes to which we might aspire, then the little men pose archetypes from which we must recoil. But lest we be thought to be too harsh and too grounded in the mundane, let us quickly say, without a hint of new ageism muddled philosophy, man, that we are all star dust.
For are we not, each of us, including the Little Man, ultimately and finally made of the same stuff that was sent forth from the Big Bang? Are we not the product of that seminal event that created the universe and all that is in it? Was not the trajectory of existence set at that precise moment that has led to the start of life and to the eventual birth of both the few great men and the many little men?
But what solace can be found in such thinking of star dust is thin gruel to those who ask Why? and find no answers from the bearded gurus of what's happening now. And such thoughts do not cross the mind of the Little Man at all.
Is there comfort found in knowing that ultimately we are all, both great and little, just animated dirt, and that our lives are mere chemical reactions whereby the inanimate is lifted up to a degree of animation for a short time? Are we comforted by knowing that the still quiet voice within is little more than the fizzing of the baking soda and vinegar that we call life or that we become, as we age, a bottle of soda that has gone flat because the cap was left off?
But what solace can be found in such thinking of star dust is thin gruel to those who ask Why? and find no answers from the bearded gurus of what's happening now. And such thoughts do not cross the mind of the Little Man at all.
Is there comfort found in knowing that ultimately we are all, both great and little, just animated dirt, and that our lives are mere chemical reactions whereby the inanimate is lifted up to a degree of animation for a short time? Are we comforted by knowing that the still quiet voice within is little more than the fizzing of the baking soda and vinegar that we call life or that we become, as we age, a bottle of soda that has gone flat because the cap was left off?
But, again, these are not the things considered by the Little Man, for he is content to focus on the latest shiny thing that he has seen in the gutter where he runs out the clock on his little meaningless life.
This Little Man living--no, not living, existing--right here in our tiny speck of a place in the universe, who would otherwise go unnoticed except for the fact that this place is the subject of this story of despair, might serve as a lesson on the nature of existence for those with the ability to see and the brain to understand that there is more to life than what is on the dinner plate in front of them.
And, from time to time we may write of the Little Man and we may call him by a variety of names; not dictated by any complexity of his character, for as already set forth, there is no such complexity. No, we use the different names because they appeal to us and they flesh out this poor sad creature of despair, this one-dimensional man--this archetype of dissolution and non-beingness.
The Little Man is a picture of quiet despair and alienation from self. And, it needs repeating that the Little Man has failed the only real task given to all living things by nature--survive to go forth and make more like yourself. .
The Little Man goes home to a house with no laughter of children--it is a house that never knew such laughter--no photos of grand children, no memories of being a parent, no one to follow when the vinegar and baking soda have run their course.
The Little Man is a dead end and he has reached an age where there can be nothing but a dead end with no way to turn around and proceed down other roads. Time has caught up with him.
The Little Man is a picture of quiet despair and alienation from self. And, it needs repeating that the Little Man has failed the only real task given to all living things by nature--survive to go forth and make more like yourself. .
The Little Man goes home to a house with no laughter of children--it is a house that never knew such laughter--no photos of grand children, no memories of being a parent, no one to follow when the vinegar and baking soda have run their course.
The Little Man is a dead end and he has reached an age where there can be nothing but a dead end with no way to turn around and proceed down other roads. Time has caught up with him.
And, while such despair drives great men mad it has a lesser effect on little men because nature has dimmed their wits so that, except on rare occasions, they do not understand these things.
The despair of the Little Man is the despair of the DNA within that does not speak in more than a whisper to the hard of hearing Little Man. "What's that? Did someone speak? What did you say?"
And, while out of kindness we might hold our pen from the page and simply let the Little Man pass quietly into the great nothingness, this particular Little Man is owed no such kindness, for he is a bitter and angry old man who made his yuppie choices in life and now finds that the wine and cheese parties where he shared empty conversations with his fellow vapid souls have not led to an old age of meaningfulness, but to one of emptiness. It is a time of waiting to die and nothing more.
The fruit that ripens on the tree, ripens but once and is then gone forever.
Set out dear friends to live your lives intentionally and with purpose, lest you become the next generation's Little Man.
If you are out one day pushing your kids down the sidewalk in a stroller and you see the Little Man drive by you with a bumper sticker on his car reading "The one who dies with the most toys wins," just smile knowingly to yourself, for you know the truth and you are living it.
Set out dear friends to live your lives intentionally and with purpose, lest you become the next generation's Little Man.
If you are out one day pushing your kids down the sidewalk in a stroller and you see the Little Man drive by you with a bumper sticker on his car reading "The one who dies with the most toys wins," just smile knowingly to yourself, for you know the truth and you are living it.
And, you have succeeded, no matter what else you do in life, in escaping from littleness.
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.
# # #
Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.
