Daily High Culture 13: The Echo of Weariness and Pain

Classical Rebellion

Daily High Culture 13 “He heard the choir of voices in the kitchen echoed and multiplied through an endless reverberation of the choirs of endless generations of children and heard in all the echoes an echo also of the recurring note of weariness and pain. All seemed weary of life even before entering upon it. And he remembered that Newman had heard this note also in the broken lines of Virgil, GIVING UTTERANCE, LIKE THE VOICE OF NATURE HERSELF TO THAT PAIN AND WEARINESS YET HOPE OF BETTER THINGS WHICH HAS BEEN THE EXPERIENCE OF HER CHILDREN IN EVERY TIME.” James Joyce A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The context for this quote is Stephen Dedalus, the primary character, considering the voices of his younger siblings singing during their morning meal. The mention of Newman is a reference to the writings of Cardinal Newman about the Roman poet Virgil. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was published in 1916. Now, 100 years later, there is a different tone to the voices of many children. For all the drawbacks of modern mass culture and society, the echo of weariness and pain is fading from the voices of children and even some adults. For many of us, the biggest problems we face are self-imposed. It’s a strange habit we have. Vast swaths of humanity have access to what amount to leisure and luxury. More people have stable shelter and food than ever before. Yet what are we doing with all of our free time and extra resources? Sometimes it feels as though we are unconsciously creating obstacles for ourselves because so many of the traditional obstacles such as disease and hunger have been erased. I am not going to go on a tirade about not fulfilling our potential and squandering resources. The significant diminishment of weariness and pain is enough. The reduction of disease is miraculous. The abundance of food, even if it isn’t considered “good food”, is astounding. I think the next step for many of us is to stop creating problems for ourselves. That would be a huge leap forward in fulfilling the potential which is in and around all of us. If we remove the dams from the river of our potential, we don’t need to teach the river how to flow. My belief is that we are still experiencing the momentum of endless generations of weariness and pain. We have yet to adapt ourselves to the ease which modern mass culture and society provide. This new experience of ease is still foreign to us. We just aren’t ok with life being easy. I am not saying that there is no suffering in the world. There are clear and disturbing cases of abuse and violence. However, practices that were once thought to be normal are now considered criminal. I can look at my own family as an example. The way my parents disciplined me was considered fair and normal at the time. In today’s culture, it would border on child abuse. The way my parents were disciplined when they were children would probably be considered criminal in our current society. At the time, it was standard parenting. In spite of the suffering and abuse which we do witness, the standard concept of how much pain and suffering parents are allowed to inflict upon their children has changed drastically for the better. The piece of music for this quote is In Paradisium from Faure’s Requiem. Paradise, here represented as the New Jerusalem is a place where weariness and pain pass away. The chorus of children has found their rest as opposed to the chorus of children in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. In keeping with our theme of children, the painting is by Lucas Cranach the Younger; Christ Blessing the Children. If we allow for the traditional image of Jesus as the Prince of Peace, we can view this painting as children being blessed by peace. 2,000 years later, that is still the goal but we’re closer now than we’ve ever been. If we stop creating problems that might not otherwise exist, I believe we will get even closer. www.classicalrebellion.com