Singing the Body Electric
Not "wins or defeats"; rather "wins and defeats".
when Whitman wrote, “I sing the body electric”
I know what he
meant
I know what he
wanted:
to be completely alive every moment
in spite of the inevitable.
we can’t cheat death but we can make it
work so hard
that when it does take
us
it will have known a victory just as
perfect as
ours.
— “A song with no end” by Charles Bukowski
I won’t put it in terms of win or defeat.
It is an emotion about acceptance of the world. The moment. With all of its wins and defeats.
Each moment we take decisions. Some of them unconscious. This decision making involves segregating the world into a dualistic model. X or not X?
This inherent filtration or rejection through conceptual boundaries enables our finite minds to move. To survive.
But it also causes mistakes. Errors. Planes of concepts which don’t match reality. Delusions.
Like pride. Anger. Envy. Greed. Fear. Ego.
Love for the world arises when such dualistic models collapse. When we understand the emptiness of these models. That each of our thoughts arise dependently. When taking the next breath is enough.
So when we take a leap, and fail; it doesn’t shatter us. We don’t grit our teeth in anger. We don’t give up. We keep trying. For the love of this world sustains us.
Death doesn’t terrify then. Because each moment really costs us. We make the most of it.
The world is what we make of it.
Win or loss, it is the same thing. The point is whether effort transformed us. Helped us clear our delusions. To see our conditionings more clearly. To accept our chains and transform them. To stay out of rejection, indifference.
Perhaps this is why Whitman's line still speaks to us.
Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
— old Zen proverb
The line you draw between Bukowski's defiance and the Zen koan at the end is where this gets interesting.
Bukowski says: make death work hard to take you.
The koan says: after enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
Same actions. Different relationship to the actions.
One fights from a dualistic model. The other has dropped the fight because the duality stopped making sense.
Your piece names this precisely. The kleshas (what Buddhism calls the mental afflictions you list: pride, anger, greed, fear) don't arise from circumstances. They arise from the conceptual frame we've laid over circumstances.
And the part about "each of our thoughts arise dependently" is 2,500 years old. Pratityasamutpada, dependent origination. No thought is self-generated. Each one arises in relation to what preceded it, what the body is doing, what the environment feeds.
The question you raise at the end is the one that never gets easier: can you catch the chain mid-movement?
How often do you manage to watch the whole process unfold, rather than just noticing the conclusion afterward?