Joy Is The Moment
Speaker no. 1 – Won’t you just cut it out!?
Speaker no. 2 – I can’t. I cannot help myself.
At every moment, at every opportunity
the truth comes to light, the truth of life and death,
of my solitude and my bond with the world,
of my freedom and my servitude,
of the insignificance and the sovereign importance
of each man and all men.
A being with an exact coincidence with himself,
in a perfect plenitude, – the notion of having to be
would have no meaning.
One does not offer ethics to a God.
Man in his vain attempt to be God,
makes himself exist as man,
and if he is satisfied with his existence,
he coincides exactly with himself.
It is not granted him to exist without tending toward this being
which will never be.
His being is a lack of being.
If man agrees not to be in order to exist genuinely,
He will abandon the dream of inhuman objectivity.
He will understand that it is not a matter
of being right in the eyes of God,
but of being right in his own eyes.
Man exists.
Wondering whether his presence in the world is useful,
whether life is worth the trouble of being lived –
are questions that make no sense.
It is a matter of knowing whether he wants to live
and under what circumstances.
…joy is the moment
of releasing one’s hold,
finding one’s hands ready and free
to stretch out toward a new future.
This act of passing beyond
is conceivable only
if one intends not to bar up the future,
but to plan new possibilities.
-excerpt Ambiguity and Freedom by Simone de Beauvoir
Ok then give us a song, a tune to hold onto! This one by the Bee Gees from the disco period released in 1977 will aid us to ride this wave, which we call “life.”
If I Can’t Have You
By the Bee Gees
Don’t know why
I’m surviving every lonely day
When there’s got to be
No chance for me
My life would end
And it just don’t matter how I cry
My tears of love
Are a waste of time
If I turn away
Am I strong enough to see it through
Go crazy is what I will do
If I can’t have you
I don’t want nobody baby
If I can’t have you, oh oh oh oh
If I can’t have you
I don’t want nobody baby
If I can’t have you, oh oh oh oh
Can’t let go
And it doesn’t matter how I try
I gave it all so easily
To you my love
To dreams that never will come true
Am I strong enough to see it through
Go crazy is what I will do
If I can’t have you
I don’t want nobody baby
If I can’t have you, oh oh oh oh
If I can’t have you
I don’t want nobody baby
If I can’t have you, oh oh oh oh
If I can’t have you
I don’t want nobody baby
If I can’t have you, oh oh oh oh
If I can’t have you
I don’t want nobody baby
If I can’t have you, oh oh oh oh
If I can’t have you
I don’t want nobody baby
If I can’t have you, oh oh oh oh
If I can’t have you
I don’t want nobody baby
If I can’t have you, oh oh oh oh
If I can’t have you
I don’t want nobody baby
If I can’t have you, oh oh oh oh
If I can’t have you
I don’t want nobody baby
If I can’t have you, oh oh oh oh
Composed by Wayne K Garfield, Barry Alan Gibb, David Romani, Robin Hugh Gibb, Mauro Malavasi, Maurice Ernest Gibb
2 thoughts on “Joy Is The Moment”
Never before, to my recollection, have you included song lyrics so directly antithetical to the theme of your posting. Ms. de Beauvoir seems to celebrate each instant of time as it arrives and with whatever it contains, asserting “Joy is the moment of releasing one’s hold, finding one’s hands ready and free to stretch out toward a new future.” The Bee Gees song, in contrast, expresses the viewpoint of a petulant toddler: I want exactly what I want and I refuse to be happy with anything else. These make an odd juxtaposition indeed.
Your observation would seem to be the case. But is there not more going on than what appears on the surface? The song captivated my interest, my desire to add it to the post by the sweeping orchestration of the tune. I love it, the exuberance, the thrust toward the future. The visuals from Saturday Night Fever don’t hurt the case either. Would de Beauvoir have approved of my addition to her words? Who knows.