The Universe Is In A Glass Of WineBe Drunk

You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it–it's the
only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks
your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually
drunk.
But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be
drunk.
And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of
a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again,
drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave,
the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything
that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is
singing, everything that is speaking. . . ask what time it is and
wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: "It is time to be
drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be
continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish."

I only recently stumbled across the literary work of French poet Charles Baudelaire whose art and existence was carved during the 1800's. While I haven't had much time to sit with his work and savor it the way one does with wine, allowing it to be relished playfully and pensively on the palate (not me though, I usually chug it), I anticipate that I may very much enjoy Monsieur Baudelaire's poetry, one glass of words at a time.

This poem, Be Drunk, is one of the poems published in his 1869 collection of short prose poems called Le Spleen de Paris (Paris Spleen). Here he encourages the reader to become intoxicated by something, anything. Some may argue that he suggests this because of how difficult it seems to deal with the harsh reality of sobriety. So he suggests that we should seek out addictive distractions.

Reading the poem, that interpretation does seem valid. But in my world of metaphors and Merlot, 'drunk' isn't always a bad thing. Baudelaire encourages us to be intoxicated by the things that excite us. For anyone who's ever been (appropriately) tipsy, there is definitely something addictive about the feeling of becoming slowly uninhibited; of feeling your self-expression and happiness swell out of you.

Not everyone who becomes drunk is trying to escape a reality. Sometimes it's an act of pure revelry. Before I truly knew what it was like to become woozy with wine (and other 'beverages'), I would watch others progress into drunkenness with intrigue and amusement.  I enjoyed observing them becoming less careful about their humanness, saying things they wouldn't normally say and loving life in such zealous ways. In emotionally mature people, this is fascinating to watch.

I have a friend who wants to be completely naked when she is tipsy, and another who just wants to dance, to everything. In a controlled environment, both of those things can be beautiful. That's the kind of drunk I feel Charles Baudelaire encourages. He encourages us to find the things in life that make us more of ourselves; that make us want to dance and shed the covers and costumes of our natures. The poem urges us to pour passion into our souls with beautiful things that make us revel in our own existences, not necessarily to distract us, but to adjust our perspectives.

When you're swept away by something beautiful, you forget time. You forget about the trivial things that may usually plague a mind that is only exposed to the mundane.

So be drunk. Find mirth in spaces where life seems endlessly tipsy. Keep an infinite supply of the good stuff on the shelves of your mind. Have a bottomless glass of joy in your spirit. Be drunk in your own talents – fall in love with your personhood and with the art you create. Be drunk in love – inebriate with your kisses and be stupefied by affection. Be drunk in the universe – let the stars swirl around and inside you, throw laughable questions at the sky and be amused by the responses, or lack thereof. Get high on people's spirits and on the boundlessness of knowledge. Find new ways of being drunk in the world every day.

And on the days when you can't find any metaphorical way of being drunk, be drunk on good wine (in a controlled environment).

Nicole Van Wyk

Image source: virtualsynapses.com