Post by steppenwolf on Sept 18, 2023 13:38:54 GMT
I was reading all the accusations against Russell Brand and it brought to mind Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and, in particular, the later parable by Hermann Hesse "Augustus".
Everyone's familiar with Dorian Gray where a very beautiful man has a picture painted of himself and wishes that, instead of growing old, that he will remain young and beautiful while the picture grows old instead of him. So Dorian remains young and lives a life of extreme depravity while the picture (which is placed in his attic) becomes older and uglier by the day.
"Augustus" is a short parable about a woman who has a child and the Godfather to her son says to her that he's old and cannot do much for her but he can grant her just one wish. And he advises her to think carefully about what she wants for her son. She thinks long and hard and decides that the best thing for her son would be that "everyone loves him" - having dismissed the obvious things like wealth etc.
So the child grew up and he was very popular with everybody, but the mother noticed that he was very casual about his relationships and used people and then discarded them without a second thought. He became rich and famous and lived in a big house but he wasn't happy. His life was empty. So he asked his Godfather (who remakably was still alive having never aged a day) how he could achieve fulfillment - and the Godfather said that he should renounce his wish "to be loved". He did this and he was finally happy.
Unfortunately all the people whom he had used and discarded then beat a path to his door demanding reparations for how they had been ill-used and he was locked away in jail for years only to emerge as an old man with not very long to live. But he was happy.
It's funny how so many of these old parables have so much truth in them.
Everyone's familiar with Dorian Gray where a very beautiful man has a picture painted of himself and wishes that, instead of growing old, that he will remain young and beautiful while the picture grows old instead of him. So Dorian remains young and lives a life of extreme depravity while the picture (which is placed in his attic) becomes older and uglier by the day.
"Augustus" is a short parable about a woman who has a child and the Godfather to her son says to her that he's old and cannot do much for her but he can grant her just one wish. And he advises her to think carefully about what she wants for her son. She thinks long and hard and decides that the best thing for her son would be that "everyone loves him" - having dismissed the obvious things like wealth etc.
So the child grew up and he was very popular with everybody, but the mother noticed that he was very casual about his relationships and used people and then discarded them without a second thought. He became rich and famous and lived in a big house but he wasn't happy. His life was empty. So he asked his Godfather (who remakably was still alive having never aged a day) how he could achieve fulfillment - and the Godfather said that he should renounce his wish "to be loved". He did this and he was finally happy.
Unfortunately all the people whom he had used and discarded then beat a path to his door demanding reparations for how they had been ill-used and he was locked away in jail for years only to emerge as an old man with not very long to live. But he was happy.
It's funny how so many of these old parables have so much truth in them.