one of the best love poems.
Birthday present from Confucius: So I’m 70 years old now. So what?! Really – so what? How should I react? Emotional? Annoy me that I’m an old fart now? But I was an old fart last year too – and the year before. Don’t even think about it? This is difficult because our culture is such that we pay attention to round birthdays. Since I don’t celebrate it, there are no gifts. This Zen Buddhist joke at the right fits very well:
Birthday present from Confucius
And yet I received a gift, or so I thought: from Confucius. Confucius created a saying for every special birthday. I was never particularly close to Confucius – I like the Daoists like Lao Zi and Zhuangzi more. But I had in the back of my mind that he would have said, “At 70 you can do whatever you want.” And that seems to me to be a pretty useful saying. Somehow blessed from above. But now that I’ve looked it up, I realize I remembered something wrong. The saying goes: “At seventy, follow your heart’s desires and do not exceed the rules”. (七十而从心所欲，不逾矩).
Come on! Should I, who have always been a non-conformist and made up my own rules, now give in to my old age?
Self-reflection
I don’t even adapt to the art world. My artistic work hardly fits into the boxes that the market expects from artists and neither does my appearance and demeanor. I’m one of those people who generally never get stopped at customs – and I used to travel a lot. I look like an elementary school teacher or more like a village priest after work. Which can make life easier. Should I wear a baseball cap backward so I can pass as an artist?? If I wanted to get a “species-appropriate” look, it would look something like the example below on the left. But that’s not so practical in everyday life. Even with the cuts on the right it doesn’t get any better.
I already risk being perceived by some of my readers as a petty-bourgeois moralist. But adapted, no. And it stays that way. Confucius or not.
70
70 is just a number, nothing more. If we don’t interpret anything into it, it remains an arbitrary number. Some people are old at 30, some are young at 80. Decades ago I asked myself: When will I define myself as old? Essentially nothing has changed in the answers since: If I stop asking questions or accept other people’s opinions without questioning. When I stop being curious. If I think I already know everything. When I don’t pursue any interests and therefore get bored and kill time.
In this regard, I can be quite satisfied with my “software” and I consider it as a birthday present. The hardware is a different issue and would need more attention. On the other hand, if you wake up in the morning at 70 and don’t feel any pain, it’s a pretty sure sign that you’re dead. Furthermore, I have never aspired to be the healthiest person in the cemetery when the time comes.
But of course, and here we are back on the topic, one or two reflections arise. And the underlying theme is gratitude. I almost wanted to write about it in more detail.
Status Quo
Even though I’m still very active professionally, the area of art has gained the upper hand again in recent years.[1] Even though I don’t want to miss the other activities, this is the one that is most important to me. Whether my work is good or not good is secondary. Who can really evaluate that? But what is very important to me is the question of whether I will develop further and, from my point of view, I can answer that in the affirmative. For me, it’s less about the technical area than about the philosophical one, and that of course goes hand in hand with the development of the personality.
A recent painting expresses my state of being quite well, even though it wasn’t intended as such when I painted it. Although I don’t bathe in the light of my wisdom – which wouldn’t be unpleasant for me, I feel embedded in the micro and macrocosm, I feel well-balanced, and I’m becoming less and less attached to details. And of course, I’m not so gaga yet as not to know that sunshine is followed by rain. But I feel better equipped for it than before. At least that’s what I tell myself.
One of the best Love Poems as Birthday Present
For whatever reason, I have been working on love poems for some time. It won’t surprise anyone that my favorites weren’t the ones with heart, pain, and the scent of roses. I was rather interested in the ones that go beyond what one would think of ad hoc for love poems.
If I were to create a top ten of love poems that I know, this one by the Austrian poet Erich Fried would be the absolute long-term favorite.[2]
| What It Is It is nonsense says reason It is what it is says love It is calamity says calculation It is nothing but pain says fear It is hopeless says insight It is what it is says love It is ludicrous says pride It is foolish says caution It is impossible says experience It is what it is says love | Was es ist Es ist Unsinn sagt die Vernunft Es ist was es ist sagt die Liebe Es is Unglück sagt die Berechnung Es ist nichts als Schmerz sagt die Angst Es ist aussichtslos sagt die Einsicht Es ist was es ist sagt die Liebe Es ist lächerlich sagt der Stolz Es ist leichtsinnig sagt die Vorsicht Es ist unmöglich sagt die Erfahrung Es ist was es ist sagt die Liebe |
footnotes:
[1] I continue to trade in antiques and collectibles and am very active on the stock market – both of which are time-consuming activities. And both of them don’t let me lose my grip on “reality”. Especially through stock trading, I have to deal with topics such as economics and politics and can check my assessments.
[2] Erich Fried (1921 – 1988) was an Austrian-born poet, writer, and translator. He initially became known to a broader public in both Germany and Austria for his political poetry, and later for his love poems.
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