Friday Fun Flier VI
Some inspiration from Narnia (and a confession that I'm obsessed with Muhammad Ali)
Quote of The Week:
“If you ever think about me, and you ain't gonna do no revolutionary act, forget about me. I don't want myself on your mind if you're not going to work for the people.”
-Fred Hampton
On To The Flier!
I owe CS Lewis a debt of gratitude. Without his writing, I wouldn't exist to write The Well-Lived Life. The first conversation my parents ever had was about Mere Christianity. My Dad saw my Mom reading it, puffed out his chest, and walked over to ask:
“How is that book?”
My Mom (after giving him elevator eyes) shot back with this spicy line:
“You know, I think CS Lewis is like a modern-day Apostle Paul.”
Mmm. Can You Feel the sexual tension there? This may not seem like a line to us, but in their world of 1980s Evangelical Christianity, this was like saying “did it hurt? When you fell from heaven?” That line worked. I'm living proof of it.
Almost 30 years later, C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia are some of my favorite books. I re-read them at least once a year. I have two Narnia-related tattoos. The cover of my seven-book copy is falling off, and the pages are dog-eared and highlighted. Every time I journey back to Narnia, I bring important lessons back with me.
Today I wanted to highlight my favorite scene in all of the books. It’s in The Magician's Nephew, the book that Lewis wrote as a Narnia prequel. It's the reason that a bell and a hammer are inked on my right shoulder, with the phrase “make your choice” written on a ribbon.
Two children named Digory and Polly find their way out of our world and into an abandoned, burned-out world with a dying red sun (not Narnia). In a crumbling castle, they find a great hall with a row of kings and queens frozen in time. As they walk down the line, the expressions on the faces of the paralyzed rulers change from kind to cruel. At the very end is the cruelest-looking queen, who will end up becoming the White Witch of Narnia. But at that moment, she is just a statue. There is no story yet, only potential.
At the end of the hall, there is a stone pedestal with a golden bell and hammer on top. On the side of the platform is engraved my favorite poem in the English language:
“Make your choice, adventurous stranger,
strike the bell, and bide the danger,
or wonder till it drives you mad,
what would have followed if you had.”
Digory picks up the hammer and strikes the bell. All hell breaks loose. The White Witch wakes up (spoilers) raises hell in our world for a while, and eventually finds her way into Narnia.
I think about this scene a lot. Digory, at that moment, can’t help himself. He’s curious. He strikes the bell because, as the poem says, he will spend the rest of his life wondering if he doesn’t.
In the immediate, what he’s done seems like a bad choice. But without Digory ringing that bell, we don’t have any of the stories that follow. Digory never becomes Professor Kirke, the wisest man in the books. The Pevensies never step through the wardrobe to help Aslan triumph over The White Witch. The Dawn Treader never sails.
We don’t always know that our actions will be helpful. But the only way the story can progress is if we act. The only blank pages in our lives are written through inaction! How many of us are locked in time, afraid to strike the bell? Our world teaches us to be safe, to avoid risks. To avoid vulnerability and dangerous ideas.
If my life philosophy could be summed up in one sentence, it would be: ring the f*ck*ng bell.
Create. Fall in love. Jump off of things. Paint fruit. Order dishes you've never heard of. Get off your devices and into nature. Ask questions that may not have easy answers. Talk to beautiful strangers. Pet all the dogs. Burn your televisions. Make authority figures explain themselves to you. Misbehave (within moral boundaries).
As Ryan Holiday says:
“Every human being already has a terminal diagnosis.”
We all have limited time to have a human experience, and much of it is stolen by bureaucracy and the jobs we have to work. A full one-third of it is lost to sleep (something that endlessly aggravates me). Our own personal time is so limited, and we waste so much of it on screens, doing nothing.
Get up and strike your bell. Unless the bell is rung, there will be no story.
What I’m reading this week:
(a quick note, since I don’t want to support Amazon, going forward, all my book recommendations will be links to Thriftbooks.com, my favorite book utopia. If possible, I would prefer you tried a local bookstore before ordering from Thriftbooks):
1. The Obstacle is The Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday
”There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means.”
This bestseller had been on my list for a while, and it did NOT disappoint. It only takes a few hours to read, and it’s jam-packed with stories of great people from history who illustrate the truth of this Marcus Aurelius quote:
“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
If you’d like to know how Amelia Earhart, Ulysses S. Grant, and Theodore Roosevelt used their obstacles as advantages, this is the book for you.
2. Ali: A Life by Jonathan Eig
Anyone who knows me well has, at some point, heard me ramble on about my love of Muhammad Ali. He was so inspiring! Larger than life, funny, fast-talkin’ (until Parkinson’s set in), and a true warrior for civil rights.
I’m about halfway through this biography by Eig, and it’s been fabulous. He gives you the feeling that you’re ringside at Ali’s fights, hearing the roar of the crowd, the hiss of the punches.
Before I started reading this book, (and watched the documentary that I’ll recommend below) I had no idea that when Ali was trying to reclaim his title (after it was stolen from him by the U.S. government), he returned to nature, and trained, among other methods, by chopping down trees. Here’s a famous interview clip of Ali in the woods. I must have watched the last 30 seconds of this clip close to 20 times this weekend. I love that he just cuts the interview short and walks away, saying “now I’ll see ya I now I gotta go chop down some more trees out here somewhere.”
If you’re interested in learning more about this great man, this biography is a one-stop-shop.
What’s Worth Watching:
1. Judas and The Black Messiah
I’m ashamed to admit, I’d never heard of Fred Hampton before this movie came out, and now he’s one of my favorite American figures. The title is based on a line from a J.Edgar Hoover directive issued in 1968:
"Prevent the rise of a 'messiah' who could unify and electrify the militant black nationalist movement.”
Fred Hampton looked to be that rising messiah. Here’s a clip of him speaking, if you’re looking to get FIRED UP today. Because he was a young, charismatic leader in the Black Panther party, he was domestically assassinated in Chicago by the FBI in 1969. They smashed in his door in the middle of the night and fired 99 shots.
This movie captures Hampton’s legacy beautifully, and it’s one of the most chilling things I’ve seen in years. I love revolutionaries. I love people who stand against authority and aren’t afraid to die for what they believe.
Here are two quotes that illustrate his conviction:
"Everything would be alright if everything was put back in the hands of the people, and we're going to have to put it back in the hands of the people."
“If you ever think about me, and you ain't gonna do no revolutionary act, forget about me. I don't want myself on your mind if you're not going to work for the people.”
2. What’s My Name
This is an electrifying two-part Muhammad Ali documentary.
The man was a force of nature. There’s so much to be gained from studying his legacy. This documentary is where I got the tree-chopping clip from above, and it’s where I learned that he returned to nature when he needed to reclaim his title.
I didn’t realize how hated he was in his day. I’ve always thought of him as a beloved American icon.
This documentary traces Ali’s life from his humble roots to his battle with Parkinson’s. It’s a triumph.
A few of my favorite Ali quotes:
1) “I done wrestled with an alligator,
I done tussled with a whale;
handcuffed lightning,
thrown thunder in jail;
only last week,
I murdered a rock,
injured a stone,
hospitalised a brick;
I'm so mean I make medicine sick.”
2) “A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.”
3) “I wish people would love everybody else the way they love me. It would be a better world.”
And finally, a fantastic Podcast (And a comedy album):
1. Through the biography I’m reading, I discovered that Muhammad Ali RECORDED A COMEDY ALBUM!!!!
#/media/File:I_Am_the_Greatest_(Cassius_Clay_album).jpg){kind=link}
This was a fanboy moment for me. This album was delivered to a live studio audience. It’s called I Am The Greatest, and it’s a fantastic use of 45 minutes. In large part, it’s trash-talking poetry about his upcoming fight with Sonny Liston. Here’s an excerpt, but no justice is done unless you listen to him reading it:
This is the legend of Cassius Clay,
The most beautiful fighter in the world today,
He talks a great deal and brags indeed-y
of a muscular punch that's incredibly speedy.
The fistic world was dull and weary.
With a champ like Liston, things had to be dreary.
Then someone with color, someone with dash, brought fight fans running with cash.
This brash young boxer is something to see.
And the heavyweight championship is his destiny.
This kid fights great. He's got speed and endurance.
But if you sign to fight him, increase your insurance.”
2. The Judas and The Black Messiah Podcast
This podcast follows the true story of Fred Hampton, as a companion to the movie. It includes audio clips from his life, interviews with the people who were there when he was murdered, and insights from his son, who’s carrying on his legacy.
Go forth and RING YOUR BELLS.