Desiderata Dissected (Part I – Go Placidly….)

“Go Placidly amidst the noise and haste and remember what peace there may be in silence”
If silence were a natural resource, it would have been depleted a while back. Without it, there would be no way for anyone to go unruffled. Caught in the cross roads of cramped up time, unending tasks, and stress filled days, silence seems to be more of a luxury, a negative upgrade from being a scarcity.
Way back in 1927, Max Ehrman wrote this prose about “things desired”. Of German descent, a lover of wisdom and a follower of legal matters, he studied both Philosophy and Law at Harvard University. During that time, the Nazis were acquitted for political murder in Vienna, Trotsky was expelled from the Russian Communist Party while Manhattan and New Jersey were connected through the the opening of the Holland Tunnel. And then he said, “Go placidly amidst the noise and haste…”
Fast forward, 21st century lingo, “wassup man, wassup!” (high 5’s, low 5’s and a lot of woot woot). “Well, you know…the other day…it was like ahh..like it was ahh…ya…cool, cool, that was really hot”. “Hey, what did you just say?” “Focus, focus (points to the eye)…you don’t listen. Pay attention”.
And the chatter goes on without anything said. More often than oftentimes, the repetition of redundant thoughts expressed in different ways is better than the empty clutter of urban jargon chanted in chaotic dissonance. The former may be a series of biased cliches but the latter is clearly an extention of restlessness. “Go placidly amidst the noise and haste…”
Why hurry? We only have a single lifetime and pass through a day just once. We spend a second like it was over and consume time like it was gone. Yet we seem to forget that time is but the extension of movement, the shadow of motion, the consequence of life. Time is because life is. When life is not, time is not. Yet when we rest, when we deliberately hit the pause and allow our awareness to watch the movement around us, we extend our time and see our life in slow motion. In that instance, the willful act of doing nothing becomes our best decision of doing something. When God told Adam and Eve not to eat of the fruit from the tree of good and evil, perhaps He was teaching them that there was a need just to sit and relax; that they had no need to eat that much; that there is somewhere in existence when non-motion was okay…until the wily serpent entered and told them to simulate God, the only motion Who needs no pause. From the garden to the urban jungle, from silence to violence, from peace to havoc, we unlearned to “shut up” and added more noise to the noise we created. What a mess!
“Remember what peace there may be in silence…” At the end of the long story, our departed loved ones teach us that the last chapters of their existence should actually be the serious beginning of our own. When we witness them in silence shoved ten feet below sea level, we are shocked that they can no longer scold us for scowling, sobbing or screaming. We are surprised by that our attempt to communicate returns to us with the echo of our own monologue. And though we may say goodbye incessantly, throw flowers to their graves, release the colorful balloons that float through the atmosphere, it is only their silence that we will hear. It is there peace that comes back. And that is good, as good as God designed it to be. For it is through that silence that we revive peace – the peace of non-motion, that certain stillness, the quiet pose, the peace that gives without truly being able to take anything back. What else can we give the dead? They give us their silence. We offer them prayers, but do they really need them? Why not just stand or sit still, and listen to what no longer is, the meaningful absence of a soul at peace.
“…remember what peace there may be in silence”
Yes, that peace, the one that does not argue for the sake of arguing, the one that does not speak for the sake of speaking, and the one that does not fidget or squirm like a worn out worm. For peace is not just the final absence of any war. It is also the planned condition of opting out from deliberate actions when the choices of not doing may result into something positive. It is something like calling out from work because of a ball game only to get the flu and the bed calls us instead. Then, while inner turmoil takes place, and antibodies battle against the antigens, as temperature rises and as we feel discomfort, the cycle wanes and then silence comes back. Peace to a battered body abused by the fake necessity of over working. Peace to the ennui of a mind bogged down by the tasks at work.
The natural rhythm of the universe, although dependent upon its revolution in space, longs for that point when time did not exist. And so do we. At the end of our growth, when cells cease from multiplying and systems simmer back to its stillness, we will have no choice but to rest in peace, that which we fear and run from. But then it is also true that prior to that end, our beginning also came from peace, that moment when we were not yet, the time before our being became. And between those two points is the ability we have received to choose and stand by our choices. “Go placidly amidst the noise and haste. Remember what peace there may be in silence”.
Haste, the artificial determination to get things done is ineffective, inefficient and inept. It is when we rush things that we mess up. Going against the normal course of motion causes the senseless violence around us. When we crave for space that does not belong to us, when we claim land belonging to others, when we seek to own what others worked for, and when we fail to do things in their proper sequence, haste will equate with waste, the dissonant thorn of a placid life. When we remember peace amidst that waste, our silence elevates humanity into another sphere.
Max Ehrman was actually ignored during his time, an era marked by the turbulence of that history. In 1971, a lawsuit took place since “Success Unlimited” published “Desiderata” without consent from Ehrman’s Estate. The court of appeals ruled that copyright has been forfeited since the poem was authorized for publication without a copyright notice in the 1940’s. And from that time on, the poem became a public domain. Finally, that which Ehrman desired found its way through the silence of posters, banners, greeting cards, inspirational texts and other means that help bring back the peace we all need.
Go placidly then and read. Ruminate those thoughts in silence. And in that silence, go in peace. Be at peace. More will follow.