HOW TO BE FREE OF THE PAST---OR WHY ANALYSIS DOESN’T WORK

So, you want to be free of the past? Really? If so, you can be, provided you really want freedom and are prepared to go to any length to get it.

Listen to these wise words from the Indian spiritual philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti ['K'] (pictured left and below right):

We are the result of the past. Our thought is founded upon yesterday, and many thousand yesterdays. We are the result of time, and our responses, our present attitudes, are the cumulative effect of many thousand moments, incidents and experiences. So the past is, for the majority of us, the present, which is a fact, which cannot be denied. You, your thoughts, your actions, your responses, are the result of the past.

So, the question becomes---how can we be free of the past?

Most methods of psychology and psychiatry involve varying degrees and types of analysis including traditional psychoanalysis as well as self-analysis, but can analysis of any kind really give us the freedom from the past we seek? K's view, which is also mine, is that analysis cannot relieve us of an unwanted past. Here is K again:

Now, what is the past? What do we mean by the past? … We mean, surely, the accumulated experiences, the accumulated responses, memories, traditions, knowledge, the subconscious storehouse of innumerable thoughts, feelings, influences and responses, With that background, it is not possible to understand reality, because reality must be of no time: it is timeless. So, one cannot understand the timeless with a mind which is the outcome of time. The questioner wants to know if it is possible to free the mind, or for the mind, which is the result of time, to cease to be, immediately; or must one go through a long series of examinations and analyses, and so free the mind from its background. You see the difficulty in the question.

What normally happens is this. The more analysis, structured or unstructured, the more internal division and conflict. The conditioned mind is, in varying degrees, a sick and divided mind. It is the result of time, and thus the past. Do you think that such a mind, which is the result of the past---which is time---can be liberated from time, such that it can ‘look at reality directly’ (K’s words), by and as a result of a process of analysis over time and in time?

Self-analysis fails because of the problem of self-bondage---you need to understand that the analyser (the so-called witnessing, judging or transcendental self) and that which is being analysed (mental manifestations of self in myriads of forms and thousands of ‘I’s’ and ‘me’s’ over a considerable time period) are what K referred to as a ‘joint phenomenon.’ The first mentioned ‘self’---the so-called witnessing self---is just another of those annoying little, pesky ‘selves’ that we all too often allow to run riot through our mind, and need I remind you that no effort of the self can remove the self from the centre of its own introspection and mental machinations.

Here is an example. A thought of anger arises in the mind. The part of the mind which analyses the anger is part of the anger. There is simply no way, by that means, to free ourselves from the background. So, intellectual analysis and all other forms of introspective dissection are not the way to go. No, true psychological transformation can only arise when one is entirely free of the ‘background’ (or ‘mental furniture’). It is a total re-creation of the person we are without dependence on time or any method grounded in or otherwise dependent on time. Look and observe. Be aware---choicelessly. Don’t analyse or interpret. Just look, observe and see things as they are---both the things outside of us as well as the contents of our own mind. The insight you gain will change you forever---that is, if you want such change in your life. This is the ‘much simpler … more direct way’ spoken of by Krishnamurti and many other teachers.

What if someone else---say, a professional psychoanalyst---does the ‘analysing’? Well, once again, there are huge difficulties inherent in such an approach. To quote K:

To be free of the background, many of the analysts say that you must examine every response, every complex, every hindrance, every blockage, which implies a process of time, obviously; which means the analyser must understand what he is analysing; and he must not misinterpret what he analyses. Because, if he mistranslates what he analyses, it will lead him to wrong conclusions, and therefore establish another background. Do you follow? Therefore the analyser must be capable of analysing his thoughts, feelings, without the slightest deviation; and he must not miss one step in his analysis, because to take a wrong step, to draw a wrong conclusion, is to reestablish a background along a different line, on a different level. And this problem also arises: Is the analyser different from what he analyses? Are not the analyser and the thing that is analysed a joint phenomenon?

Although I am sure that various methods of analysis as well as insight-oriented psychotherapy have helped many, many people, there is that real problem described by K. Just the process of analysis, introspection and evaluation creates more ‘background’---that is, more past, and more conditioning. But isn’t the goal to be free from all that?

The good news is that you can be totally free of the past---at any moment. It’s entirely up to you. No one else can do ‘it’ for you. Yes, there can indeed be that ‘total revolution’ (or psychological mutation or transformation) of which Krishnamurti constantly spoke. I am not talking here about change as a result of intellectual analysis or any form of traditional psychology including psychoanalysis. My view on the latter is encapsulated in that well-known phrase ‘analysis paralysis.’ Whether you want to hear it or not, the truth is that we can instantaneously liberate ourselves from the past and from past conditioning (including beliefs and misbeliefs of all kinds)---all thought is nothing but memory---if we refuse to analyse or dissect the content of our consciousness (the ‘background’ or ‘mental furniture’) and we see things as they really are, without judgment or evaluation.

You can start doing that right now---if you're prepared to do what it takes. But first you must see the falseness in the analytical process. Analysis involves thought, and, obviously, the analysis of thought in greta detail. Thought is a thing of time, and the result of time. Self-evidently, thought itself cannot free itself of the process of time, the latter including the unwanted past. K said, 'you can be free of [the past], not tomorrow, but in the present, in the now.' He went on to say, 'That can be done only when you realize that which is false; and the false is obviously the analytical process.'

So, this is what you can choose to do---if you really want to be free, forever, and instantaneously, from the bondage of the past. Watch, almost with disinterest, whatever happens, as if it were happening to someone else. Let there be no comment, judgment or attempt to change anything. Note the presence of any unhealthy, painful thoughts or emotions, but give them no power or attention. Don’t suppress or deny them, and do not ‘resist’ them, for whatever you resist, persists. The law of non-resistance—how very important, and true, that metaphysical law is! Dr Norman Vincent Peale (pictured left), writes:

The power of non-resistance removes certain blocks and limitations in the human mind or soul. … Stop resisting your problems so furiously in your mind. Stop struggling to solve them yourself. If you do that, a great sense of peace followed by a great sense of power will come to you.

As K puts it, ‘your mind, when you discard the analytical process with all its implications and see it as false, is freed from yesterday, and therefore is capable of looking directly, without going through the process of time [that is, analysis], and thereby discarding the background immediately.’ That is the way ‘a mind that is the result of time, of many thousand yesterdays, [can] be instantaneously free of this complex background.’

Mindfulness, involving the presence of choiceless awareness of, and bare attention to, the action of the present moment, from one moment to the next, is the way to go forward. Note that word---forward. At any ‘point’ in time, you are in direct and immediate contact with what is, and in that directness and immediacy there is your ‘salvation,’ if you can but mindfully experience it, but you must be prepared to stop doing certain things which will otherwise keep you forever in bondage to the past. In what follows, K describes, much better than I could ever hope to do, the essential features of a mind that is ‘mindful’ (or, K's word, 'tranquil'):

Now, to put it very simply, when you want to understand something, what is the state of your mind? When you want to understand your child, when you want to understand somebody, something that someone is saying, what is the state of your mind? You are not analysing, criticizing, judging what the other is saying; you are listening, are you not? Your mind is in a state where the thought process is not active, but is very alert. Yes? And that alertness is not of time, is it? You are merely being alert, passively receptive, and yet fully aware; and it is only in this state that there is understanding. Surely, when the mind is agitated, questioning, worrying, dissecting, analysing, there is no understanding. And when there is the intensity to understand, the mind is obviously tranquil.

There you have it. The insight that can and will change you---indeed, transform and re-create you---is to be found not in or as a result of analysis, introspection or self-knowledge but only in and as a result of the creation and maintenance of a ‘tranquil’ mind, that is, a mind that is not analysing, criticising, evaluating or judging what is parading before you, at any point in time, as the content of your mind and life experience.

One of my favourite books on spirituality is The Unfettered Mind: Writings of the Zen Master to the Sword Master, by the Japanese Zen monk, calligrapher, painter and poet Takuan Sōhō. Here is some wisdom from that book:

The mind that thinks about removing what is within it will by the very act be occupied. If one will not think about it, the mind will remove these thoughts by itself and of itself become No-Mind.

Effort defeats itself in all mental workings, and analysis requires effort---great effort---on the part of at least one person. Don't try---instead, let. Let the past stay in the past. Refuse to analyse it, and walk forever from this day forward in the eternal now with a tranquil mind, that is, a mind that is not analysing, criticising, evaluating or judging what is parading before you. That is the way to go!

Bless you all.

Acknowledgment is made, and gratitude is expressed,

to the Krishnamurti Foundation of America, Ojai, California, USA.

Krishnamurti Excerpts: Benares 2nd Public Talk, 23 January 1949.

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THE LIGHT THAT MINDFULLY ENLIGHTENS ALL THINGS

The author at Odawara Castle, Odawara, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan

‘…God is light and in him is no darkness at all.’ (1 Jn 1:5) [RSV]

I have said before that all talk of ‘God’ is the language of poetry. Yes, theology uses the language, metaphors and thought-forms of poetry in an attempt to describe what is. Now, the word ‘God’ is simply an expression, a figure of speech. The word ‘God’---if we choose to use it at all, and I use it very sparingly indeed---refers to that which we deem to be of ‘ultimate’ importance or our ‘ultimate’ concern. (I use the word ‘ultimate’ advisedly, not wishing to suggest for one moment that the so-called ‘ultimate’ is or lies in some supposed order or level of reality ‘above’ or ‘beyond’ so-called ordinary reality. As I see it, there is only one order or level of reality, that is, one way of being, that of ordinary things in time and space. For me, the word ‘ultimate’ is simply synonymous with the words ‘sacred’ and ‘holy’. The sacred or holy is to be found in the ordinary and the everyday, although there is certainly much that is truly extraordinary about the mundane.)

We are told that God is light, not ‘the’ light or ‘a’ light but light itself. This light is said to be the source of all other light. Thus, James writes:

Every good and perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of Lights, in Whom there is no variableness, or shadow of turning (Ja I: 17).

The prophet Isaiah said:

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined (Is 9:2).

We dwell in ‘the land of the shadow of death’ when we live mindlessly, that is, when we live with unawareness. Nevertheless, the light still shines, even in the darkness of unawareness. We are simply unaware of that fact---very much to our detriment, I might add.

Now, here is a paradox. All of the world’s major religions, and most other systems of spirituality as well, exhort us to seek some ultimate ‘light’, which is said to be ‘above’ or ‘beyond’ us, ‘within’ us, or both. However, in that wonderful little work of Christian mysticism, The Cloud of Unknowing, we are told that we must ‘learn to be at home’ in darkness. Why darkness? Because when there is ‘darkness’ the things of the world are no longer visible, so we can’t see them. If we are to live mindfully---that is, with choiceless awareness of what is from one moment to the next---we must learn to be ‘at home’ in darkness.

No matter what happens to us, our life can still be ‘brighter than the noonday sun’ (cf Job 11:17), and we can shine even in darkness. Returning to the theme of The Cloud of Unknowing, we are most likely to come to know God (or Life, Truth or Reality) as light in darkness---as that ‘cloud of unknowing’ that remains when we objectively see things-as-they-are--things both inner and outer---without becoming attached to anything.  In other words, there is no choosing to be aware of one thing but not another. We simply look, watch and observe without identifying too closely with any elements of the experience and without judging anything that arises as 'good' or 'bad'.  In other words, we do not try to dispel the cloud but simply let it be.

Yes, you can walk in darkness yet still see a great light---at all times. In order to see that light---at all times--- there must be no analysis, comment, judgment, evaluation or condemnation, no 'abiding of thought' anywhere on anything, just a constant, continuous, pliable, effortless, ever-present and unconditioned state of impartial, objective and choiceless awareness of life as it unfolds from one moment to the next. In the words of James, there must be ‘no variableness, or shadow of turning.’

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MINDFULNESS---THIS IS THE REFRESHING!

‘To whom [God] said, This is the rest with which you may cause the weary to rest;
and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.’ (Isaiah 28:12)
[King James Bible/Cambridge edition]

‘This is the refreshing.’ The renowned pastor, lecturer and author Norman Vincent Peale wrote, ‘These few words remind us of a spring of cool water because of their renewing quality.’

Each new day---indeed, each new moment in the eternal now---is, or at least can be experienced as, a ‘refreshing,’ for that is what it truly is. Each new moment is a renewal. The moment is so brief---as I write these words, many such moments have come and gone----it is virtually timeless. Time is simply a medium in which all things live, move and have their being. So, what we call ‘life’---or reality, truth or God---is nothing other than a timeless renewal in the present moment. Each new moment is a re-creation---or a refreshing.

The only power that can be ours is that which is found in the reality of the present moment that is ever-before us ‘in’ the now. That is the only ‘place’---for want of a better word---in which we can find ‘refreshment.’ Indeed, it is a refreshing. That is the only ‘place’ wherein we can find help in time of trouble, for if we seek that help in the past or in the future we look in vain. Indeed, trouble really only occurs when we allow ourselves to dwell in either the past or the future. True peace and acceptance can only be found in the calm acknowledgment of the omnipresent reality of the present moment. I have said as much on so many occasions. Not only peace and acceptance, but inner transformation as well. In one of his many classes the spiritual philosopher and teacher Vernon Howard, whose ideas about life have had a big impact on my life and thinking, said this:

‘Truth exists at this very present moment. Truth, which is the great power, the only power, therefore exists right now by man-made time, about a quarter after nine, exists for anyone in this room who is no longer living in man-made time, that is in his acquired sense of self, developed from experiences of past and hopes of the future.’

Truth not only exists at this present moment; it is this present moment---at least when we are mindfully aware of what is going on. That's a refreshing thought. Mindfulness, itself, is a refreshing, for it is the choiceless awareness of awareness itself. If we stay fixed and focused, and fully grounded, in the reality of the eternal mow---that is, if our minds are fully and mindfully engaged in what is taking place in and around us now---we will experience a refreshing, no matter what happens.

If you really want to come alive, start to experience each new moment as a refreshing. However, this can only be done from one moment to the next. It cannot be done ‘in’ the moment itself---despite the omnipresent reality of the present moment---simply because the so-called ‘moment’ is so brief, so ephemeral, that no sooner has it arrived, it's gone. It's the past. One cannot experience or live ‘in’ the moment because the moment, although ever-present, is always changing ... into the next moment ... and the next ... and then the next!

This is where mindfulness comes into its own. You see, mindfulness is awareness---in a deliberate and purposeful but ‘soft focus’, gentle and kind sort of way---from one moment to the next. Got that? Mindfulness is concerned with being fully present, and living with awareness, from moment to moment. Mindful living is living receptively with choiceless awareness from moment to moment---that is, being aware step by step, breath by breath, thought by thought, feeling by feeling, memory by memory, sensation by sensation, and so forth. Such is the flow of life, for what is life but the ongoing moment-to-moment livingness of living things and beings living out their livingness from one moment to the next.

Now, that is the refreshing.

NOTES.
1. The photos were taken by the author during a trip to Japan in June 2011. 
2. For those who are interested in the writings and ideas of Dr Peale, I have compiled and edited a book entitled The Norman Vincent Peale Book of Quotations.

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LIFE---THIS MUCH IS TRUE!

What can we say about life that is demonstrably and self-evidently true?

Well, a fair bit. Let's see ... .

For starters, life just is. I think that is, or must be taken to be, axiomatic. However, in a very profound philosophical sense there is no such thing as ‘life,’ just as there is no such thing as the ‘universe’ or a ‘totality of things’. Yes, no such thing. You see, words like 'universe' and ‘totality’ are just that---words. They simply refer to the sum 'total' of all there is (that is, A + B + C + D + … ad infinitum). A, B, C and D are all very ‘real’, but the totality of all those things is not in itself a thing.

So, what we call ‘life’ is just this---the sum total (sorry) of all living things living out their livingness in spacetime. I sometimes refer to this as the ‘self-livingness of life.’ That’s just a shorthand expression. Do you disagree? Well, come, look and see, as the Buddha would say. Now, what do we see? Lots and lots of living things doing something. Doing what? Well, living out their respective states of livingness from one moment to the next. Trees, flowers, birds, animals of all kinds, as well as the human animal---they are all living out their livingness from moment to moment, constantly entering into complex 'relations' with other things. Yes, waxing and waning, too. Things appear for a time and then disappear and vanish from view. They change form, they disappear, but in a very profound sense they never cease to be---not for a moment. The self-livingness, or be-ness, of life. It’s simply awe-inspiring.

Can we say anything more? Well, come, look and see. Now, what do we see? The ‘life’---for want of a better word---flowing through each living thing would appear to be the same ‘life’ flowing through every other living thing. Expressed a little better, the livingness of life is the same, irrespective of the life species. As the Scottish-born Australian philosopher John Anderson (pictured right) would say, a single ‘logic’---note, logic is about things, not words---applies to all things and how they are related to all other things. No, not all things are one, for clearly they are not. However, a single principle----call it the life principle, if you wish---applies to all things and their respective relations with all other things. Here’s something else we can say, after looking and seeing. All things exist on the same order or level of reality---and on the same plane of observability. All things exists in the eternal now, the latter being the only ‘time.’ What we call ‘life’---albeit in a rather misleading sense---is nothing other than a timeless renewal or re-creation of all things in the present moment.

So, we have the livingness---or, rather, the self-livingness of life---and the oneness of life, in the sense that a single logic applies to all things, and all things exist on the same order or level of reality. Is there anything else we can say about life from looking and seeing? Well, come, look and see. Now, what do we see? Life---that is, living things---are constantly giving of themselves to themselves (including their respective offspring) so as to perpetuate themselves or the particular species. Yes, life tends to give of itself to itself in order to perpetuate itself. (That may or may not be a good thing! Only kidding.)

These three things---the self-livingness of life, the oneness of life, and the self-givingness of life---are, I submit, demonstrably obvious. So what, you may say. Well, I think we can derive a number of important ethical values from these objective facts. For example, cooperation and altruism are ‘natural,’ for they are life-affirming, life-promoting and life-enhancing. So are qualities that work for unity as opposed to division, for if a single logic applies to all things then no forms of discrimination or human distinction are ever justifiable. Life is ‘sacred’ or ‘holy’ because it is all there is, and it is common to all things. I could go on, but that’s enough for the time being.

Life---the very livingness, or self-livingness, of life. Truth---the very oneness (that is, common life principle) of life. Love---the very givingness, or self-givingness, of life. It’s a ‘holy trinity’ of sorts. Well, it makes much more sense to me than that other supposed Holy Trinity.

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BUDDHISM AND THE PLURALITY OF ALL THINGS

Image of the Buddha in the garden at Asakusa Kannon Temple
(also called Sensoji), the oldest temple in Tokyo, Japan.
Photo taken by the author.

One of the reasons I embrace Buddhism is this---Buddhism, at least in its more early, uncluttered forms, espouses a realist view of ‘things as they really are.’ I like that, for I am at heart a realist, an empiricist, and a naturalist. I reject all supernaturalistic views of reality.

Buddhism, consistent with an empirical view of reality, affirms that whatever exists are ‘occurrences’---or ‘situations’---in one space-time. Things exist ‘in situations.’ This is known as situationality. Further, at any ‘point’---for want of a better word---in space-time there is always (yes, always) a plurality of space-time interacting situations or occurrences (‘complexes’). Indeed, there are literally countless such pluralities, and all these situations exhaust the whole of reality. There is nothing else ... or supposedly 'beyond' or 'above' all this. Things may be distinct---indeed, they are---but they also connected in space-time, and these connections are very real. The Buddha reportedly said:

Monks, we who look at the whole and not just the part, know that we too are systems of interdependence, of feelings, perceptions, thoughts, and consciousness all interconnected. Investigating in this way, we come to realize that there is no me or mine in any one part, just as a sound does not belong to any one part of the lute.

Situationality and plurality---such is the nature of reality. Never forget that!

The third Zen patriarch Seng-Tsan described situationality and plurality in this way:

One thing, all things:

Move along and intermingle,

Without distinction.

Truth---reality---is never static but always dynamic. The Buddha is also reported to have said that ‘things are different according to the forms which they assume under different impressions’. One could substitute the word ‘situations’ for ‘impressions’ without distorting meaning. Here is a typical saying attributed to the Buddha:

The thing and its quality are different in our thought, but not in reality. Heat is different from fire in our thought, but you cannot remove heat from fire in reality. You say that you can remove the qualities and leave the thing, but if you think your theory to the end, you will find that this is not so.

The author at Asakusa Kannon Temple (Sensoji).

People waft smoke over their bodies from the bronze incense burner
before worship. Some believe that the smoke can heal
or prevent illness. I'm skeptical---naturally.

 

Buddhism recognizes the existence, at any ‘point’ in space-time, of a plurality or multiplicity of interacting factors that can, at any time, produce a certain effect. We are talking about a complex, ever-changing, dynamic system whose parts are mutually dependent. In the ‘Fire Sermon’ (Aditta Sutta), the Buddha is recorded as having said:

The eye, O monks, is burning; visible things are burning; the mental impressions based on the eye are burning; the contact of the eye with visible things is burning; the sensation produced by the contact of the eye with visible things, be it pleasant, be it painful, be it neither pleasant nor painful, that also is burning. With what fire is it burning? I declare unto you that it is burning with the fire of greed, with the fire of anger, with the fire of ignorance; it is burning with the anxieties of birth, decay, death, grief, lamentation, suffering, dejection, and despair.

The ear is burning, sounds are burning, … The nose is burning, odors are burning, ... The tongue is burning, tastes are burning, ... The body is burning, objects of contact are burning, ... The mind is burning, thoughts are burning, all are burning with the fire of greed, of anger, and of ignorance.

The Fire Sermon presents, albeit in a highly lyrical way, a plurality of multiple situations that are in continuous process. That is causation---processes continuing into one another. Such is life ... wandering, wandering, waxing and waning. We live and die from moment to moment. 

The Vietnamese monk and Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh uses the expression ‘InterBeing’ to refer to this state and process of interdependence. It is important, however, to note that Buddhism is not monistic. No form of Buddhism affirms that all things are in reality one. Nevertheless, a single ‘logic’ applies to all things, for all things exist in the same ‘level’ or plane of existence and observability.

All of this is very profound---but also very simple. Delightfully so. Truth is like that, you know.

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AM I CRANKY, GROUCHO? YOU BET YOUR LIFE!

Dedicated to the memory of

Julius Henry Marx

(1890-1977)



For someone who advocates the regular practice of mindfulness and other spiritual practices I have to admit---with all self-honesty and with a little (but not too much) guilt---that I have become a most cranky ‘old’ man.

I remember the day so very well. It was April 13, 1969. (I still have the newspaper---well, the relevant page---to prove it.) It was early on a Sunday morning, and I went outside my parents’ house to collect the newspaper, which would have been somewhere on the nature strip or driveway. The paper was The Sun-Herald. On page 58 there was an article about my all-time favourite comedian Groucho Marx [pictured right and below]. The article (with a byline by Don Riseborough 'in New York') was headed ‘Groucho Gets the Grouches,’ but it was a reworking of a widely syndicated article that I’ve traced to an article entitled ‘Is Groucho Serious? You Bet Your Life!’ published in The New York Times on April 8, 1969 (on page 40) with a byline by Israel Shenker.

I read the article with great interest and gusto, but I was devastated. Yes, devastated---totally. My hero Groucho had turned into a cranky---indeed very angry---and bitter old man. So sad, I thought, that this funny man could say that he was tired of being funny. Now, he was deadly serious, and it seemed to me that he would remain that way. No more funny stuff would issue from his mouth. Fortunately, I was wrong on all that. (I was aged 14 at the time.) Mr Marx would have a couple more showbiz and literary hurrahs before he joined his brothers Chico, Harpo and Gummo in death on August 19, 1977. Regrettably, that did not stop The New Republic---a liberal periodical Groucho liked---writing, not long before his death, that Groucho 'has made more than an old man's share of cranky and bigoted remarks in the past few years' (May 21, 1977, p 61).

Now, back to this article which, by the way, I carried round on my person for several days thereafter, hoping as many people as possible would see it ... as if that might somehow persuade Groucho to be 'funny' again. Groucho railed against the churches, organized religion, and the folly of belief in any sort of afterlife. ‘You only live once, despite what Jesus or somebody said … Go out to the garden and tear a flower in four. It won’t be a flower again.’ He railed against the military-industrial complex, saying, ‘You know there are 1,800 retired admirals and generals hustling business for the various munitions companies. I’d have them shot.’ He railed against crime, of which there was plenty at that time. He railed against militant students---the ones for whom he was a hero, a god---saying, ‘Kids today are detestable, and thank God mine are grown up.’ He railed against the war in Vietnam, saying, ‘It would be different if we were fighting a just war, if there is any such thing. … We have no right to be in Vietnam.’ He railed against nudity in the theatre … and many other things. Most of all, he railed against his own country---the United States of America---which, he felt, had lost its way in the world. (I fear the latter is true even more so today. Lost its way---and lost the plot.) Yes, Groucho railed against almost everyone and everything. Groucho---the Groucho I had loved for years (I still do)---had turned into a cranky and embittered old man.

I, too, have become a cranky ‘old’ man of 57. (At least Groucho was 78---but generally thought to be 73---at the time of the above mentioned articles and interview.) Actually, I think I have been a cranky ‘old’ man for quite some time now. Still, I would like to think I am not quite as cranky and bigoted as Groucho---bless him---appeared to be in his later years, notwithstanding that his political views were generally leftist over a very long period of time.

So, what am I cranky about? Well, many things---far too many to mention in this one post. You see, I've got more than a little list. For starters, I am cranky about the lack of manners in society these days. When manners go, we risk returning to the law of the jungle. Manners---not so much the rule of law---hold society together. I am cranky about the crap that is on commercial television these days (has it ever been any different?), especially so-called reality television. I am cranky about the ascendancy of a most nasty and selfish form of conservatism in politics and religion---especially in the United States of America, but also in Australia and many other countries. Damn you. I am cranky that countries such as China and, yes, the US are not taking climate change seriously enough. Damn you. (At least Australia has a tax on carbon.) I am angry that American political leaders---including the current President (whose record on human rights issues has been most disappointing, indeed worse than that of his immediate predecessor)---don't have the guts to take on the powerful gun lobby in that country. Damn you.

I'm not finished by any means. I am also cranky about the lies all our politicians routinely tell us---and how they ‘stay on message’ (oh, how I hate those words) without ever answering the question nor saying anything meaningful. Damn you. I am cranky about the effects that postmodernism has had on educational and literacy standards---the dumbing down of education and all that. Terrible stuff. I saw it happen with my own eyes during the many years that I taught some 9,000 law students, but I was totally powerless to do anything about it. Damn all those responsible. I am cranky about ambulance-chasing lawyers who claim they are only interested in their injured clients. Damn them (the lawyers, that is). I am cranky about the inequitable distribution of income and wealth in this country (Australia) and elsewhere. Like Groucho, a certain thought---followed by certain words---takes form within my mind from time to time---‘I’d have them shot.’ Then, I recoil, as did Groucho, who went on to say in that 1969 interview, ‘That was facetious about having them shot. But it wouldn’t be a great loss if those pot-bellied thieves were put out of their misery.’ No, it wouldn't. Well, Groucho, the thieves in the big end of town are less pot-bellied today---many of them go to the gym and work out regularly---but they are still thieves for all that. And, in the words of W S Gilbert (whom Groucho especially admired), ‘I don't think they'd be missed, I'm sure they'd not be missed!’ Yes, damn them all. Strong stuff? Maybe. Maybe not. I’m sure we all feel that way at times.

Yes, Groucho was serious---and angry. So am I ... even though I will never be in the same league as Julius Henry Marx (his real name). Not even in the same ballpark. Nor even in the same city or county.

Well, what am I going to do about it? Well, for one thing, I will continue to watch Marx Brothers movies as well as episodes of Groucho’s long-running quiz show You Bet Your Life ...

That may not be a cure for my crankiness---indeed, it may even worsen the condition---but I don’t care. I will die laughing, no matter what.

Yes, I am serious. In Groucho's own words, 'I'm the brash, realistic type,' the guy who says the emperor has no clothes on. Shoot me if you wish.


POSTSCRIPT. Since I first wrote this post Australia has had a change of government at the federal level. The carbon tax referred to above has been abolished, and a bunch of climate change skeptics are now in power. The US is now doing better than Australia as respects action on climate chnage. Shame, Australia, shame. IEJ.


NOTE. Here's a tribute to Groucho Marx that I wrote in August 1978 when I was aged 23. IEJ.


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