I
“Nothing Gold Can Stay.”
Heraclitus, the Obscure One from the Ionian City of Ephesus, formulated the mantra of Panta Rhei more than 2000 years ago: River is changeless change. “You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters and yet others go flowing ever on.”
A celebrated synecdochist in the sea of constant becoming, Robert Frost encapsulated the Heraclitean philosophy in his exquisite slice of poesy – Nothing Gold Can Stay – larded with the seasonal cream churned in the “Change is the only constant” pail of Derry, New Hampshire in 1923.
Then in 1983, Ponyboy Curtis recited the poem poignantly in The Outsiders film against the backdrop of golden twilight sinking slowly into the maw of night, illustrating the Frostian foreboding of impermanence of all things sublime and beautiful under the sun. (Incidentally, the sun will be no more after five billion years.)
The Outsiders’ faced the ashen inheritance after “leaf subsides to leaf.” The hand-down version after “Eden sank to grief” is the legacy of the disinherited and the disenfranchised, the meek and the weak, and the doomed and the damned.
The remaking of The Outsiders continue in Life’s studio in flux. No substantial change in its ephemeral theme, but it’s cast of new characters don new clothing in accordance with the style of the time. Except for the gilded stage for the progeny of Insiders, the Outsiders’ stage, true to the Shakespearean trope of “theater of life”, remained unvarnished and unchanged: between entrance and exit the Outsiders have their scripts over which they have no editorial clout.
The sensitive and stubborn Outsiders ought to heed Doris Lessing: “Those of you who are more robust and individual than others will be encouraged to leave [the classrooms] and find ways of educating yourself — educating your own judgements.” (For example, Al Pacino fits the bill of a quintessential outsider versed in the Lessing lesson.)
II
“The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights.”
J. Paul Getty boldly went for the black gold under the immense spread of the Arabian sands where no man has explored before. Besides the constant companionship of Lady Luck drenched in oil, Mr. Getty profited munificently from his proficiency in the Arabian tongue, and boldly did the “stingiest billionaire” declare some time later, “The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights.” (attributed to JPG)
Spurred by the patriotic fervor, Mr Getty volunteered his service in the sea in 1941. But the Navy Secretary asked him for his help by means of the Spartan Aircraft Company, instead. To his credit, he sought no medical exemption. “An avid collector of art and antiquities”, he was the golden yolk, so to speak, in the sea of egg whites.
The movers and shakers, the go-getters and self-starters, the hustlers and the achievers, and the conmen and the conjurers – they all wore the ring of Gyges. They schemed for the ill-gotten gold under the protective invisibility of the ring undetected by the radar of the valiant and the virtuous, the meek and the just.
But behold, Donald J. Trump is an exception to the rule of the go-getters of the avaricious world! Brash, bold and braggadocious, he needs no ring of Gyges. And he flaunts imperiously the law of the jungle, canting the mantra of Might is Right morning, noon and night.
However nearsighted and nonsensical it may appear to the modest folks of ’Murica, the President posits the golden outcome of selling off the public land – the inheritance of the meek – for the good of the country, transforming the role of the Government stewardship into the Presidential salesmanship.
The President, unlike J. Paul Getty, doesn’t resort to a slick spiel about the meek inheriting the Earth minus its mineral rights. He shoots from the hip and doesn’t give a hoot about the meek and the weak, and their inheritance.
Undaunted by the naysayers of his golden vision for American greatness, the President prods his agendas by means of the executive ramrods through the legislative body of the cowed Congress for making America a shining city of gold upon an adamantine hill. Since he is the Deal-Maker-in-Chief, he shows his hands to his friends and foes alike. That’s what I call Chutzpah. Chutzpah with the capital C. A fearless leader, President Trump is the envy of the fearful headmen of the globe.
Besides, the President has the Midas touch. Whatever he touches turns into gold. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present you the Exhibit A: Le Bureau Ovale d’Or. And the proposed palatial ballroom is the golden brainchild of the Magician with the Midas touch. I hope it is more than equal to the Versailles ballroom of Louis XIV.
Moreover, I hope I am not wrong about the notion that the White House (Pity the bland name for the shrine of white power, albeit the one and only black embellishment of O., a historic fluke that would be whitewashed over as time passes by.) would some day outshine materially the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab, India, when it is clad from top to bottom in the radiant bullion bars hauled from the Fort Knox. Adorned in brilliant 24K gold, it would stand second to none. Beating all other candidates vying for the title of the Eight Wonder of the World, the House of Gold would shine in all its golden majesty as the solid gold doors bearing the life-size figure of Adam Smith bedecked with the Washingtonian wig and the Jeffersonian neckware while an actor made up in the spitting image of Adam Smith would greet the privileged aspirants, the golden issues of the Insiders, into the haloed sanctum of power and prestige with perfect Scottish accent. “Guid mornin!”
Further down the golden hall President Trump, the Tariffic Prophet of Power, Prestige and Prosperity, the chosen one to grace the Pachyderme d’Or Trône of the House of Gold, would appear suddenly via a deus ex machina, adding another layer of awe upon the starstruck offsprings of the Insiders.
By virtue of The Art Of The Deal, esoteric and enchanting, the Prophet would shepherd the ambitious offspring of the Insiders one at a time into the purple room, and the Prophet would guide each novitiate to shake “the invisible hand” that inspired the father of free-market theory of economics to pen the Scripture of Capitalism — The Wealth of Nations.
A cabal of capitalist colts would cantering along the republican promenade under the management of the golden Insiders. Trained in the republic’s political paddock, the future champions would surely win the races from coast to cast including the one for the House of Gold.
Hail to the Chief!
