All Is Vanity
Vanity is a curious kind of failing. It strikes in unexpected places, at unexpected times. Very few are immune to it, no matter how wise. There is always the little voice in the head that says, "There but for the grace of God go I," and immediately, we stumble. Today I was reading from one of the books of the wise, and mourning the fact that so many of us are like this, so many things are like that, and everything in the end is indeed vanity.
Sometimes, we read things into events and into writings that are just not there at all. Recently, some controversy arose about whether President Bush was pointing a subtle finger at Senator Barack Obama when he spoke about appeasement before Israel's Knesset. To some, it was obviously so and a terrible thing to have done; to others, it was not so obvious, especially since the obvious reference was made about a Republican Senator and not a Democrat. All of that was quickly put into a more human perspective (although it may very well come back on the global front) by the news of Senator Ted Kennedy's malignant brain tumour. I observed all this through the daily updates of the New York Times.
The whole course of events reminded me about the much older controversy surrounding Carly Simon's (in)famous song, You're So Vain. In that song, she says the immortal lines:
You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you.
You're so vain, I'll bet you think this song is about you...
Don't you? Don't you?
The problem is of course that the answer to those lines might be, "Yes," and that answer might be true for at least one person. It is interesting though that people interviewed Ms Simon over a 35-year span to actually find out who the true subject of the song was. I think that's a valid approach; if the song's originator can't tell you, who can?
To this day, remembering Ms Simon's song and its lyrics, I try very hard not to 'read myself into things' when someone writes something that would offend me if I were indeed the target of those writings. I try to be a skeptical empiricist about it. And perhaps, that kind of thinking is indeed the lesson to be learnt in the book of the Preacher, who was King in Jerusalem.
Sometimes, we read things into events and into writings that are just not there at all. Recently, some controversy arose about whether President Bush was pointing a subtle finger at Senator Barack Obama when he spoke about appeasement before Israel's Knesset. To some, it was obviously so and a terrible thing to have done; to others, it was not so obvious, especially since the obvious reference was made about a Republican Senator and not a Democrat. All of that was quickly put into a more human perspective (although it may very well come back on the global front) by the news of Senator Ted Kennedy's malignant brain tumour. I observed all this through the daily updates of the New York Times.
The whole course of events reminded me about the much older controversy surrounding Carly Simon's (in)famous song, You're So Vain. In that song, she says the immortal lines:
You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you.
You're so vain, I'll bet you think this song is about you...
Don't you? Don't you?
The problem is of course that the answer to those lines might be, "Yes," and that answer might be true for at least one person. It is interesting though that people interviewed Ms Simon over a 35-year span to actually find out who the true subject of the song was. I think that's a valid approach; if the song's originator can't tell you, who can?
To this day, remembering Ms Simon's song and its lyrics, I try very hard not to 'read myself into things' when someone writes something that would offend me if I were indeed the target of those writings. I try to be a skeptical empiricist about it. And perhaps, that kind of thinking is indeed the lesson to be learnt in the book of the Preacher, who was King in Jerusalem.
Labels: Carly Simon, Ecclesiastes, Empiricism, Philosophy, Vanity
etched with acid at 7:09:00 pm
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