Whose Life Do You Wish To Live?

Jeff—Saturday

The other day, as I sat in a chic harborside eatery, staring out beyond an armada of luxury yachts across a blissfully calm Aegean sea, I found myself thinking of the meaning of life. 

Cue the violins.

I live on an island where temporal things matter.  Big time.  The island’s very existence depends on nurturing a sense in the hearts and minds of the hordes drawn there each summer that our very being is defined by what we possess or consume. The right table in the right restaurant, the right row of beach beds on the right place on the right beach, the right watch, the right late night club, the right bikini—or the right bikini wearer—all matter in the eyes of those who keep track of the things that determine your position in the governing pecking order.

Then I thought a bit longer.  About other places I’ve lived: big, medium, and small cities, farm and academic communities, chic apartment buildings and shacks.  They all use different measures, but inevitably the same dynamic is at work everywhere.  Perhaps it’s what you do, where you live, where you (or your children) go to school, what you wear, what you drive, what courses you teach, your publisher, what ranks or distinctions you’ve obtained, but in some way or another they factor into the calculations of those who keep track of your position in their particular pecking order.

And I’m talking now about decisions made once the broader categories of race, religion, ethnicity, political party, and gender have been resolved.

Let’s face it folks, we live in world where categorization is a fact of life.  Jeffrey the writer occupies a different position than Jeffrey the New York City lawyer.  Annamaria the chef, a different position than Annamaria the stripper. Caro the comic a different position than Caro the sincere (okay, so my examples aren’t perfect).

The bottom line is, to be truly free you must be happy in your own skin doing what you want to do.  There will forever be persons out there judging you by their standards, and if you invest in playing by their rules, you will end up living someone else’s view of your life instead of living your own.   

A word of warning to those who might think this is a curse of the capitalist class:  Anarchists can be just as ruthless—if not more so—in determining the status of their adherents in the “anti-isms” rankings of their disparate pecking orders.

As Davy Crockett once said, “Be true to yourself and you shall not fear from any man [or woman…other than Annamaria or Caro, of course].” 

Now back to staring out to see/sea.

Coronets please.

—Jeff