Let’s Get It On!

Just finished reading a book that was thought provoking…and not ordinarily my ’kind of book’ …
No, I am not suggesting a kind of ‘Oprah’s Book Club’ review!
In fact, I hardly recommend the book at all…..even though the author has written twenty-two novels such as Lonesome Dove, Terms of Endearment, Comanche Moon just to name a few….
The book, Duane’s Depressed, from the Pulitzer Prize-Winner, Larry McMurtry, was a fairly stupid satire in my ‘stupid opinion’….
Internet review says:
"Duane's Depressed. (1999)This novel completes the trilogy begun with The Last Picture Show (1966) and continued in Texasville (1989). Once again the protagonist is Duane, the considerably older mayor of Thalia, Texas, who startles his constituents by abandoning his pickup truck and walking everywhere. This signals his shake-up of community conventions, which he also challenges by consulting a young woman psychiatrist. Duane's story, critics note, shows McMurtry's fine grasp of a changing contemporary Western culture."

That is basically it in a nutshell…..EXCEPT…..
……it is a Texas similarity of Walden’s Pond written by Henry David Thoreau who lived in a cabin near the pond from 1845 to 1847 The writer, naturalist, and philosopher Henry David Thoreau lived on the shores of the pond for two years starting in the summer of 1845.

His account of the experience was recorded in Walden, or,

Life in the Woods, and made the spot famous.

Now in Duane’s account of living in his cabin which is six miles from his big family home and choosing to walk everywhere he went makes family & friends thinks he has gone….BONKERS.
What does Duane himself think?
How can he justify himself and an immediate life change after living 60 years as Duane the provider, the dependable, the steady and stable husband, father, grandfather and successful business man in a small community?
Therein lies the ’profound thinking’……..
Duane finds that upon walking the roads he has driven on for years….he finds….
litter in the creeks that deters the current and mars the beauty of nature….
Then he wonders at this ’new-found’ sense of ’caring’ at a deeper level than he has ever experienced before……
……..Is there not a similar ’epiphany’ of such in our own lives in order to prove for a fact that…..

I existed….?
Perhaps a ‘new awaking’ is needed periodically as we travel this journey called life….
Often a total withdrawal is required ....

withdrawal from the fast pace, the normal ‘good life’

in order to experience what one poet called ‘The Art of Non-Doing’.

Yes, this basically was the profound thinking of this ‘silly’ book.
But I do agree that everyone at some point in life should ask themselves these questions….
Who am I/ What am I here for/What is the meaning of life for me/ and
Lastly……..what words, acts and meanings do I want to reflect as who I was on planet earth?
Mind provoking isn’t it? …….Let’s get it on!