Edges, Boundaries and Dylan's My Back Pages

Crimson flames tied through my ears 
Rollin' high and mighty traps 
Pounced with fire on flaming roads 
Using ideas as my maps
“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said I 
Proud ’neath heated brow 
Ah, but I was so much older then 
I’m younger than that now 
~Bob Dylan, My Back Pages

A word I've been thinking a lot about lately and that I want to key in on here is edges. We use it a lot, but in a variety of ways. The edge of the table, the edge of a knife. It's often used to describe where people are at as in "She's on the edge" or "He's over the edge." In that context the edge is a dangerous or risky place to be, hence we're warmed when young to stay away from it as in the old Negro spiritual "Children, Keep in the Middle of the Road."

At one time people believed the world was flat and thus one could fear, when going off to sea, that they might encounter the edge of the world. The sea was a dangerous place not only bedeviled by sea monsters and storms, it had an edge from which there was no return.

In "My Back Pages" Dylan sets up two personas, the overly exuberant, self-confident attitude of youth, and the older, more seasoned veteran of life. The irony here is that the youth thinks he knows everything, but the older man has become younger by recognizing life is not an easily navigated channel, and thus in aging he becomes less all-knowing and more open, softened and teachable.

Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
“Rip down all hate,” I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

Now here's some further irony. The older wiser man knows life is not black and white, but the young person knows it, too. "Lies that life is black and white spoke from my skull." And there's a bit of remarkableness in this statement which shows that both of them know something, but in different ways. The parrot may know the lines of a poem but not really understand what he's saying.

In our day and age we've become almost flippant about wisdom. For example, enlightenment is not getting the correct answer to "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" When we're young we might know the answers but know nothing about living the answers, if there are answers. The goal is not to ace a test, it is to understand what the purpose of the test was and why we had to face it in the first place.

Another word for edges is boundaries. The edge of my property borders a cow pasture, a road, a neighbor and a swamp. Internally we have boundaries, too. Some of these are fixed moral boundaries. Others are regions of ourselves that collide with one another because they are polarities. We have conflicting belief systems. For example, a desire to be transparent, and a desire to protect ourselves. Or a desire to stand up and speak out versus a feeling of insecurity about drawing attention to oneself. And then there is the dichotomy between risk-taking and safety that beguiles us in both relationships and careers. Life is the process of working it all out, making it work.  

John Hinchey, in his book about the poetry of Bob Dylan's songs, had pretty harsh words for "My Back Pages", calling it "one of the only two songs on the album [Another Side of Bob Dylan] to fall flat" and worse, "a song for which Dylan and most of his fans retain an unfortunate fondness." On the following page Hinchey calls it "perhaps the most extravagantly self-indulgent song Dylan has ever gotten away with." 

But I liked it then and like it still. Here are the closing stanzas:

In a soldier’s stance, I aimed my hand 
At the mongrel dogs who teach 
Fearing not that I’d become my enemy 
In the instant that I preach 
My pathway led by confusion boats 
Mutiny from stern to bow 
Ah, but I was so much older then 
I’m younger than that now

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats 
Too noble to neglect 
Deceived me into thinking 
I had something to protect 
Good and bad, I define these terms 
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow 
Ah, but I was so much older then 
I’m younger than that now 

Copyright © 1964 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1992 by Special Rider Music

There really aren't any edges between adolescence and maturity, not any clean ones anyways. Yet we know from experience how differently we viewed the world at that time, and the special challenges that time of life harbored. The strange thing is that this song is as applicable today, nearly fifty years later for baby boomers in their years of declension as well. It takes a lot of growing up to stay young, to remain teachable, to remain open to new ideas, to re-examine one's own edges and boundaries, and to face uncertain futures with unshielded eyes.

Let's keep pressing on.

On The Boundary

It's interesting how much of life is lived in the colliding spaces between polarities. For example, part of us feels a need to connect with others and another part requires solitude. We like being busy, but we also enjoy when we can just lay back and rest.

Theologian Paul Tillich's autobiography On The Boundary is essentially a collection of the various tensions in his life. He explains his life by means of the boundaries where these polarities collide. Chapter one is titled Between Two Temperaments. And although he makes a point of not ascribing too much of who we are to our parents, there is no denying the influence of parental and ancestral traits.

Between City and Country is a second chapter. I know in myself the attraction of rural, open spaces. I also know the attraction of cultural experiences that exist where people live in more congested spaces. Tillich lived in the country from age four to fourteen. But having lived in the city for a portion of his life he could not embrace the "romantic rejection of technical civilization" and learned the importance of the city "for the critical side of intellectual and artistic life." Through the city he learned first hand about the social and political movements that are concentrated in cities.

Another chapter is titled Between Reality and Imagination. "Imagination manifests itself, among other ways, in a delight in play," Tillich writes, soon citing Nietzsche (who preferred play to a spirit of gravity), Kierkegaard''s "aesthetic sphere" and the manner in which imagination wove itself into mythology. "Art is the highest form of play and the genuinely creative realm of the imagination."

Between Theory and Practice is the following chapter. Tillich was attracted to the theoretical life, but the practical issues served to unhinge any effort to live totally in the confines of the ivory tower. "We were thus inevitably faced with problems of practical politics which often conflicted with theoretical positions," he wrote.

Between Heteronomy and Autonomy deals with the struggle to find oneself in a culture where you are supposed to fit in and be like everyone else. "The age-old experience of mankind, that new knowledge can be won only by breaking a taboo and that all autonomous thinking is accompanied by a consciousness of guilt, is a fundamental experience of my life," he wrote. And a little later he states, "Freedom that has been fought for and for which no sacrifices have been made is easily cast aside."

Other chapters include:

Between Theology and Philosophy

Between Church and Society

Between Religion and Culture

Between Lutheranism and Socialism

Between Idealism and Marxism

Between Native and Alien Land

Retrospect: Boundary and Limitation

In this last chapter Tillich offers his summing up: "This is the dialectic of existence; each of life's possibilities drives of its own accord to a boundary and beyond the boundary where it meets that which limits it. The man who stands on many boundaries experiences the unrest, insecurity, and inner limitation of existence in many forms."

Food for thought... Where are your boundaries? What are the polarities that define your life?

On Blogging

"The writer of any first person work must decide two obvious questions: what to put in and what to leave out."
Annie Dillard

I believe this Annie Dillard quote comes from her book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. She was referring to her memoir writing if I remember correctly, and to all memoir writing in general. This was before the era of blogs and blogging.

Blogging has become an interesting phenomenon, a natural outgrowth of the world wide web. It is popular because it is easy.

Some people have criticized email because it was “destroying language” and wrecking good grammar, good English etc. Well, is it really? Everything has a pro and con, including email and blogging. I think it is great that people are communicating. How many letters would people send in a day if they had to type, print, fold, and insert into an envelope that they must address and stamp? What a hassle. By email, I can maintain contacts with fifty or more people a day. At the office it might be a hundred or more. I certainly receive hundreds there.

Email is easy, therefore more people can do it.

Blogging, likewise, is a heckuva lot easier than building a website. There are hordes or blog sites that will host your creative output. Some are getting a lot of bad press, but maybe it’s because the Press is jealous. More people probably read blogs than read newspapers.

I just heard that if all the people with a MySpace blog were to be named a “country” it would be the 11th largest country in the world, just behind Mexico. (If this stat is incorrect, please feel free to send correction and it will be so done.)

In the mid-nineties I built a website, in part for the experience and in part for the forum where I could display some of my work. I used a software program that was limited in capabilities but easy to use. Ease of use was key.

But even so, most people did not have sufficient motivation to get past the learning curve and although businesses everywhere built websites – almost as necessary as buisiness cards and storefront signage – the individuals with a website were far fewer in number.

Blogs changed all that. Blogs opened possibilities for self expression that seemed infinite in scope. The problem is, how much disclosure is prudent?

For example, when an employee has a problem with the boss, what is gained by filling a blog entry with a 500 word rant? I just heard such an account two weeks ago. What the employee gained was a two week suspension without pay. That, I thought, was pretty generous.

Many people have no sense of boundaries with other facets of their life. Blogs are not intended to be a replacement for journals. In your journal you can do self-analysis and personal psychological assessments. But do you really need to announce to the world your every neurotic tendency, self-destructive fantasies, anguished self-accusations, prideful declarations or hypersensitive assessments of others? Guess what? There are some things we do not need to know. Work it out in private.

As for my blog entries here, if you have been following along, a lot of what I write is excerpted from my journals. You can be sure I am being selective, trying to be helpful or using some ideas and thoughts as a springboard to additional conversation with you, my readers.

In the meantime, blog on.

NOTE: The doodle from Annie Dillard at the top of this page was sent to me as part of my Dandy Yankee Doodles Project. More about that during another space in time.

Get to know more about Annie Dillard at www.anniedillard.com
A collection of quotes for writers from my own website: www.enewman.biz/writing.html