Pathway To Infinity

Tonight I just finished reading Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins, for the second time. The first was in December of 2004. I will have to say that the story is very strange, but very interesting. I got a lot out of the book the first time I read it, but I read it to fast, this time I was able to digest it a little bit better. The entire book isn't soaked in deep thought like the 2 parts I am going to share, so don't let that scare you away, or think I'm turning into a hippy. I just wanted to share the parts that for some reason jumped out at me, and made me go back and re-read them. The first paragraph is what caught my eye the first time I read the book. What made it stand out was that I felt it related to me, the person I was, and some of the things I was realizing I needed to work on. The last 3 paragraphs jumped out at me tonight as I was reading them. I haven't quite figured out why yet, but it will come to me with some deep meaning, I am sure.

"Reality is subjective, and there's an unenlightened tendency in this culture to regard something as "important" only if 'tis sober and severe. Sure and still
you're right about your Cheerful Dumb, only they're not so much happy as lobotomized. But your Gloomy Smart are just as ridiculous. When you're unhappy, you get to pay a lot of attention to yourself. And you get to take yourself oh so very seriously. Your truly happy people, which is to say, your people who truly like themselves, they don't think about themselves very much. Your unhappy person resents it when you try to cheer him up, because that means he has to stop dwellin' on himself and start payin' attention to the universe. Unhappiness is the ultimate form o' self-indulgence."


Meanwhile, we are beleaguered. We hold the pass. The fragile hold the pass precariously, hiding behind boulders of ego and dogma. The heroic hold the pass a bit more tenaciously, gracefully acknowledging their follies and absurdities, but insisting, nevertheless, on heroism. Instead of shrinking, the hero moves ever toward life. Life is largely material, and there is no small heroism in the full and open enjoyment of material things. The accumulation of material things is shallow and vain, but to have a genuine relationship with such things is to have a relationship with life and, by extension, a relationship with the divine.
To physically overcome death - is that not the goal? - we must think unthinkable thoughts and ask unanswerable questions. Yet we must not lose ourselves in abstract vapors of philosophy. Death has his concrete allies, we must enlist ours. Never underestimate how much assistance, how much satisfaction, how much comfort, how much soul and transcendence there might be in a well-made taco and a cold bottle of beer.
The solution to the ultimate problem may prove to be elemental and quite practical. Philosophers have argued for centuries about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but materialist have known all along that it depends on whether they are jitterbugging or dancing cheek to cheek.