It is a classic moment from that epic biography. The mother of the chosen one comes to the window of her Jerusalem pied-a-terre and discovers that her son is a bit of a cult figure.
The crowd of tens of thousands which has appeared outside is baying for his presence, tiny pinhead people as far as the eye can see. It is a statuesque scene worthy of Cecil B Demille.
His mother goes to fetch him, and he appears at the window to cries of “Brian! Brian!”
His Good Morning is hailed as a great blessing, and he goes on to try to get a few words of sense into the ovine crowd.
You don’t need to follow me, he tells them. You don’t need to follow anyone. You’ve got to think for yourselves. You’re all individuals.
And the crowd choruses delightedly: Yes, we’re all individuals.
You’re all different, insists Brian. Yes, says the crowd- we are all different.
“I’m not”, says someone.
Everyone hushes him up immediately.
That ‘we’re all individuals’ mantra from Monty Python’s Life Of Brian has echoed down the years in my life, and it is only with time that it has matured into a rather gratifying kind of understanding.
Because part of the definition of an individual is what sets them apart from others. Each of us has a signature which cannot be duplicated. But the very act of being different can so easily set us apart from our fellow men.
How beautifully Henry David Thoreau expressed this concept. For two years he lived at Walden Pond; and its simple beauty helped him voice a whole philosophy, a way of thinking which we now find insightful and so much ahead of its time. I have not read enough Thoreau. I have great plans to download his book and listen to it in the small hours of the morning.
Two things led me to the extraordinary story of his life. One was a fellow blogger who visited Walden Pond, and wrote about it: Penny of LifeOnTheCutOff.
She has a frank, clear-eyed attitude to what goes on around her in her beautiful little corner of Chicagoland, partnered with the same sort of attitude Thoreau and those who loved his company must have had: an open spirited broadness of mind.
The second was a whisper of words which haunts me whenever I see a child who is noticeably different at school. I have a love of these children, the oddballs, because I am one too.
Thoreau wrote:”If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured, or far away.”
Now in England these words are emblazoned across teatowels and doilies, mugs and gilt-edged nightmare souvenirware across the land. And when this happens to words it is easy to mistake them, to forget the startling mind from which they originated.
When Thoreau wrote he was talking about the need to be ourselves. He was defending our right to be us. “Let everyone mind his own business,” he tells us, “and endeavour to be what he was made.”
A huge chasm is open in our house. It has opened up and it will not close, and we are stepping around it gingerly, avoiding studiously its implications.
Because for the first time in ten years, one of our number is not here.
She is only ten, but of course humans come in all sizes and ages, and why should being ten exclude her from our grown up chattering?
For the first time my husband is bereft of her steely wit, which she has been honing and sharpening for years now. It is a grown up wit in a young mind, full of word-play and joke-jousting.
The element of surprise she brings is not here either. I had no idea how much one personality was responsible for those fabulous dogs-legs in conversations which characterise our lives here by the forest.
Most of all though, I had never realised quite how merry she is. Throughout her life she will bring merriment to all who touch on her life, and we are at the beginning of this odyssey. Like Lucy in the Narnian chronicles she combines uncommon wisdom with a light-hearted stepping dance through her life.
She is not the only one who has left a chasm. Houses all over my parochial little town are the poorer this week, minus a person, because a whole class has gone away on a residential trip.
We’re all individual. We all walk to our own drummer, endeavouring to be what we are made. Thirty little souls have proved that to us this week.
When I was younger, I was a performing arts kinda gal. I played in orchestras, wrote stories and music, acted in plays. And all the time there was a green eyed monster sitting on my shoulder.
I found it searingly impossible to handle the fact that I would never be the best. Whatever I did, there would always be someone doing it better than I did. I might wow a concert audience one week, but someone else would fill it even fuller the next.
And I thought, why bother?
I shied away from all the creative things that made me what I was made. I stopped composing and writing. I ceased to play the flute, which is in truth such sweet pleasure it is almost inexpressible. I turned away from the stage. I shut every door I could.
One day, after a long time asleep, a friend said to me, come and play the flute again for a pantomime.
It was called The Slipper and The Rose. I was terrified, but I said yes.
At each rehearsal I reaped the rewards of neglecting my technique. But when it came time to perform, I sat with a little group of musicians and became part of something bigger once more. I wore the frock, I played the notes the way they should be played.
I held a small audience spellbound, if for a few fleeting moments.
And I began to get it. There is only one of each of us, and all those creative things we do – they’re just an expression of us, in whatever form we choose.
Individual is expressed in so many ways: in a flavour, a texture, a tone or a gesture; a sentence, a soup, a joke or a cross-stitch pattern. And no-one- not the President of China himself- can do it quite the way you do.
We’re all different.
You can find LifeOnTheCutoff’s post at http://lifeonthecutoff.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/on-walden/
Kate Shrewsday 
Oh, yeash! Yeash indeed.
😀
Ah, my younger daughter, is away this week as well–and her absence leaves a void in my days. She is an adult but she lives nearby, so we see each other regularly–to shop or share lunch or have a girls’ night at the movies. We never seem to outgrow them, do we?
As for all of us being unique, your story brought to mind a quote I used recently in a blog post: “To wish you were someone else is to waste the person you are.”~Unknown
I hope as moms that we have communicated the beauty of uniqueness to our children.
Susan, I wholeheartedly second that. They need to know that however they choose to create, it will be perfect as long as it reflects them.
My then girlfriend and I took a ride through Massachusetts one lazy weekend afternoon and eventually ended up at Walden Pond where it turns out you have to pay to see it. She did not really want to see it. We are no longer together.
Time for a revisit? If you ever do, take lots of pictures and blog like the wind:-D
Kate, does Maddie read your blogs? If not you must print this one out and stash it away somewhere for her to read in years to come. I felt special reading it, and that was just as a proud godmother. Maddie will treasure those words, sometimes it’s lovely to know that you are special to someone and having it in black and white to treasure is simply wonderful. N x
What a fab godmother she has. You verge on the fairy godmother sometimes, Nick. I’ll run off a copy and put it in the box Phil keeps of special things.
Dear Kate, thank you so much for the lovely mention of me in this wonderful post you have written, and thank you for your lovely words:
“There is only one of each of us, and all those creative things we do – they’re just an
expression of us, in whatever form we choose.” Well said.
How we ache when our children are gone for awhile. How well I remember those days with our girls. I think it helps both us and our children for the gradual leaving that takes place later on as they grow into their own, and that is really it, isn’t it? We want them to grow to be who they are.
Thoreau “got it” and Walden Pond is a wonderful place to visit; to think, to observe, to walk in his footsteps and see the site of his humble experiment. It humbled me standing on the spot of his cabin and looking out at all that he saw each day and his forward and inward and global thoughts that he penned are so wonderful to have yet today. Thank you.
His writings really are quite startling to someone who has never picked them up before! It is quite an adventure, Penny, and I have you to thank for that. One day I have vowed to come to see Walden Pond, which has become such an extension of who Thoreau was.
Yes, you’re right. It is a privilege to watch children grow into who they are.
Thanks again:-)
“But when it came time to perform, I sat with a little group of musicians and became part of something bigger once more.”
Interesting–the individuals unite to form “something bigger,” the whole can’t exist without the uniqueness of its parts.
“It is a grown up wit in a young mind, full of word-play and joke-jousting.” ~ It is evident where she gets that.
Do you know, Kathy, you have a point with that whole and its parts: I wonder if it is restricted to orchestras? Because since I came into this great big blogosphere I wonder if the dialogue between its writers is every bit as absorbing as the individual writings. The converstaions between Helene Hanff and her little London bookshop have become classic reading.
Thanks Kathy, I am so enjoying your November drive to write daily:-)
I read this post with an uncomfortable level of understanding because when I was fifteen I made the decision to shy away not from creative pursuits but from life in general. It took thirty years for me to realize what I’d done.
Your post reminds me of a poem by Emily Dickinson: We never know how high we are / Till we are called to rise; /And then if we are true to plan, / Our statures touch the skies. / / The heroism we recite / Would be a daily thing / Did not ourselves the cubits warp / For fear to be a king.
If the competitive, which in some way is most of us, knew that second best isn’t really second, and stopped warping their cubits, I imagine the world would be a much better place.
Your posts make my world a better place. Thank you.
Kathy, what a beautiful set of comments. I love the poem, and recall as I look back the many cubits I have warped. Touching the skies in our own perfectly planned way- that sounds favourite to me.
“I found it searingly impossible to handle the fact that I would never be the best. Whatever I did, there would always be someone doing it better than I did.” This is such a hard one to wrestle through. It stands to reason, but on a feelings level it’s harder to absorb. Then again, it is such a joy to see those who are better than I at something and admire their creativite expression.
It is a tough lesson to learn when you’re young. Especially if one has a competitive streak. The realisation that the great flautists and actors were simply being them, the best way they know how, being who they are: that’s a fabulous realisation. As freeing as the migraine tablet yesterday:-D
I have no comment other than an enthusiastic round of applause.
And that is generally how I feel when I read your daily postings, Cindy.
Especially that court room scene the other day. It tickled my funny bone in the same way Wodehouse does.
you are an all around artist! i know that i can learn from you…great post!
Thanks insalt…that’s quite some writing style you’ve got there:-) Gripping read.