Most of my life I’ve been searching for meaning.
There has to be an explanation for all of the discomfort that confounds humanity. Things just don’t make any sense. Nothing ever works out the way it should. Everything is twisted and crossed and at odds. I’ve looked everywhere, from the bottoms of bottles to the herbal and chemical aids unavailable at local markets. “Take 4 or 5,” the attending angel said, “if that doesn’t work take 4 or 5 more.” Well, that didn’t work either.
Occasionally, something will come close to being right and I have stop just to admire the symmetry. “Wow, it was almost there.” I think appreciating the beauty of a near miss. Of course, I remember it fondly as I watch the rest of the day go right off the rails.
People have jobs they hate. They trudge off to work, spend most of the day thinking about how miserable they are, then take their money and go home. Relationships fall apart, hearts break and nobody is happy for very long. Most people don’t even drive the car they want, they drive the car they can afford. It just doesn’t make any sense, and I’ve always thought there should be an explanation.
One day it hit me. Billy Joel explains how to live in his song, “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant.”
Everything about life is right there. Hope, vicarious dreams of perfect contentment, disappointment, despair and ultimate resolution, and the ability to carry on, all in one seven-minute thirty-five-second passion play. “From the high to the low to the end of the show…” for the rest of our lives.
“A bottle of red, a bottle of white, it all depends upon your appetite.” Smooth, easy, mellow, you can feel the tablecloths, see the tapers stuck in Chianti bottles, the smell of pizza, tomato sauce and garlic fill the air.
Then it goes, breakneck into the neatly marketed world we were sold. The American dream, blister packed complete with a beautifully designed flyer with all the empty promises they could apply using the latest digital offset printers. It was such a good sales job we actually believed it ourselves. I still know guys who are furious because their lives aren’t perfect. They expected more, they just didn’t count on the tears. Fortunately, I’ve been flawed and fucked up so long I never had to overcome that.
But, things happen.
When the money got tight they started to fight and they just didn’t count on the tears.
Nobody ever counts on the tears. They never warn you about the crap, but it comes. It hurts a lot more when it’s a surprise. Dealing with it or running from it are the choices, choose wisely.
In the end,
The king and the queen went back to the green, but you can never go back there again.
Ask anybody who ever went home. It’s gone. In a real way, even the place it happened is gone. There is still a place, but it sure as hell isn’t the same place you left. I’m not saying history never repeats itself, it does. All the time, it’s on a loop. It just finds a new cast. Former contestants need not apply.
We always knew they would both find a way to get by.
That’s the secret. If you can find a way to get by you’re going to be alright. If you can find a way to be happy driving the car you can afford you are going to be fine. And if you can find a way to accept life on the terms it imposes you win. It’s that simple.
It wasn’t all lies there was enough truth to make the sale. They had to get us to buy in. It’s how they keep the machines running, with the bitter ashes of broken promises and shattered dreams. And we have to believe enough to find a way to lie to the next generation.
Maybe we really think they’re going to breakthrough. Maybe we just don’t want to tell them the truth. It’s hard to admit happiness lies in accepting less, it isn’t the American way.
Descartes never said it any better. Nietzsche couldn’t have made it any clearer. Certainly neither of them had the rhythm Billy Joel has.
I’ve listened to it several times the last couple of days and it seems perfect. For a long time, I’ve said that musicians are the new philosophers, the new literary giants. They have to take a life lesson, put it to a beat, and make it rhyme. And, they still have to give you the answers. So, “drop a dime in the box,” pick your anthem and forget your troubles for a while. You will be glad you did.
And if you run across Billy Joel tell him I said thanks.
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