My Own Private Pooka

Pictured above are Jimmy Stewart in his capacity as Elwood, and his pooka friend, Harvey, in his capacity as a very tall rabbit.  The image is of course from the film Harvey.  It appears during my favorite scene.  It actually made me laugh out loud--no mean feat, I fear.  Elwood replace a painting above the fireplace with this portrait. 

Harvey had otherwise been a creature we were required to imagine.  We knew him to be a pooka as he was described as such earlier in the film.  A "pooka" is, as Google will tell you, a Celtic fairy, or goblin, or spirit variously referred to as mischievous or benevolent or malignant, also referred to as a shape shifter, or a horse, or a bull.  It's somewhat confusing, and the character of a pooka presumably varies with the legend being retold.  Even the name is variously spelled.  Harvey, happily, though something of a joker was kind and friendly, particularly to Elwood who had a fondness for drink and was thought of as eccentric if not harmlessly insane.

Friends are surprisingly hard to find in these times when we all purport to have so many.  Facebook friends, and I would think all kinds of other friends.  Are there Twitter friends?  In any case, friends who are identified as "friends" who exist, primarily if not entirely, in cyberspace.  I'll confess to being on Facebook, though not as Ciceronianus.  My Facebook friends are all members of my family or old friends, and so are relatively few.  But I know that others have hundreds, and for all I know thousands, of friends.  Facebook is constantly advising me of people I or others of my friends know, and asks if I'd like to make them my friends.  Thus far, I do not.

In all honesty, I don't know why I would want them for my friends.  Already my Facebook page is crowded with dogs and babies, those being it appears among the fascinations of those who have access to it by virtue of the fact I've granted that access.  God only knows what else would show up, unsolicited, were I to allow access to others.

But just what are friends, anyway, now?  Friends are like a second self according to Cicero.  If that's true, I have very few friends indeed.  Cicero may have had high standards of friendship, but I think of friends as being something different from the "friends" that are all too available to us all.  Friends are those we can share intimacies with, enjoy conversation, activities, food and drink with; rely on, trust, consult, without fear of being harmed.  We must know our friends and know them well, in order for them to be friends.

And so I wish for a pooka for my very own.  Well, perhaps not for myself alone; the pooka, being magical, could no doubt patronize others and still seem more than adequately present to me.  The pooka would have to be benign, however.  Mischief I have no problem with, so that it could indulge in as much as it likes.  And if pookas are especially fond of drinkers, I drink, though not with the frequency it seems Elwood did.  I would hope to drink enough for the pooka.

The pooka would have to be fairly well read, fond of irony, fond of history.  I'm not sure just what shape I would prefer.  I've always liked the Cheshire Cat; liked most cats, in fact, so that would likely be best.  An enormous rabbit would do in a pinch. 

Imaginary friends are not all that different from those friends we have so many of these days, who pop in and out whenever we wish to see them or their pictures or read their little comments.  I suspect they would even be better.

The Sad Optimism of 2001

I first saw 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968, shortly after it first came out.  I was much younger then, of course.  I recall there was some controversy at the time regarding just what it was intended to express.  In particular, there was speculation regarding the nature of the monolith, or at least what it represented.  Some thought it represented God.  Regardless, I was much impressed.

The picture above is from the very beginning of the film, depicted as Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra blared majestically.  I found the precision of the imagery, which I suppose is to say the cinematography, astounding.  I had seen nothing like it before.  For the time it seemed wholly new.

The movie had its critics.  Some felt it dull and incomprehensible.  I personally felt somewhat overwhelmed, wondered and wondering.  It was clear enough that the monolith, whatever it was, was involved in the "dawn of man"; this was apparent from the scene in which the proto-human or ape-like creature began to use a large bone as a weapon after the encounter with it.  I particularly liked the scene in which the bone was thrown into the sky, and "became" a spaceship.

I didn't read the Arthur C. Clarke novel until much later.  It made sense of what I had seen, though I had inferred some things, as I expect most did, in time.  I don't think, as I believe some did or do, that the book didn't do justice to the film.  I think it a great movie.

As an achievement, it's remarkable.  But I think it's most remarkable, given what's happened since it was made, in its overestimation of what we would achieve, in space at least.

Was its optimism justified?  We were then on the brink of landing on the moon, but a short time, really, after JFK had declared that as a national goal.  A relatively short time, really, since we began to blast things into orbit.  The year 2001 was more than thirty years away.  In thirty years we had split the atom, blown up cities, reached space.  Perhaps our potential seemed limitless.

Nearly fifty years later, and we haven't even returned to the moon for many years, let alone sent a manned mission to Jupiter space, built a huge space station and installations on the lunar surface.  True, we've managed to send probes around the solar system and landed ambulatory robots on Mars.  We put so many satellites into orbit that they're becoming a positive danger. 

Clearly, it turned out that we had different priorities.  We have no HALs, but our computer technology is impressive enough, probably more impressive as it seems there were only two HALs in any case. 

But it's galling in a way that despite the fact that we haven't taken the steps required to begin the colonization of space (and we surely would have had colonies on Mars and perhaps elsewhere among the planets if the universe of 2001 had come to be) we seem to be in much the same poor way we were in the late 1960s.  We have no war in Vietnam, but we have conflicts all over the globe, the rich are very rich indeed and becoming richer, and the poor grow more and more numerous.  We grow more divided, angrier and probably have less hope than we did back then.

But perhaps I'm being too negative.  There were other futures envisioned in movies of the time and shortly thereafter which make our present seem good enough, perhaps even  desirable.  Kubrick himself depicted one of them in A Clockwork Orange.  The future in Farenheit 451 wasn't exactly cheery.  We have a penchant for dystopian futures and indulge it in our movies often enough.

Still, 2001 contained the hope of transformation, transcendence, in the form of the Starchild, which one of us became courtesy of the monolith,  Perhaps that hope is still there, although it seems to me that the transformation some of us seek is at the moment less physical and more mental or emotional. 

Stoicism And Our Times

Not all that long ago, a man named Frank McLynn published a biography of Marcus Aurelius.  For the most part, the author expressed admiration for his subject.  He was not as kind to certain of those individuals who surrounded the emperor, such as Marcus Cornelius Fronto, who taught him rhetoric and it seems grammar, but McLynn's dismissal of that gentleman as a fussy pedant is tolerable enough.  What I found less understandable was the author's attitude towards the philosophy to which the emperor was devoted--Stoicism.

Especially puzzling was the author's view of Epictetus, who we know Marcus admired.  McLynn refers to Epictetus as a kind of spoilsport, a party pooper; someone full of advice regarding how not to have fun.  It's no wonder, according to McLynn, that the emperor was melancholy having Epictetus as a guide or ideal.

It's strikes me as something of a marvel that someone would write a biography of Marcus Aurelius while laboring under the impression that Stoicism is a grim, dull, repressive, saddening philosophy.  But wonders never cease, to coin a phrase.  Neither, however, has Stoicism or the Meditations or Thoughts of the emperor, or the Enchiridion and Discourses of Epictetus, though what they are remain misunderstood even by professed and professional historians.

In this Age of Instantaneous Emoting, I suppose it's to be expected that any philosophy which promotes equanimity and tranquility and the use of our reason would be seen as perverse, or perhaps dull and uninteresting at best.  And yet, strangely enough, Stoicism seems to be experiencing a surge in popularity.  That seems to be the case based on any search of the Internet, at least.  There are evidently still enough McLynns in the world to indicate the old view that Stoics are repressed, unemotional dullards is still around if it doesn't flourish.  How do we explain the growing popularity of Stoicism given the increasingly frenzied times?

First, I take it as a sign that some of us, at least, are growing tired of their own self-indulgence and particularly that of others.  We're able now to know of everything done or said or thought by everyone, but especially by those who are considered famous for one increasingly insignificant reason or another.  Also, everyone significant or otherwise is eager to tell everyone else what they do or say or think.  More and more, perhaps, we don't want to know such things or wish to remain unaffected by them.  As a result the insight that what is not in our control should be a matter of indifference to us is comforting.

Second, I think it possible that those who are religiously inclined find the dogma of traditional, institutional religions less and less appealing or less and less believable.  They've discovered that there are options available to the spiritual which don't require a belief in miracles, a creator of a vast universe with curiously human characteristics and desires, injunctions against certain kinds of sexual behavior, rules of divine origin regarding eating certain foods and wearing certain clothes, and beliefs which are incompatible with what we learn through science.  Stoicism provides such an alternative.

Third, I think the acceptance of Stoic dictums and the practice of Stoicism provides protection from the incessant deluge of negative emotions, news and conduct to which we're exposed now on a daily basis, and simultaneously a source of strength.  It allows us to keep our heads when all those around us are losing theirs.  Stoics know that they can always control themselves, regardless of the circumstances, because they know what's in their control and what is not.  They know that our lives are what our thoughts make them, and discipline themselves so that their thoughts aren't overwhelmed by dangerous emotions or desires but guided by their ruling capacity.

Our times are noisy, frightening, anxious, dangerous, disturbing, but Stoicism shows us that we need not be frightened, anxious or disturbed and can achieve that through the use of our own intelligence.  What can be more appealing in a chaotic world?