057_sufferingwithOh yeah, you know it.  Here comes another bunch of Catcher In The Rye flotsam your way.  Especially because you’ve heard all about J.D. what’s-his-name’s passing on to new realms of existence.

I read the book in high school and thought it was dumb.  But I still remember it, after all these years.  Maybe I was too young to appreciate it fully.  Now that it’s passed before my view again I think I’ll crack out my copy and re-read it.

I heard some bleating on the Internets about Holden being a whiner, that when he grew up he sold out or became a loser.  That the author didn’t do a sequel because he couldn’t get his pen up to deliver the master stroke again, so to speak.

Yo, I’m calling that out.  I still remember Holden discovering what he wanted to be and articulating it as being “a catcher in the rye”.  That is, protecting young people from going bad, from falling off the cliff.  He moderates that with the balance of realization that kids have to fall down and get hurt to know life.  It’s an incredible vision of discovery.

Also a noble goal.  Because we are all phonies who need to awaken to this knowledge.  Only short-sighted people would be unable to look beyond the surface and not see this is where greatness comes from.  To see the fakery of our make-believe illusions with bitterness, yet still long to be of service is the birth of the heart chakra.  It is the opening up the human being to life.

Others may console themselves with imaginations of Holden selling out as he grew older, of failing to live up to his ideals and joining the treadmill of existence like everybody else.  As if anyone ever avoids this fate!  Guess what suckers, you still have to try even though you have lost your youthful innocence and are an adult now.

It takes very very very good karma to want to be someone who helps others.  If as a teenager he lacks the means yet to accomplish this goal, what of it?  We expect all our youth to know everything before its too late, even though they are doing the best that they can.  Even though they too shall lose everything anyway and come to wisdom in their own way and in their own time.

For this is where the seeds of the mature adult king or queen takes root, bringing order that will blossom later in life.  We should all be so lucky to have such a healthy vision of our destinies.

Wisely, the end is left open-ended, because like all advanced stories it is the reader who must write the rest.  It is their response that says more about themselves than the character or the creator of that character.

We’re all phonies.  Terrible, yes.  And also human, which might be our only hope.

Open your heart.