What's It All About, Alfie?
What's it all about, Alfie?
Is it just for the moment we live?
What's it all about when you sort it out, Alfie?
Are we meant to take more than we give?
Or are we meant to be kind?
And if only fools are kind, Alfie
Then I guess it is wise to be cruel
And if life belongs only to the strong, Alfie
What will you lend on an old golden rule?
As sure as I believe there's a heaven above, Alfie
I know there's something much more
Something even non-believers can believe in
I believe in love, Alfie
Without true love we just exist, Alfie
Until you find the love you've missed you're nothing, Alfie
When you walk, let your heart lead the way
And you'll find love any day, Alfie
Burt Bacharach was a philosopher as well as a songwriter. He captured the thoughts of so many of us as we ponder whether life is an arc or a staircase.
Culture often suggests that life is an arc, rising until mid-life around our 40s or 50s, then gradually declining as we fade away. Alternatively, life can be viewed as a staircase, continuously growing and changing as we age, a countercultural perspective that requires thought. How often have you pondered the meaning of it all in your quiet moments?
Some of the questions below appear uninvited in our minds and cause such cognitive dissonance that we can retreat to the comfortable existence Bacharach describes in the lyrics to What’s it all about, Alfie? “Is it just for the moment we live?”
What are we to do while we’re here?
Is this all there is, and what are the implications of my answer to this question?
What do I value and why?
What is non-negotiable in my life and why?
That cognitive dissonance can also cause us to start the Hero’s Journey that Connie Zwieg describes so beautifully in her book, The Inner Work of Aging. She describes aging as a spiritual journey from role to soul.
She describes this journey with the story of the Buddha. “It is said that more than two thousand years ago, in the north of India, there was a prince, Siddhartha, who lived in a palace with beautiful gardens filled with the sounds of bells, music, fountains, and songbirds. The king, his father, made sure that Siddhartha was surrounded only by strong men and beautiful women. The king was determined that his son would grow up to succeed him without ever knowing fear, suffering, or sadness. But curiosity snared the prince. When he was twenty-nine, he ordered his charioteer to take him outside the palace gates. At the edge of a crowd, he saw a woman and man, both bent and gaunt. Their skin was cracked, their teeth chattered, gray hair hung to their shoulders, and their hands shook. The prince asked his charioteer, “What are these? Has nature made them like this?” “Sire, these creatures are like all others who live into the twilight of their years. They are old. They were once children nursing at their mother’s breasts; they grew to have strength and beauty; they married and raised families. Now they are near the end of life. They suffer from the press of time that mars beauty, ruins vigor, kills pleasure, weakens memory, and destroys the senses. They are a ruin of what they were.” The prince asked, “Will this also be my fate?” “My lord, no one who lives can escape this fate.” The prince shuddered, uttered a deep sigh, and shook his head. His eyes wandered to the happy crowds. “And yet the world is not frantic with terror! How can they ignore our common fate?” For an instant, the prince saw through the surface of his existence as if seeing through a painted screen. Meeting old age, he encountered the first divine messenger—and his first glimpse of the truth. So began his journey to become the Buddha.”
The Buddha saw two other divine messengers: illness and death. He set out to answer Burt Bacharach's question thousands of years later: What’s it all about?
We will all see through the surface of our existence at one point in life and see reality clearly. For some, it happens in the last five minutes on their deathbed - what Richard Rohr calls enlightenment at gunpoint. For others, it doesn’t happen at all.
For those of us who view life as a staircase instead of an arc, it gets harder as we climb higher, but the view is better, and the climb gets easier as we let go of some of the baggage that holds us back.