Friday Fun Flier V

A whimsical anecdote about breath, an amazing book, and two perspective-switching podcast episodes.

Image by Muhittin KARABULUT from Pixabay

Almost 10 years ago, when I was working at a retirement home as a dishwasher, my co-workers and I were given a piece of advice from a man named Ernie on his 103rd birthday. I didn't know Ernie very well. He was quiet. A large piece of his jaw had been replaced in an operation several years before. Speaking was a challenge for him, but he was always smiling. He'd be laughing at his table during dinner time, as one of his friends spun a joke. I’d never talked to him before his 103rd birthday. 

It was a beautiful occasion. Ernie was a great-great grandparent, so five generations of people sat around his table, with Ernie at the head of all he'd helped create. Once the celebratory roast had been eaten, it was time for dessert and a song. The retirement home manager brought him a cupcake with one candle (though she made a half-hearted joke at the time about how one hundred and three candles would be too expensive, it was a good thing Ernie didn't get a whole cake, because he extinguished the candle with spit). 

Right after he doused the candle, my manager asked: 

“Do you have any advice?” 

 To which Ernie (who was hard of hearing) said “heh?!”  

“DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE!” She repeated. 

“Yeah!” Ernie slurred. “Just keep on breathin’”. 

At the time, I was disappointed. Even at the age of 18, words were my lifeblood. I had been on the edge of my seat when my manager asked him for advice, so ready to receive his wisdom that it hurt. That answer seemed like a cop-out.

It took me years of travel, heartbreak, obsession, mistakes, and forgiveness before I realized how elementally profound that statement was. Ernie was born in 1908, which means he lived through World War I (as a small child), the Great Depression, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, the Dotcom crash, the Y2K Panic, 9/11, and the 2008 housing crisis. Those are just the tip of the iceberg against the backdrop of 103 years of life. By the time I met him, he'd outlived three wives, without being divorced once. And looking back on all of that, he told us “just keep on breathin’”.

Taken out of context, “just keep on breathin’” could lead you to believe that Ernie lived a boring life, as a passive observer, just letting things happen to him. He did not. From conversations with his daughter, I found out that Ernie had been a barnstormer in the early nineteen-hundreds. He'd been a trick pilot when planes were held together with little more than hope, then went on to serve as a pilot in World War II. 

Quotes don't need to be cryptic Zen koans to change your life. They just have to mean something to you. “Just keep on breathin’” reminds me of “this too shall pass.” It reminds us that most of the world is outside our control. That we must take care of ourselves. “Just keep on breathin’” is something to keep in mind as the chaos remains chaotic.

In the age of information, the world feels overwhelming. Many people feel paralyzed by the scope of the problems we have to face (I'm often included in that group). Just keep on breathin’ brings us back to basics. it reminds us that we are not responsible for the world. We are responsible for our corner of it. That's what we can do. Don't let life take your breath. Just keep on breathin’, through the anxiety, through the chaos, through the world’s frustrations. You can’t fight a warrior’s battles without your breath. 

---

Quote of the Week:

“Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil. But for my part I have long perceived the nature of good and its nobility, the nature of evil and its meanness, and also the nature of the culprit himself, who is my brother (not in the physical sense, but as a fellow creature similarly endowed with reason and a share of the divine); therefore none of those things can injure me, for nobody can implicate me in what is degrading. Neither can I be angry with my brother or fall foul of him; for he and I were born to work together, like a man’s two hands, feet or eyelids, or the upper and lower rows of his teeth. To obstruct each other is against Nature’s law – and what is irritation or aversion but a form of obstruction.”

-Marcus Aurelius

---

What I’m Reading: 

I'm so excited to talk about this. When I finished re-reading East of Eden, I found out that John Steinbeck had rewritten and published a collection of Arthurian legends, called The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights. It's a rewriting of Thomas Malory's original King Arthur stories.

Image Credit Goodreads

I am loving it. Steinbeck modernized the language, but the tone of the stories remain the same. My favorite quote so far is: 

“As Sir Pellinore tried to move his mount from between them, sir Ontelake drove his sword into the horse’s side and killed it and shouted, “Now you will be afoot as we are.” 

Sir Pellinore stepped lightly from his fallen beast and drew his sword, and he said bitterly, “That was a cowardly thing to do. Guard your health, my friend, for I have something here for a man who stabs a horse,” and with that Pellinore loosed a swinging sword cut that sliced through Ontelake’s helm and split his head down to the chin and he fell dead.” 

I'd never read the original Arthurian stories before, and I am blown away by how weird (and often funny) they are. Merlin is such a strange character, always popping in and out of stories and talking about cryptic prophecies. Arthur is much more of a complicated figure than the white knight he’s been made into in modern movies and shows (at one point he puts a bunch of month-old babies in a boat and pushes them out to sea because of a prophecy that one of them will overthrow him). 

This book is a look into a different time, without having to slog through the language of that time. Highly recommended.

---

What I re-listened to (and want to share):

Two fabulous episodes of Revisionist History called The Foot Soldier of Birmingham and Miss Buchanan's Period of Adjustment.

Both of these are centered around the question: “Why do we insist on turning every civil rights victory into a fairy tale?” These two episodes are a flipping of our historical perspective, and a reminder that real change is gritty, and takes down-in-the-trenches tough choices to accomplish. I never learned in school how poorly Brown vs. Board of Education was implemented. It’s a tragic story, but well worth your time. Malcolm Gladwell at his finest. 

---

A quick correction:

In last week’s Friday Fun Flier, I said that Sunscreen was written by Baz Luhrmann. That was a mistake. Baz Luhrmann produced the background music, but the words were written by Mary Schmich in the Chicago Tribune in 1997.

---

That’s all folks! Keep on breathin’ (at least until next week). If you’ve been enjoying these, and you think that a friend or two could benefit from reading The Well-Lived Life, I’d appreciate a share!

Thanks for reading, and have a wonderful week.

Love, Aaron.