To Live Overflowingly

In recent years, a particular ideal has seeped into my imagination-- gradually, but with ever more insistency.

I would call it "to live overflowingly."

I don't claim to embody this ideal, or even to approach this ideal. It's an ideal, something that captivates my imagination.

To put it simply (before I inevitably elaborate), it's to live with gusto, to cultivate a hearty appetite for life.

I love the line in Groundhog Day: "Well, sometimes I wish I had a thousand lifetimes." And the line in Tennyson's "Ulysses": "Life piled on life were all too little".

I think this ideal first took hold of me while reading about prolific authors. Prolific authors have always stirred my imagination. Authors such as Isaac Asimov or G.K. Chesterton or St. Augustine (five million words!) or Enid Blyton.

I love what Isaac Asimov said about himself: "Writing to me is simply thinking through my fingers."

(For about a year or two, around 2008/9, I did my utmost to imitate such literary workhorses. I wrote every spare moment I had-- mostly bad novels and short stories. Still, I hope all that writing did me some good. I remember that time fondly. I actually wrote a thousand words before breakfast once, quite deliberately. They were terrible words, but I still did it.)

Partly this ideal, like a lot of my ideals, is based on my father. I have so many memories of him filling page after page with his handwriting, half-listening to the radio, taking swigs from his cup of tea, a cigarette always in one hand, completely absorbed. Writing his magazine The Ballymun News, or letters to the newspapers, or letters to politicians, or a hundred other things. (I've never so much as taken a single puff on a cigarette in my life, and I rarely drink alcohol, but I like reading about chain-smoking, hard-drinking authors.)

I've always felt a certain disdain (undeserved, I'm sure) for the Proustian sensitivity which requires a cork-lined room, or some equivalent, in which to write. Real writers, it seems to me, write amidst the chaos of ordinary life. Perhaps this is the prejudice of someone who grew up in an overcrowded flat. I find silence a lot more difficult to endure than noise, and I always want to have something happening around me. (This, I think, has influenced many of my views-- for instance, my cultural nationalism and my love of holiday traditions, general elections, World Cups, etc. I love backrounds, atmospheres.)

The same gusto should apply to reading as applies to writing. Everybody loves (or should love) C.S. Lewis's famous words on this subject: "You can't get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me."

I wish fervently that I'd spent more time reading as a child, and as a teenager. I did read a fair amount, but how I wish I'd read more! There is so much to read. First of all, surely everybody should thoroughly know the Bible, even for purely cultural and secular reasons (so much more for religious reasons). I still wouldn't claim to have a thorough knowledge of the Bible. Then there are all the classics, not only of fiction but of non-fiction.

And poetry, of course. If you don't read poetry, as far as I'm concerned, you don't read. Try it, at least. Then try it again....

Without trying to take away anyone's intrinsic dignity as a human, I think we become more human the more cultured we are. We know more about the story in which we are characters.

But just sticking to the classics is tame, lame and a crying shame. The real joy of reading is to branch out on your own, to find neglected gems, or forgotten classics, or just that obscure volume you come across on a charity shop shelf. And, of course, to be willing to play the contrarian, and to proudly proclaim your love of some author or book everybody else sneers at. (I like the poetry of Rod McKuen. I really do, but I also enjoy like telling people that I do.)

And how can you just read books? There are old bound periodicals, big bulky film companions, self-published poetry pamphlets, comics, album liner notes...you get the picture...

And then there are films. How can you forget films?

One must not be the kind of person who watches films to pass the time, or to relax for a few hours, and who forgets about them as soon as the credits roll. This is monstrous, and reminds me of Oscar Wilde's words: "I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them."

One should watch every film anticipating a life-changing experience. Put down that phone. Stop talking. Behave as you would in a cinema. (It's a different matter if you have a film that you've seen a million times on in the background, as you do something else.)

And again-- you must watch bad films, too. If you only like good films, you don't like films. Bad films are essential, as are mediocre films.

There's television, of course. I'll let you off the hook with television-- it's probably better not to watch it at all. But if you do (and of course you do), once again, you have to take it seriously. As with films, it's not just the TV show itself that matters, but also its place in social and cultural history, what it tells us about the collective consciousness, and so forth.

To "live overflowingly" is to want to read all the books, see all the films, see all the shows. And, importantly, to talk about them, and to read about them, and to think about them.

Of course, you can't just read about life, or watch life. You have to live it, too-- partly so you can enjoy reading about it all the more.

To "live overflowingly" is to experience life with gusto, enthusiasm, and even a kind of rollicking hilarity. To be willing to make a fool of yourself-- something I've been very reluctant to do for most of my life, and that I regret almost more than anything.

It's to throw yourself into whatever work you have to do, even if that work is just scrubbing the floor. Go to it with a will, treat it almost like a party. Think how everything around you, everything you see and everything you use, is the product of somebody's work. Work is the service of God and also the service of country. But don't get sanctimonious about it, or forget to goof off every now and then. Try to find satisfaction in it.

To "live overflowingly" (I use the inverted commas to give the phrase more of a flourish) is to desire to experience everything life has to offer. Not in a demi-monde, bohemian, decadent kind of way, but with a Chestertonian, Bellocian, child-like eagerness.

And when I say "to experience everything life has to offer", I'm not talking about seeing Tibet or swimming with dolphins or anything like that. All that is good, if you can do it-- and if you don't become a bore about it, or a snob.

I'm thinking more of ordinary life-- simple things, humdrum things. Going on protest marches, or charity walks, or long walks just for the sake of it. Going to poetry readings. Playing card games. Telling ghost stories by candlelight. Playing pranks. Going to party conferences and book fairs and jumble sales. Sleeping in a haunted house or spending the night in a graveyard. Going blackberry-picking and carol-singing. Building snowmen and getting into snowball fights. Seeking out crowds, and lonely places. Hearing the chimes at midnight.

Or undertaking some record-breaking attempt for its own sake, like these guys.

Or seeking-out the least-visited train station in Britain, like this gentleman.

I spent all my youth as a homebody introvert, and I regret it bitterly.

As for making a fool of yourself, this is essential. Again, for the greatest part of my life, I was very concerned with preserving my own dignity. I've come to see this as anti-social, anti-life, anti-human. I've gradually come to realize how little I appreciated this trait in other people. I find it very hard to warm to such people-- especially people who won't give of themselves in conversation.

To "live overflowingly" is to be quick with a terrible joke, a raucous song, a pet theory, a spirited but good-humoured entry into a debate (is there any more misanthropic attitude than "live and let live?"), a madcap scheme, a flight into nostalgia, and so forth.

My ideal society is one where everybody is trying to (peacefully) convert everybody else to their religion, political beliefs, lifestyle, conspiracy theory, etc. etc. Not being insufferable about it, but joining in the great debate, the battle for the soul of society.

To "live overflowingly" should also involve a certain amount of hilarity.

I love this passage from Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis: "I fancy it was on a run with him in the sleet that I first discovered how bad weather is to be treated - as a rough joke, a romp."

But why stop at weather? Why not treat all life, where appropriate, as a "rough joke, a romp?" This seems a good way to encounter the inevitable inconveniences and indignities of life-- the broken-down car, the long queue, the manic day at work, the downpour, the bumpy hotel bed, the boring conversation, the eccentric who accosts who you in the supermarket, etc. etc. etc.

In this vein, I think some traditional Irish ballads strike the perfect note-- like The Rocky Road to Dublin, MacAlpine's Fusilier's, Finnegan's Wake, The Irish Rover, and any number of others.

A merry-go-round is a perfect visual representation of this whole view of life, especially those cartoon merry-go-rounds that show various famous or historical caricatures on the horses. For instance, the cover of One Spin on the Merry-Go-Round by Sean Duignan, a former Irish government press secretary.

To "live overflowingly" is to be the stereotypical embarrassing father, whether or not you are a father-- or even a man. Because embarrassing fathers make the world a better place.

My ultimate ambition, in this regard, is to become one of those mad people who carry around a placard with a Scripture quotation. I fantasize about carrying it the length and breadth of Ireland (or Dublin, at least), and bringing a moment of visual poetry into countless lives-- as well as evangelizing, of course.

I'm a long way from this, and I think it's most likely I'll never reach such giddy heights. 

I'm a long way from any of this, to be honest. But it's an ideal I feel compelled to share, to express.

Live overflowingly, friends!