Many of us have the compulsion to own things. We desire much and go on desiring more: objects, cars, houses, vacations, money, and social media “likes” Somewhere in this never-ending chase, we may lose sight of the pleasure of not obsessing over “getting stuff”, of just being grateful to be alive, being able to breathe, see, feel and be touched by “intangibles” – the first green buds of spring, the blue of distant mountains, the magic of songs that touches the heart. In this post, I present meditations by writers and poets on the art of “getting lost”, not in the physical sense but in the metaphorical realm of being able to find love and beauty in the sensation of desire itself, coupled with a calm acquiescence to the fact that nothing we own is permanent. These writers and artists are not against owning things per se, but they ask: is pleasure limited to ownership? Can the sensation of desire be just as pleasurable? How can we master the art of losing?
ON THE PLEASURE OF NOT ARRIVING
Thoughts by Rebecca Solnit from her wonderful book, A Field Guide to Getting Lost.
“We treat desire as a problem to be solved, address what desire is for and focus on that something and how to acquire it rather than on the nature and sensation of desire… I wonder sometimes whether, with a slight adjustment of perspective, it could be cherished as a sensation on its own terms, since it is as inherent to the human condition as blue is to distance? If you can look across the distance without wanting to close it up, if you can own your own longing in the same way that you own the beauty of that blue that can never be possessed? For something of this longing will, like the blue of distance, only be relocated, not assuaged, by acquisition and arrival, just as the mountains cease to be blue when you arrive among them and the blue instead tints the next beyond. Somewhere in this is the mystery of why tragedies are more beautiful than comedies and why we take a huge pleasure in the sadness of certain songs and stories.”
ON MASTERING THE ART OF LOSING
A magnificent poem on loss by the great Elizabeth Bishop.
One Art
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Love something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing is not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
ON RENEWAL AFTER LOSS
The next poem is a lovely piece that explores the themes of impermanence, memory, and the passage of time. The speaker, in a reflective tone, acknowledges that things don’t last, relationships fade with time, and memories burn away. Yet, the speaker’s act of “burning” can be interpreted as a way of releasing the past and embracing the new with a sense of possibilities and renewal. Here’s “Burning the Old Year” by Naomi Shihab Nye
Burning the Old Year
by Naomi Shihab Nye
Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air
So much of any year is flammable,
list of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.
Where there was something and
suddenly isn’t, an absence shouts,
celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.
Quick dance, shuffle of losses
and leaves; only the things I didn’t do
crackle after the blazing dies.
ON NON-ATTACHMENT
Here are two pieces on detachment that I really like.
“Detachment is not that you own nothing but that nothing owns you.”
Such a powerful and wise statement, yet so hard to put into practice. From the Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu scripture dating to the second century BC, where the concept of “detachment” or “non-attachment” is central.
Finally, here’s a poem by the Tang dynasty Chinese poet, Po Chu-i titled ‘Lodging with the Old Man of the Stream’ that quietly celebrates a life of simplicity and contentment.
Lodging with the old man of the stream
Po Chu-i (772-846)
Men’s hearts love gold and jade;
Men’s mouth covet wine and meat.
Not so the old man of the stream.
He drinks from his gourd
and asks nothing more.
South of the stream, he cuts firewood
and grass; north of the stream,
he has built wall and roof.
Yearly, he sows a single acre of land;
In spring he drives two yellow calves.
In these things he finds great repose;
Beyond these he has no wish or care.
By chance I met him walking
by the water-side; He took me home
and lodged me in his thatched hut.
When I parted from him, to seek
market and court, this old man asked
my rank and pay. Doubting my tale,
he laughed loud:
“Privy counsellors do not sleep in barns.”
BIOGRAPHIES
Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit (b. 1961) is the author of more than twenty books on feminism, western and indigenous history, popular power, social change and insurrection, wandering and walking, hope and disaster, including Call Them By Their True Names (Winner of the 2018 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction), The Faraway Nearby, A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Wanderlust A History of Walking, among others.
Elizabeth Bishop
Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) was an American poet and short-story writer. She was Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1949 to 1950, the Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry in 1956, the National Book Award winner in 1970, and the recipient of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1976. She has been praised as one of the most gifted poets of the 20th century, who poetics is “distinguished by tranquil observation, craft-like accuracy, care for the small things of the world, a miniaturist’s discretion and attention.”
Naomi Shihab Nye
Naomi Shihab Nye (b. 1952) is an Arab American poet, editor, songwriter, and novelist. Born to a Palestinian father and an American mother, she began composing her first poetry at the age of six. In total, she has published or contributed to over 30 volumes of poetry. Her works include poetry, young-adult fiction, picture books, and novels. Nye received the 2013 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature in honor of her entire body of work as a writer, and in 2019 the Poetry Foundation designated her the Young People’s Poet Laureate for the 2019–21 term.
Po Chu-i
Po Chü-i (772-846) was a Chinese poet best known for his ballads and satirical poems. He held the view that good poetry should be readily understood by the common people and exemplified it in poems noted for simple diction, natural style, and social content.