The Doctrine of Life

He sat hunched over the open magazine, three more waiting for perusal in a stack nearby. He felt very studious there in the high school library, though this was a study of his own volition. His previous passions had also consumed him: Dumas and 19th century French authors, economic theories and the stock market, the life of Napolean. Now it was the Beatles and their legend upon which he grazed. These first breaking stories of Beatlemania fascinated him.

Just around the corner was the hallway leading to the gymnasium. The Coke machine there was a gathering point and a giggling gaggle of girls arrived. The sound of the girls' voices tripped the boy's radar and he looked up to listen. They were cheerleaders. And they were excited.

The talk was of boyz. It was not the words but the sound of their voices that heralded a hope and an eagerness for life. Life was to be seized and its treasures were not to be denied. They were discovering themselves, moving forward. The world is many things but life is always a social game in the end. Face it - or be left behind.

At that moment, the boy's folly was undeniable. He considered all the false refuges: how men had created money to buy off their loneliness, how wars were waged to create a sense of purpose, to create any world where women did not matter. But no treehouse was safe. Oh, he and his ilk would try to convince themselves of their happiness, but each secretly wished to escape.

The world - he saw now - was nothing more than the extension of the personal lives of its inhabitants. To straighten that out, to make that a success, was the only true path. He could create all the outward achievements he wanted, none would matter. Only pyrrhic victories lay ahead for the boy - and he knew that. A few empty pats on the back were better than nothing. Maybe some would even think he was somebody.


But in this moment, with the enthusiastic clamor of the girls ringing in his ears, the scorching pain and anguished regret was unbearable. It was a nightmare from which he could not wake. He had chosen wrong. And on that path, nothing could be salvaged. In his prison of shame, the bitter lyrics of the song most feared came back to him:

Some say love, it is a river
That drowns the tender reed.
Some say love, it is a razor
That leaves your soul to bleed.
Some say love, it is a hunger,
An endless aching need.
I say love, it is a flower,
And you it's only seed.

It's the heart, afraid of breaking,
That never learns to dance.
It's the dream, afraid of waking,
That never takes a chance.
It's the one who won't be taken,
Who cannot seem to give.
And the soul, afraid of dyin',
That never learns to live.

When the night has been too lonely,
And the road has been too long,
And you think that love is only
For the lucky and the strong,
Just remember in the winter
Far beneath the bitter snows,
Lies the seed, that with the sun's love,
In the spring becomes The Rose.