Wordsmith Sermonizes the Meaning of Life in 4 Lines
- John Muir
Repeatedly propel, through means of external manual propulsion mechanisms, your transport, designed and manufactured specifically to convey humanoid bipeds with maximum buoyancy and expediency, effortlessly along the current of the naturally occurring flowing transparent solution. Ecstatically multiplied fourfold, Human Existence is merely a surrealistic hallucination.He offers a challenge for readers to guess what popular nursery rhyme he reworked.
Don't know what it is? Highlight here:
Gently down the stream,
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.
That's it. And from those simple lines, all of life's beauty, meaning, mysteries, and secrets unveil themselves. Life's complexities summed up in harmonious simplicity.
This children's song is actually a favorite nursery rhyme of mine to explicate. You see, the boat represents your life....your mortal body as you travel down the stream of life; 3 rows to signify the 3 stages of life: infancy, adulthood, and old age. "Gently", because you have to take it easy on yourself and enjoy the scenery- or risk having life pass you by; 4 "merrily's" to compliment the 3 "rows", because after old age, after you "die", there is still more to be joyful about, beyond death; and "merrily" because a sense of humor is essential in life. "Life is but a dream", because life is an illusion; when you die, you wake up; when you get to the end of your journey, it's not over yet. The afterlife offers more adventures; when you dock your "boat", there are heavenly landscapes and Elysian fields waiting to be explored....
See? All of life's secrets and mysteries summed up in just a few lines from a nursery rhyme you learned as a small child.
new landscapes but in having new eyes.
- Marcel Proust
This is perhaps the most important post I will have ever made on my blog. Reflect upon it, and have a glorious Sunday.
posted by The WordSmith from Nantucket at 2/03/2007 11:41:00 PM
13 Comments:
That's it then, I can stop looking for the meaning of life. Phew, I thought I was going to have to sit through another one of those Monty Python movies and try to understand what the heck they were saying. Thanks Word you're OK ;-)
I don't know why, but I can't get the link to work, so I have no earthly idea what the nursery rhyme is. I'll try again later.
Uh....Gayle: What link? There's a period that's linkable if you squint real hard.
And did you try highlighting the blank spaces? There is text there. You have to use your superduperdecoder cursor.
My reply follows in similar code:
Don't you agree???
Ptooey!
Oh. Duh! I'll give it a shot!
Well, Wordsmith, I'm glad I came back. That may very well be the most important post you ever wrote. It certainly does give one something to think about. It's simplicity itself, and yet most of us miss it.
Well, it's like I have always said:
C'est ne pas?
ah...just what the doctor ordered Word..thanks!
Good post Wordsmith. I like it alot.
And Mike, must you use French?
Great post Word. I discovered, long ago, the TRUE meaning of life. Since all of you are most deserving I will lay it all out there for you. Ready? Ok here goes:
Simple huh?
If you truly want to know the meaning of life, read the book that begins with these three words: "In the beginning..."
Yes Curt, but you left out
Post a Comment
<< Home