Art Rosengarten

An Epiphany

There is an important distinction to be found between “the plainly obvious” and “the painfully stupid.” Peace as preferable to war, for instance, is plainly obvious; “holy war”—painfully stupid. Support for what supports you (the Earth, for example)—plainly obvious; abuse for what supports you (same example)—painfully stupid.

Accordingly, I’ve always been an admirer of the plainly obvious--those things large and small whose brilliance requires little in the way of deep thought or creativity much as the simple squeeze of lemon on a fresh bed of fried calamari, or the unrivalled champion of the pure no-brainer--the seedless watermelon! Genius. The plainly obvious satisfies because it carries succulent morsels of wisdom that are easy to swallow and digest. Yet I myself, if truth be told, am no stranger to the “painfully stupid” either, having left many a table with soufflé on my chin, mouth, and nose when, in point of fact, no egg had been served.
I mention this because several years ago during a routine shopping excursion to buy groceries, I became positively dumbstruck by what seemed to me an overwhelming realization of the plainly (and deliciously) obvious! There and then, departing through the supermarket’s automatic electric doors, I saw it plain as a white paper plate of non-fat vanilla yogurt: Life is an endless stream of exits and entrances, entrances and exits. It was astounding.

Admittedly, I had been recovering from the flu at the time (and no doubt small residues of medicines still lingered in my thought processes as they will)--but regardless, even today in my otherwise robust and fully recovered state, I stand by this vision all the same. Life is an endless stream of exits and entrances, “comings and goings” we might say. Think about it. We step out of one experience and into another, ad infinitum, as night becomes day and day becomes night. This bite we swallow, the next we must chew, and so it goes. It’s “out with the old and in with the new” right down to the very last mind moment. The Spanish say it best: “un clavo saca otro clavo” -- one nail drives out another. That’s what I’m talking about. Un clavo saca otro clavo.

We are two-stepping “nail drivers,” I believe, until death, and beyond that one suspects the hammer continues on with a certain “disembodied this” driving out a certain “disembodied that,” ad absurdum. On the journey through space and time that we might liken to an endless river (whether physical or purely psychological in nature), we are constantly and simultaneously both arriving and departing at every instance. The foot never steps into the same river twice, observed Heraclitus, and even should we try to sit this one out—say to put our feet up on the shore and roast a few marshmallows—it is but a temporary hiatus from the inevitable journey down stream.

A Matter Of Perspective

For some, each new arrival is an exciting adventure, each turn and bend of the river overshadowing one’s easy farewell to the waning moment—“Goodbye old one,” they briefly nod, “and don’t let the paddle pop you on the backstroke.” Often these “hello types” are the opportunists and optimists in the crowd—always enthused by the next “incoming” like a four year-old boy who has just discovered chocolate. They seize each moment like nothing ever happened before it.
Other types however, those who suffer innate tendencies toward loyalty and sentiment, often mourn their “outgoings” as such sweet sorrows and at times feel them as nearly crushing abandonments. When my two children were five and four, respectively, one afternoon I brought home a brand spanking new, hugely expensive, champagne gold, luxury SUV as a big surprise. “Kids, come see what daddy has in the driveway!” Their response was instantaneous and unambiguous: “Bring back the [old broken down] jeep immediately!” To hell with Dad’s shiny new dream machine… they simply needed more time to say goodbye to Ol’ Whitey. (Good for them, I thought, not so easily swayed by charming hellos).

For “goodbye types” goodbyes are rarely really good, and each sunny new “hello” burns somewhere deep in the nostrils like horseradish. Constitutionally, they would much prefer to compose an ode to rotting seaweed than rush the next wave. But the distinction between styles is ultimately irrelevant. Either way, one must come to terms with the condition of chronic nail replacement over moving waters--the dance that never stops, the riverboat ride that is always floating downstream.

The Marketplace

Precisely at the exact moment that we have exited one realm of experience (the Albertson’s on Encinitas Blvd., for example), simultaneously (and almost magically) we have also entered another realm, the Albertson’s parking lot. This fact, my friends, as you may have already concluded, is plainly obvious. But ask yourselves in all earnestness, which poultry product comes first--the chicken or the egg?

Halfway through the automatic electric doors an internal debate will never be settled as to which statement is the truer: A). I am now exiting the supermarket, or B). I am now entering the parking lot. The speed of change exceeds the window of our neuroprocessors. Transit happens in the phantom zones. Upon further reflection, however, it occurs to me that a third category may exist in addition to the aforementioned “hello” and “goodbye” types. These we may call the “walking zombie” types, those who frankly do not quite recognize in real time that they are even walking inside the supermarket to begin with. I must confess my own affinity with this category, often during midday hours between lunch and dinnertime. Occasionally walking zombie types are shocked from their stupors by sobering assaults from the outside such as “Excuse me sir, but this cash register is closed” or again, “Sorry sir, but those strawberries are made of plastic and just part of the display—try the produce section for the real thing, thanks” and so forth. Whether these walking zombies are indeed intrinsic types in their own right, or simply behavioral syndromes characteristic of modern American transit, remains open to further study.

But no matter. Once a new entrance has been fully and consciously stabilized (or an exit sufficiently lamented, horseradish and all) so that one clearly and unambiguously knows that one is indeed now standing outside the store and “inside” the parking lot, we might then give pause to consider what just happened? How did we get here anyway? At what point precisely did we enter the parking lot? At what point precisely did we exit the supermarket?

Even starting in the parking lot proper, forget the market even exists--the question looms at the base of all experience: at what point does this footstep give way to that footstep, when exactly does this thought give way to that sound, or perhaps to that thought, or to that visual stimulus, or to that itch on the neck? No matter how we cut it the conclusion is plainly obvious—experience is like a Barcelona carpenter—one nail is always driving out another.

This “realization” (if I may be so bold) of the plainly obvious was certainly a breakthrough for me at the time, though in fairness to my readers, I remember how painfully stupid it sounded years ago when my old high school buddy R. Z. (his name abbreviated here to protect his family) once displayed a similar exuberance over his own intensely personal epiphany-- “Hey you know what guys” he declared, with the eyes of a mystic, “You can never outgrow your own generation!” Huh?

Regardless, the phenomenon of continuous and unending transit—the human condition we might say-- can be tested every step of the way. In fact, one doesn’t even need the automatic electric doors to test it as the store’s interior alone contains the complete cosmology. You exit Aisle 1 and enter Aisle 2 hardly mindful of the great changes taking place in each moment. You grab two cans of creamed corn on Aisle 8, but leave eighteen cans untouched and shelf-bound. Is that not a “goodbye” of sorts? You saunter past the breakfast cereal, pie-filling products, and bags of granulated, brown, and cubed sugar until arriving at the rack of spices (if only to contemplate the arcane). On it goes, entering and exiting, exiting and entering like the single bathroom door of an all-night Cuban disco. We exist in a permanent condition of driving out nails with nails. On the continuous journey through space and time which we may liken to a river, we are constantly and simultaneously both arriving and departing at every instance. Now if you’ll please excuse me. Squeeze of lemon, anyone?