You May Say I’m a Dweemer

The other night, on New Year’s Eve it was, I turned on the television shortly before nine in order to see 2017 stride confidently ashore on the east coast. What I actually got was a few minutes of a standard issue pop star with nice teeth, encouraging everyone to sing along with a traditional favorite . . . and you know, I am enough of a schmuck to wonder if we were going to get some auld acquaintance, or something like that. But no, what we got was the treacle-enriched nihilism of John Lennon’s Imagine. “Da dum da dum da dum . . . you may say I’m a dweemer . . .”

And it occurred to me that what that song desperately needs is some extended commentary. It could be a scholarly annotated commentary with extended bibliography, which I will leave to others more qualified, or it might be the kind that someone in my position might be able to do—you know, Mystery Science Theater kind of stuff.

I would approach it this way because I like to think of myself as sort of a C.S. Lewis, only without the scholarship, intelligence, humility, grace, or deftness of touch. Other than that, the parallels are almost uncanny. When Lewis dealt with a subject, all would simply stand back in wonder and say, rem acu tetigisti, “you have touched the thing with a needle.” In my case, it is more like rem salix alba tetigisti—you have touched the thing with a cricket bat, and we are not quite sure that tetigisti is the right verb.

But one wonders sometimes—doesn’t one?—whether there are times when all public-spirited apologists think to themselves that nothing but a cricket bat will do.

Imagine there’s no heaven

You mean this is it? This is the whole shebang? I’ve spent virtually all my life in Hoboken, and now you tell me there’s no heaven?

It’s easy if you try

We see now that rigorous worldview analysis is simply a matter of closing your eyes, and humming a little tune. The question is not what kind of universe you actually live in, but rather what kind of universe you want to be living in. A moment’s reflection will show that this is total nonsense, but then another moment of wishing will fix it. It will erase the whole thing and make all those nasty logicky thoughts go away.

No hell below us

Ah, now this is the sticking point. Not only is it the sticking point, if we successfully remove it, it becomes the selling point. If you can imagine this, then the rest of song becomes quite catchy.

Above us only sky

Since we are in a song called Imagine, just imagine what you can now get away with. That shady business with the stocks? Above you only sky. Those pills for slipping into your date’s drink? Above you only sky. Helping the Russians get into John Podesta’s email? Above you only sky.

Imagine all the people

Okay, this is an easy one.

Living for today . . .

Actually this is an easy one also. The only people we know are the ones living for today. That is why we work in a Dilbert cubicle with an idiot boss, and a teeming, snarling swirl of office politics up and down the stupid skyscraper, with all of them living for today, and then every weekend nothing more than three incoherent parties with the only unifying theme being that everyone at the parties is living for today. Fortunately in the short term she is not bad looking, she is coming to our apartment afterward, we have these pills, and nothing over us but sky.

Aha-ah . . .

This is the only part of the song that makes any sense.

Imagine there’s no countries

Where are we all going to live then?

It isn’t hard to do

It is too hard. Where are we going to live? Who is going to collect the garbage?

Nothing to kill or die for
This one is kind of a trade-off. I agree not to kill you, and I agree not to die for you either. That way I am not the murderer, and when the murderer comes for you, I can stay out of it. I am detached, enlightened, and am overflowing with pure thoughts. And on the “not killing” part, I also reserve the right to change my mind on that point because floating over top of all such commitments is the most convenient exculpatory category of “only sky.”

And no religion, too

Except for the religion we are all in the process of imagining. The one in which we have no heaven, no hell, and only sky.

Imagine all the people

Okay, all the people. Got it. We have been over this one.

Living life in peace . . .

This particular wish is qualified by our earlier assertion that there is nothing to die for. Living life in peace would certainly appear to be a desideratum, but it is not worth dying for. I won’t die for that on your behalf. Tell you what I will do, however. I will do all in my power to imagine it for you. Easy if you try.

You . . .
Yes, you.

You may say I’m a dreamer

Well, yes, actually, that thought had occurred to me.

But I’m not the only one

Because if anything will improve a hallucination it would be multiplying power of a mass hallucination.

I hope someday you’ll join us

No, thanks.

And the world will be as one

As one? Or one? Maybe you just needed it to scan?

Imagine no possessions

Great. Let’s start with the residual royalty stream from the hit song Imagine. Where do I log in with my PayPal info?

I wonder if you can

Yes, I can. I have my log in info right here.

No need for greed or hunger

Was somebody arguing that we needed hunger?

A brotherhood of man

I don’t know. I have been feeling kind of cynical since getting stiffed on that royalty business.

Imagine all the people

Yes, yes, the people. Just like in Eleanor Rigby.

Sharing all the world . . .

Not sharing at all. You can’t fool me anymore. What’s the point? They are living for today, remember? Grabbing, lost and lonely, also like in Eleanor Rigby. Above them only sky.

You . . .

Yeah, you.

You may say I’m a dreamer

I will admit the tune is catchy.

But I’m not the only one

What do you have when a million people think that two and two make five? What you do not have is the future of mathematics.

I hope someday you’ll join us

Perhaps if we could revisit the royalties question . . .

And the world will live as one.

Until the heat death of the sun. Prior to which point an astute observer will point out that the entire history of our planet will have amounted to nothing more than the dance of millions of gnats and midges on a long summer afternoon five centuries ago. They are all dead now.

Imagine there’s no nothing. No mellow chord change. No treacle. No nothing.