h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hqdZ4AWSaI

'In a clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade,
And he carries the reminders
Of every glove that laid him down
Or cut him till he cried out in his anger and his shame,...'

Now, I'm going to ask something from that will require superhuman patience of the part of some of you:

Please do not post any parodies, funny commentary, or statements about how much you prefer somebody else's version of this classic song.

Just listen to the song for a few minutes, even if you know it well.

And tell me what it says to you.

It's telling me that each human being is like that boxer. Naive at times, often hurt, losing more than winning. It's the human condition.

And, like that boxer, we're all scarred. We 'carry the reminders of every glove' that's laid us down. And sometimes...

Well, sometimes, like the boxer, we say, 'I am leaving, I am leaving,' but, as Paul Simon points out, 'the fighter still remains'. We pick ourselves up before we're counted completely out.

I was getting perhaps ridiculously thoughtful over here, but it occurred to me that humanity in general ought to think about what inflicts those wounds, the ones that leave the scars. I'm not pointing out blame, or encouraging anyone to sign up for anything. I'm just thinking that it's a question.

Like everybody else, sometimes I just feel punch-drunk. And I wonder.

I thought maybe you might be wondering, too.

PS Oh, and if it makes you want to write something longer, or a poem, or do a picture, we'd always be glad to have it in the Post.

Oh yeah, I wonder. I don't know that I'll ever find out, but wonder I do. But somehow or another, by means fair or foul, and without being asked first, we've all been shoved into the ring, and there's not a lot to do but carry on. And sometimes you *are* out of your depth, and get a pounding. Even John L. Sullivan lost once...

Did he?

Good point.

I don't know how apt a metaphor it is, but that song always spoke to me somehow.

Hi Dmitri

Bridge over Troubled Water is an album I play when I am experiencing harrowing times (such as now). I wrote the EGE for the Guide on it, A62220223, and I said this about The Boxer:

'The Boxer'

...just a come-on from the whores on 7th Avenue; I do declare, there were times when I was so lonesome I took some comfort there

This track is essentially about a boy who leaves home barely a man and attempts to make his way in the world by becoming a boxer. It's a powerful story and analogies can be made to any trade or job which carves chunks out of a person's soul, leaving them silently screaming for relief and release – wishing so hard that they could return to their childhood home, but they can't because it only exists now in memories. The chorus beginning 'Lie La Lie, Lie Lie La La Lie Lie Lie...' is sung against the crescendo of full orchestra; it sounds just like waves crashing onto a beach. It's almost impossible to resist singing along to it and even if the listener doesn't know the words, everyone can memorise that chorus.

it never fails to move me, remind me of happier times, and give me solace that things will return to "normal". I have other such songs in my memory MP3 player.

GB

Sheesh! This is an awakener. How on earth do I find the energy to survive this world? I asked myself as a confused young adult, somewhere around 1970. Listen to the album Bridge Over Trouble Water repeatedly, over and over, wearing a groove in the vinyl, seemed like a good start.



Along with all my other scratched and worn out albums, ah yes!, thankyou Leonard Cohen for helping me to feel not so alone, thankyou musicians, artists, poets, thinkers, searchers, dreamers. Thankyou Buddha for sitting under your Bodhi tree, for your good grace and your courage to address the issue of human suffering



Thankyou for your depth of expression, for helping me to look beyond the surface, to yearn and crave for that inner energy, that ludicrous absurd nameless force, that seems to flare up inside like a pilot light on a gas boiler, just when destroying it all, giving up, would be so much easier.



You're right, GB, it's the chorus, lie la lie lie la lie, I think it's the physical energy of singing along to it that shifts something inside.

Great article by the way, how well do I know all these tracks, and yet I've rarely seen them written about, I love it!



So what does make us scoop ourselves off the floor, punch drunk, dazed, wounded, and start over?

Who is that boxer in the clearing?

I've been around a bit, witnessed people surviving ludicrous adversity, some wild inner light leading them on, against the odds. I've also been around suicide, junkie freakouts, psychotic despair.

Hard to say what drives someone.

I think there's a point where we all have to face ourselves, eye to eye, in meditation, or in the gym with the punchbag, or with a therapist or healer or through singing or rock climbing, a spiritual path, art, loving, or when faced with our own dying, or some kind of path with a heart. Several billion paths! As many paths as there are people.

(haha I'm a boxer, even though I'm old . Boxing in the gym is great!)

For me, checking out isn't an option. I don't want others to clean up my mess.

For me, getting beyond blame is a good start. Beyond blame is where the personal responsibility kicks in....

Kick boxing! heheh.

In the clearing stands a boxer ..... hmmm... good to meet him/her again, after all these years.

Hey Boxer, thanks for the inspiration.

Annual rings
- - -
Inside me live all the persons I have been over the years:
The 4 year old who was so disappointed that christmas.
The 14 year old who lost his one true love.
The 20 year old who almost lost himself.
The 30 year old who saw his first child being born.
- and feared to lose his children ever since...

I am a tree.
The cost has been high at times.
But worth it every second

>>any trade or job which carves chunks out of a person's soul...<<

That's beautifully put, GB. That's it in a nutshell. The world carves chunks out of the soul.

living does that, even with the blessing of a child (and now grandchildren) you fear their loss, the price of love is grief, for someone else if not you. I'm bracing myself for losing my mother even though her personality left a long time ago, and I'm left caring for a two-year-old in a 93-year-old's body. When the time comes, I will feel like I've lost a child.

I know. That's painful. You have to do the remembering for both of you.

'In a clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade,
And he carries the reminders
Of every glove that laid him down

To cut a long story short, I can associate with that boxerfrom birth to present day and still fighting my corner

And doing it magnificently, and with style, brother!

thank you Dmitri

with THIS Yorkshiremanyou can knock him down, but the only way to keep him DOWN is put him6ft under

There's personal associations with that song: it's one of the ones my dad sings sometimes, when he takes his guitar out. (Actually, I'm probably more familiar with his version than with S&G's.) And yes, it does stir something in me: not just memories of childhood from that association, but also something in the song itself.

I must read GB's article.

TRiG.