Saints

Cicero wants to become a saint of the everyday. That’s what she said once. There are such people. The long term unemployed. The mentally ill. Who aren’t part of the world. Who lives in corners and nooks and crannies.

Like, with their mums.

Maybe.

On benefits?

Living how they can. Getting by. Who aren’t in gainful employment, or whatever. Who aren’t doing anything. Who aren’t, like occupied. Who are just kind of adrift. But willingly so. Like, happily so.

They sound kinda helpless. Good for nothing.

Sure – happily good for nothing. Just accepting that they’re good for nothing. Who are just immune to trying to get along. Make a meaningful contribution to society, or whatever. Like children. Or like mentally backward people.

You’re romanticising the, like, mentally ill. Like, suffering.

You don’t have to suffer, if you’re like that. Or it could be a sweet suffering. An endurable suffering. Where you just accept the things that happen to you. That befall you.

But you’d be totally dependent. Living off the state or off their parents or off someone. Off some handouts. God …

You wouldn’t feel yourself to be dependent – that’s the thing. You wouldn’t experience that. You’d just  do your own thing, and let the world do its own thing. You’d have your rituals and routines. You’d be in some weird state of grace. Like, immune or something. Above the world.

Is that what you’d like to be?

Is that what you’d like to be?

I wish I wasn’t so invested in all the bullshit. I wish I could just live separately. Like monks or nuns. Who have a pattern of life. Who hold the pattern. Who live alongside others who have likewise dissolved all ties to the world. Who’ve let them weaken. Until nothing holds you. Nothing earthly, anyway, There’s a beauty to that.

But wouldn’t you have to believe in stuff?

Maybe. But I think you could just live day to day, with all the big decisions taken for you. You’d have an instructor. An abbot or abbess, who’d look out for you. Tell you what to do. Warn you of temptations. Of, like, spiritual pitfalls – acadie, or whatever. Who could set you straight. Keep you on the path. And you’d be living within a greater Whole. You’d be part of order. Every day would be part of the ritual, part of the harmony …

Being a philosopher used to mean living a life like that. Living what you thought. Thinking from what you lived. Thought and life were one. The one grew out of another. There used to be all these philosophical schools, who’d just tell you how to live. Who’d give you rules for your betterment. Christianity was just one of those schools. There were Epicureans. Stoics. Cynics …

So start a school.

Maybe we have. Maybe that’s what we’re all doing out here at the coast.

A school of alcoholism.

Maybe that’s part of it.

 

Just to be part of the whole universe, doing it thing. Like, universing. Where your work’s part of that. Just the unfolding of some vast process. God’s will, or whatever. Reflecting a perfect congruity of laws. From heaven to earth. From up there to down here. Just living beautifully. Rightly. Living in the great Good. Being part of the realisation of the Good. Where your work is just part of the great unfolding. The great gift. Your work serving the Whole, part of the Whole. Sustained by the Whole. Unforced.

 

Most of all, I’d like to write. To have something to write and be able to write. Day after day. Where it’d come easily to you. Like keeping a journal. And you’d just live more and more deeply. You’d wear your groove into the ground. Follow your rounds. Do the allotted thing with care and tenderness and patience.

Just … instilling an order. Warding off all the distractions. Every day, just working – where it doesn’t even feel like work. Writing. And one day just melting into the next. A perfect rhythm of work. Beginning where you left off the previous day. Where you always know what to say, and how to say it. Where you’re never just scrabbling around in the dark.

And that’s your dream?

Writing as life. As a way of living. As a ritual. Where you always know what’s to be done. Where writing’s, like, a  total vocation. Something you live within. With perfect calm. Where it’s not work, but a way. A life. A good life, that isn’t wasted. Isn’t complicit …