Song of My Selfie

Portrait of a Poem Paralyzed by Privilege. In ink, 2014

“This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men—go freely with powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and with the mothers of families—re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body. The poet shall not spend his time in unneeded work. He shall know that the ground is already plow’d and manured; others may not know it, but he shall. He shall go directly to the creation. His trust shall master the trust of everything he touches—and shall master all attachment,” – Walt Whitman, Preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass.

I came upon this exhilarating passage from Whitman months ago and put it aside to serve as my end of the year blog post. After all, Whitman is the poet laureate of The Nobby Works…and for those struggling for the time or patience to navigate through Love's Body, "I Sing the Body Electric" provides a pretty sweet shortcut:

O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women, nor the likes of the parts of you,
I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the soul, (and that they are the soul,)
I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and that they are my poems…
O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul, O I say now these are the soul!

But just before it came time for me to post up what I believed to be Whitman's all-purpose New Year's resolution for anyone of us for this or any other year, I found myself immersed in Lars Von Trier's 5-hour sexual extravaganza, Nymphomaniac Vols. 1 & 2 (The Director's Cut). This was the third installment in Von Trier's (no kidding) "Depressive Trilogy" (preceded by Antichrist and Melancholia), and it is the story of Joe, a woman cursed with an insatiable sexual appetite for which she refuses to apologize. In fact, Joe is so contemptuous of what she sees as the prime human quality of hypocrisy that she goes to utterly uncomfortable extremes to avoid it. Better a nymphomaniac than a hypocrite is Joe's story in a nutshell.  
When I was done watching it, I was reminded of how much I despise hypocrisy myself and how much very hard work is involved if you want to avoid this most insidious of all human failings. It is practically inescapable. Unlike Joe, I am not a compulsive-obsessive about hypocrisy. I down on it like Joe--and like Jesus, who condemns it as much as any sin and far more than most that get far more attention these days. But I also allow for it as part of the human condition. 
Still, unlike Joe who wantonly engages in her nymphomania, I don't care to wantonly engage in my own hypocrisy if I can help it. And I can help it here. As much as that Whitman passage moves my heart, my head resists. My critical mind tells me that if I send this forth as my New Year's message for one and all, then I'm being a hypocrite because I really don't believe all of it to the letter. I like the spirit of it…the intent...and I would like to get it out there at this reflective time of the year as a guide for those going into what we hope will be a better future with me. So, though my more noble and generous readers are welcome to follow Whitman's advice as written, I offer below for my own good this annotated, modified vision:

“This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals (I will do all that though I reserve the right to curse the clay beneath my shovel when Lorna asks me to dig more garden, to block out the sun when spots appear on my skin, and to eat meatballs now and again without guilt or shame), despise riches (yes, excessive 1% level greed I'm on board, but a winning lottery ticket or bestselling book would always be welcome), give alms to everyone that asks (everyone is an awful lot of people and includes a lot of awful people so I believe I'll continue to take this on a case-by-case basis), stand up for the stupid and crazy (whoa, Sean Hannity AND Ted Cruz …a bridge too far, Walt…a Brooklyn Bridge too damn far), devote your income and labor to others (yes, I can do better), hate tyrants (ah, but one man's tyrant is another's duly elected President, but I take the point and will do my best to watch any movie Kim Jung Un doesn't want me to), argue not concerning God (good one, but it's a fine and wobbly line between argument and debate, and The Nob could not exist without the debate), have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men (a big democratic Amen to all that)—go freely with powerful uneducated persons (the cops?), and with the young (sure, kids, but no texting at the dinner table and can we just deep six those precious little gestures you came up with during Occupy Wall Street to replace, like, five centuries of rather more effective parliamentary procedure?), and with the mothers of families (except on airplanes)—re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul (sorry, but this sounds a bit much like the mission statement of the Texas State School Board); and your very flesh shall be a great poem (with a lilting iambic pentameter bulge in the middle), and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body (and back we go to Love's Body). The poet shall not spend his time in unneeded work (can I get a witness?). He shall know that the ground is already plow’d and manured (note to Lorna); others may not know it, but he shall. He shall go directly to the creation. His trust shall master the trust of everything he touches—and shall master all attachment (no further comment required)”

A happy and hypocrisy-free New Year everyone!