Paragon of animals

What a piece of work is man.

No. 135: Paragon of animals

Consider for a moment the many iterations of man, and it’s hard to avoid becoming rapt in contemplation concerning the standard of a life well-lived.

By iterations, I mean the stages of life, because like a flower, human life sprouts as quickly as it fades, assuming we aren’t plucked from the ground prematurely.

It starts with that first eternity of non-existence, then our coming into the world as a hardly-alive infant. We grow into a child, teenager, and adult. Then, one day, we end with that final return to the eternal, coming full circle.

Of course we’re aware that time, lots of it, has passed before us, and will pass after us. If we can’t say much about the periods in which we played no part, we can consider the many lives lived during that span of time. (Thank you, stories). Aside from differences in environment and culture, it seems safe to say the way man lived then, and will live later, is exactly as he lives now — with questions big and small, with a desire to do good and be good, with the awkward sense of being something small in the scheme of infinity. 

And in the face of so much grasping in the dark, it’s remarkable how full of beauty and meaning life is regardless. Some would argue it’s precisely life’s ending that allows for any beauty or meaning to exist. The nihilist would attribute that same fact to his absurdist despair. Whatever the case, I misunderstand those who view life as anything less than an experience objectively beautiful when taken for its most integral parts — that we are here in the first place, that food grows from the ground, that we love and are loved; that the world is masterpiece complete with fresh air, green trees, hibiscus and cherry blossoms; that there exist pleasures like swimming in a pond in the rain, listening to music, napping.

So obvious is the fact that a man alive is something divinely elegant that it tends to go wholly ignored, I think. Our movement, our ability, our action; our nature, our appearance, our disposition; these are not things to be waved away as average or usual, though they may be average and usual. If viewed from a perspective free of the reductive, know-it-all reasoning, merely watching a person walk down the street or hold hands with their beloved brings tears to the eyes. Shakespeare’s Hamlet captures this in its proper splendor when he says:

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty!
in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!

The paragon of animals! But the last line follows: 

And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

And isn’t this the question? 

How do we reconcile the dramatic difference of man alive and man dead? The signpost that led me down this path came early this week as I examined a photograph of a dead Saint Ambrose, who lies in state in some cathedral somewhere. We see a skeleton, lying on its back, wearing an ornate robe and bishop’s hat on its bare skull. Only the basic components of the man remain, not the man himself, and yet here are cogs and gears of a human once so highly celebrated, so full of life and vigor, so well-known and beloved by his contemporaries, the beneficiaries of his intellect, love, and charity. 

Then, stumbling upon a statue of the same man shortly after, it occurred to me.

If a skeleton is the furthest reduction of one who’s died — the last evidence of personhood before they become literal dust — is not the statue the highest ideal?

St. Georg of Lydda by Donatello (c. 1415)

Statues, whether of Ambrose or of any person graced with an image of themselves cut in stone, attempt to show a person’s humanity in its ultimate beauty. In a word, they depict an ideal, because in life, these people presumably were an ideal. Statues of men are often muscular, upright, and noble. Statues of women are fleshy, voluptuous, and fluid. Statues, carved from marble, are snow white and near-glowing. They are god-like, even as — or because — they share every trait with us. To gaze at a statue of a man or woman is to stand in awe of their beauty, to wonder who they were in life, and to question: Am I also that? 

After all, could any living person truly measure up to such a splendid work of art, the presumed image of man fully alive? Have we already achieved such electric beauty by simply being human? If not, should we be striving toward that ideal? And if so, what is that ideal?

It would be ridiculous to say every statue that exists commemorates a good person, though I’d venture to say most do, given some group of people must have worked together to find money, time, and talent to commission and make one. But even allowing for the creativity of the rich or evil, statuary has something definitive to say about the standard of a well-lived life in general, I think, or at least what it means to be so appreciated for your deeds to be remembered as a fully-embodied, extra-buff, immortalized ideal. 

The ones cast in stone, my theory goes, must have had unfailing character. A mortal honored in this way must have rarely compromised and proceeded with their aims unmoved by the quick-changing fads and popularity contests of their time. They must have striven for something higher than what life could provide and what death could end, being in a sense martyrs, not according to the traditional definition (although there certainly are many statues of actual martyrs), but in their willingness to put everything on the line for what they held to be right and just. Thus it seems that those who culture elevates to the level of ideal are those tapped in to a bigger purpose, dedicating themselves to a life not centered on themselves, but on others.

We can take a few examples, for good measure.

Abraham Lincoln (the great emancipator). Every religious figure (which makes up a huge amount of statues). The Roman emperors, which, no doubt, did horrible things, but still adhere to this theoretical definition of those who do not budge, have a vision larger than themselves, and undergo potential hatred and persecution for what they believe is right and just (which isn’t to say it truly was, but they believed it to be, stuck to it, and history at one time or another affirmed it).

In a word, they are those who might be considered “heroes,” one who risks or outright leaves behind every comfort in pursuit of some higher end on behalf of the greater good. The hero’s journey can take many forms, even mundane ones, but the defining characteristic seems a total refusal to back down, even when refusing to budge means your world collapsing around you, either socially or mortally.

This essence is hard to grasp, I’ll admit, and even harder to define. But it’s something that can be easily felt, I think. It involves a trust in the self, since moving towards that which can’t be known is a requirement. It involves the ability to discern what is right and just, and to follow that pursuit without fear. It involves a resilience and courage that tends lack in identities less than secure. In fact, the very existence of a statue seems to confess that the depicted person lived in such a way as to transcend — even hold contempt for — petty death, only relevant to them as an annoying deadline or mortal truth. The statue suggests a person with a just passing through attitude toward life, that awareness that they’ve come from some place higher and are heading towards some place higher for some cause that’s higher— this, as opposed to kicking dirt in stationary aloofness. I’m aware of no statues depicting one whose to greatest quote was, “It depends.”

Despite these thoughts, don’t presume I’m trying reverse engineer my way statue-hood here, and don’t make such a mistake either. The the bulk of all good people who ever lived not only don’t have a statue, but are entirely unknown. To these, we raise a glass. Even then, I find it fascinating to think on statues and skeletons and the iterations of man, and when standing face-to-face with an artful statue depicting some honored figure, why not happily acknowledge this is a depiction our race, the paragon of animals? The resulting considerations can only be good, if we correctly understand who these people were. In the best case, we might wonder how to better live up to a human dignity that doesn’t have to be won, but is already part of the deal so long as we refrain from diminishing it.

And in the case you are attempting to win yourself a statue after death, I regret to say, you’ve already failed. A favorite maxim of mine points to those least covetous of rank and honor as those most fitting for both, and why shouldn’t this be the case? Adjusting your bearing to the currents of society entirely misses the point, as does operating under the presumption that anything is guaranteed or owed you, especially life itself. Shakespeare, that genius honored by more than a few statues, captures through Hamlet the folly of such Machiavellian machinations, and the remedy:

We defy augury; there's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. 
If it be now, 'tis not to come;
if it be not to come, it will be now;
if it be not now, yet it will come:
the readiness is all. ◆

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Weekly Three

HEAR: “Tirolirole” by Bruno Berle

READ: A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman, an excellent history of the 14th century. I need to find more books like this. If you have recommendations, drop ‘em.

VIEW: Franco Zeffirelli’s Hamlet (1990), starring Mel Gibson.