Is That All There Is?

Soul music on Radio 4 featured the song 'Is that all there is?' this week. If you are reading this post close to today's date then listen to the program on iPlayer. Here on youtube is a recording of Peggy Lee singing this wonderful song. There is great acceptance and warmth in the lyrics and music and Peggy Lee's performance is perfect. Life is bitter sweet, full of disappointment yet also full of meaning and depth. It might not be at times all we would wish for, yet also for the most not as awful as we might fear. We can accept what is, we can keep dancing. What else is there? There is no need to despair, no need to haste our exit from this life. And those final lines of the song go on to remind us that when the time comes to face it, even death may well be one more experience for which the response is - 'is that all there is [to death] then lets keep dancing'. In a less playful way Adorno would remind us - ‘Grayness could not fill us with despair if our minds did not harbor the concept of different colors, scattered traces of which are not absent from the negative whole. (Adorno, Negative Dialectics, 377–8.) But let's not end with a negative note, no, lets keep dancing. Keep facing the koan, keep breathing, keep dancing. And, supported by a 'spiritual perspective' we can keep dancing with awareness (we need not break out the booze). We are all connected in one big mixed bag of a dance, remembering that can save a lot of suffering and bring a lot of fun. For me, in its own way the song 'Is that all there is?' goes some way to pointing to the four noble truths and remembering the koan which inspired the title of this blog (case 5 Mumonkan) it reminds me that the only way to give an answer when hanging in a tree by your mouth is to keep dancing, but dance with compassion.