Why do we overlook the age of innocence to focus on the dramas of loss and redemption?

The aphorism, “What once was lost, now is found” implies a preamble: What once was known, was then lost. One can’t have lost something without first having, or knowing, it. There are three acts to the story in that aphorism, and for as long as I’ve known about it I’ve only focused on acts 2 and 3. Act 2: Loss. Act 3: Redemption. But what actually was Act 1?

Consider this: in the 1920s, as cars slowly began to overtake streets, US courts routinely ruled that “a child has an absolute right to use the street, that it’s the responsibility of everyone else to watch out for the child. The parent does not have to be there.”Motorists pleading innocence at the time were firmly rebuffed: “That’s no excuse. You chose to operate a dangerous machine that gave you, the driver, the responsibility.”

With deliberate efforts by the auto industry – including ‘educating’ children that the street was not a safe space for play – streets became the exclusive domain of cars, reduced to nothing more than arteries for transportation. In this transformation, something vital has been lost.

~ Kai Brach, from Dense Discovery – Issue 301

The problem, of course, is simply the design of our cities. It’s easy to imagine a better way. (Really, it’s easy.) The problem is—wait for it… realizing that we had the better way, but we took the easy route forward and lost something vital. Cities are constantly being remade, and all that’s needed is the vision to steer that remaking. A city is nothing more than an innumerable collection of small decisions.

To be playful is not to be trivial or frivolous, or to act as if nothing of consequence will happen. On the contrary, when we are playful with one another, we relate as free persons, and the relationship is open to surprise; everything that happens is of consequence, for seriousness is a dread of the unpredictable outcomes of open possibility. To be serious is to press for a specified conclusion. To be playful is to allow for unlimited possibility.

~ James Carse

I don’t want to talk just about cars and cities. I really want to talk about Act 1 of that aphorism: Innocence. Unknowing. Naive. Oblivious. Act 1 is when things are great, but I throw a tantrum because I want it all and I want it now. Act 1 is that time in the leisurely river float, before I realize that low sound is Niagara Falls.

[the book] mentions contemporary politics but it’s really a book about running away from this into eternal issues, into the desert, into the landscape, into the problem of men and women. It’s really about this fantasy of escape from the binary system of oppositions into some new frontiers and new space. And that was possible for me to write, certainly because I felt it very strongly, the desire to escape.

~ Jonathan Allen Lethem, from Jonathan Lethem

The drama in three acts is everywhere. Even in Amazing Grace, where John Newton wrote that aphorism as “I once was lost, but now am found.” Act 1 is the innocence of pleading, “wait but what if I…,” and “couldn’t it just stay the way it was?” Act 1 is a little clump of cells quietly replicating with a single, calamitous, prime directive: multiply.

Like the impresario ringing down the curtain on an actor: “But I’ve only gotten through three acts… !” Yes. This will be a drama in three acts, the length fixed by the power that directed your creation, and now directs your dissolution. Neither was yours to determine. So make your exit with grace—the same grace shown to you.

~ Marcus Aurelius

Aurelius was working on his own life, writing solely for his personal benefit by reflecting on philosophy (and more.) The three acts of life clearly refer to childhood, adulthood, and twilight. (No, not the vampire series.)

Plans made in the nursery /
Can change the course of history /
Remember that

~ Martin L. Gore, from Shouldn’t Have Done That

Innocence: I was basted in music but I never grasped the importance of music. I never realized how much music there really was. I did get a tremendous amount from music. Then, somewhere along the way, loss! Music remained present, but it became an unintentional habit. I mindlessly consumed it as fast, junk food. Until recently.

Because it’s elitist, an initiation into arcana. Because it’s nostalgic, rowing being a skill not much in demand in the industrial world. Because it’s fragile: The boat club is run on a shoestring, and the beat-up old boats held together by spit. Because it’s dangerous, and exercises the wits against the wind and the water. Because it’s a ritual. Because it’s redemption.

~ Barry Strauss

Today, I’ve come back to being intentional with music.

One example, is the current ritual around how I write 7 for Sunday. I begin by opening a blank document, and picking an album. I start the album, and by the time it’s finished I have a solid thing going. The first draft isn’t complete, but I can see what I’m creating, and that it’s going to be all downhill the rest of the way. Then, I pick a second album which invariably gets me through to the end of the first draft (and sometimes through a few rounds of editing too.)

The Anglo-Irish philosopher Iris Murdoch (1919-99) held the view that learning to attend to others, to look at them justly and lovingly, is our main moral project in life. What matters is that we see people (and everything else) as they really are – a task as difficult as it is simple. The main difficulty is presented by our ‘fat relentless ego’, as she puts it. We usually look at the world in such a way as to protect and flatter ourselves. […] According to Murdoch, we have two difficult jobs to do: one is to get rid of these filters, and the other is to look again at the world in front of us. Getting better at one job will help with getting better at the other.

~ Eva-Maria Düringer, from For Iris Murdoch, being understanding is life’s moral project

Innocence. Loss. Redemption. Frankly, that’s the reason I keep dragging my ass to the keyboard to write.

Until next time, thanks for reading.

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