A few posts ago it was mentioned that mariner had discovered a book he had written several decades ago that had long been forgotten. He mentioned that he would post a section of the book every once in a while. The title of the book is “What’s it all about? It’s all about what’s important”, the premise being that what we think is important, it’s actually something else. The section below is taken from a chapter about what is important in various ages of our lives.

2. What’s important at your age

It was Longfellow who wrote in A Psalm of Life:
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers
And things are not what they seem.
Life is Real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returneth,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Dreary stuff but very existential. What’s important about existentialism is that life is an exciting game. What’s important about dreary is that it’s dreary. A game metaphor addresses this age business rather well. Games are what’s important about going through life — dreary as it may be.

A game is a game because it masks reality; important things are translated into artificial but very manageable behavior — like going to the movies to be scared rather than going somewhere where you’ll really be scared.

What’s important in aging is the game you play in each phase. The easiest game to recognize is the youngster milking out every drop of maturity by adding the fraction: “I’m ten and three-quarters”. A little later, it’s the teen saying, “Well, seventeen is
just like eighteen”. These early age games are good examples for showing a theme that appears in all the age games: What’s really important is what’s not important. What’s really important about young people is that they are young — but for them, that’s not important; what’s important is that they want to be older.

Twenties

It’s not all about numbers, either. Walk through a college campus sometime — especially if you haven’t been on one in a while. I don’t care what sex you are; the scene will bring you to your knees. These young, virile and fecund bodies unconsciously flaunt their age with energy, intelligence, and sensuality and are wholeheartedly absorbed into their world. You can see their game. And you can see that you’re not playing. Remember you’re an existentialist and move on.

What’s important when you’re in your early twenties is what you’re going to do when you’re older. You have some earth-moving fantasies about this but you truly haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. What’s really important about the early twenties is how well you can bring the older folks to their knees.

Certain ages have more important games than others. It doesn’t really matter that you’re twenty-four years old. But twenty-one — there’s an age with a million variations. Somehow, drinking alcohol becomes an all right thing; so is being sued and going into debt. And no one’s proven to me that a twenty year-old is any dumber than the rest of the voters who elect our country’s representatives. You are allowed to join the armed services at eighteen and maybe get yourself killed. I suspect there is some ulterior reasoning behind that particular opportunity at that particular age. Eighteen year-olds are prone to think it is important to defend mother and home — or perhaps to get away from mother and home.

Stay tuned to catch what’s important about the thirties.

Ancient Mariner

In the last post the reader was introduced to a book mariner wrote about twenty years ago. The book was about what’s important – and that what seems important may not really be important. Below is the first chapter which defines generally the places where we can find what’s really important. It’s a long chapter so it is offered in post-length sections.

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1.1 What’s it all about?
It’s all about what’s important. The question is, where do you find out what’s important? Sweatshirts, for one: “Let the dog in, let the dog out…let the dog in, let the dog out…” Life’s a bitch, then you die”; “He’s with me, I’m with her”; “Green Bay Packers”; “Back Street Boys”. I guess these things are important because people feel inclined to express them on their clothes like blatant but removable tattoos.
It isn’t about what’s not important. Rudi Valle, Eddie Fisher, the Temptations, Elvis and the Beatles, N’Sync — important icons come and go, to say nothing of Rutherford B Hayes, Kaiser Wilhelm, General Lee and Albert Schweitzer. All of them were once very important but the wave of importance keeps moving. I guess it’s because the sweatshirts wear out. The challenge for you is to find out continually what’s important by searching in places that are rich in contemporary, important stuff.
A person’s age is a place to find out what’s important. I’ve noticed that very young children and very old adults have a similar independence and care more about experiencing the moment at hand than the rest of us do. A young child, in an innocent, impulsive fashion, will enjoy the current experience with total disregard for future ramifications. Older folks, not so much with innocence but with wizened independence and disregard for decorum, will engage the present moment with deliberateness others seem not to have the patience to endure. It occurred to me that the very young and the very old find it easier to live in the present moment than the rest of us because the one has no past to fall back on and the other has no future for which to be held accountable. ‘Now’ is important to these folks.
For the rest of us, now is not important. Our past haunts us and our future threatens us. What’s important is not who we are now but who we were (I was in the war) or who we will be (I’m going to retire at 50); even who someone else is (my son is a doctor; my team won the Super Bowl).

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As mariner rereads this book, the voice reminds him of splinters rather than blocks of wood. He apologizes for this but the style allows for quick, influencing insights that, on the one hand, are insightful but on the other hand, don’t deserve full paragraphs. From time to time, he will drop in excerpts from this unusual piece of work.

Ancient Mariner

This week mariner and his wife faced a nightmare that every family must face sooner or later: remove everything from the attic so it can be refurbished by a contractor. Having scrambled to leave a barren attic, two bedrooms are buried and unusable by clothes (many long forgotten), boxes and books about every subject in the world, photographs, photographs and more photographs, suitcases and travel paraphernalia, electric train sets, wall art, children’s belongings that they don’t have room for, blankets and reams of forgotten paperwork.

Among our daughter’s boxes was a copy of an unpublished book mariner wrote at the turn of the millennium. It was so profound that he forgot he wrote it. Written in mariner’s easy-to-read style, it is a brief treatise on what is really, really important in today’s world – noting most often that what we think is important isn’t really what’s important.

Mariner has decided to share over several weeks portions of the contents of this book with his readers . The title of the book is “What’s it all about? It’s all about what’s important!” Today, the Prologue is presented.

Prologue
This book is a treatise on the true motivations and causes of everyday American behavior. What’s important about that sentence is that I’ve always wanted to use the word “treatise”. And that’s the truth of it. If you understand this relationship between what seems important and what’s really important, then you will not have difficulty with this book. Every culture, in this case American Culture, has a veneer of social icons and value systems; these social icons and value systems take on a persona separate from why they seem important. Everyone knows the United States of America is a democracy but do we stop and think what’s really important about that? It can’t be one man one vote because only three in ten people vote. What’s important about democracy is that it keeps everything about government confused and ill-defined, thereby letting people go about their own business.
It’s not usually a harmful thing, this obfuscation of what’s really important, but it is entertaining. I am reminded of the old story about the woman who, when she cooked a ham, always cut off the end. Asked why she did this, she said, “It’s the way my mother did it.” Intrigued by this question, the woman confronted her mother about this practice. “It was so I could fit the ham into my small pot”, the mother said. What seems important is that it’s how Mother did it. What’s really important about cooking a ham is to make sure it fits the pot.
What’s it all about? It’s about what’s important. Sometimes what seems important isn’t really important and what’s really important doesn’t seem important. It’s important to like the word “important” if you’re going to enjoy this book.

Ancient Mariner