The Prodigal Pocket Square?
Occasionally we all write sentences that strike us with their singularity. It’s these that make us say I never in a million years thought I’d utter these words in this order. Today, as I was driving home from my first day at a new job, I was confronted by this phenomenon. And with that preface we begin.
While listening to Joe Rogan and Guy Ritchie wax poetic about all things sports medicine, jiu-jitsu, and haberdasher, I became fascinated by Guy Ritchie’s philosophy on life. The man who I’ve loved for years for giving us SNATCH, which contains the most delightful Brad Pitt performance (he plays a gypsy bareknuckle boxing champion), was discussing the modern suit as a means of discerning his own outlook. If you’d like to listen to it in its entirety, I’ll leave a link to the YouTube video containing the podcast at the bottom of the post. I won’t be able to do it justice, but Ritchie essentially begins the interview by stating that by wearing a pocket square, he is doing his part in reclaiming the suit. The suit, maligned in recent history by those who believe it makes the masses look like uncomfortable work drones, is now rising back to the forefront of culture by those, like Ritchie, who personalize it and make it a modern suit of armor simply by wanting to wear it. For Ritchie, it symbolizes the need to be comfortable in oneself despite what the external world may consider proper or worthwhile. It is here that Ritchie launches into a retelling of the parable of the prodigal son from the New Testament.
I understand that I may be taking a bit of an assumptive leap by covering a Judeo-Christian parable, but for those who don’t subscribe to these beliefs and are unfamiliar with the parable, I’ll summarize it. A father has two sons. When the younger son comes of age he goes to his father and asks for his inheritance. He then takes his inheritance and spends ten years wasting it in various places and dens of iniquities until he is destitute and living on the street. After a time of this low lifestyle, he swallows his pride and returns home to his father and begs forgiveness. He asks only to be a servant for he feels that he has lost all right to be welcomed as a son. The father, happy to see his son, forgives him completely and welcomes him home with no chastisement. He clothes him in the finest robes, and arranges a feast in his honor. The eldest son, angered and bewildered by his father’s behavior asks why his brother should be welcomed back with open arms when he, the elder brother, has never strayed or disobeyed his father’s orders. The father simply replies by telling his eldest son “We must celebrate. For your brother was lost and now he is found.”
My grandfather is a baptist preacher and has been for my entire life so I’ve heard this parable multiple times. I always took it to be a fairly simple one. We should forgive our brother when he asks for it. Easy. Done. But Guy Ritchie’s take struck me. Ritchie believes that in the parable we are the father, our intellect is the eldest son, and our spirit (or soul or humanity or whatever you want to call it) is the younger son. He believes that our spirit is for some reason compelled at some point to venture into the world and attempt to claim it. It wants to be accepted by it. So we become malleable during this pilgrimage. We try to mold ourselves into what we believe is the currency accepted by the external world at that given time, and only after a spell of true dissatisfaction are we prepared to retreat back into ourselves to find a sense of purpose. At this point our intellect and rational thought, the eldest son, becomes angry and indignant. Who are we to accept this reckless spirit once again. Rational thought is unwavering. Logic is pure now and has always been. Our intellect knew from the beginning that the actions of the spirit were folly. We must shun that behavior and abandon such romantic notions of acceptance by society. But the father says no. We’ve got to welcome in this spirit because it is valuable. Just like the intellect. They have their place within us as a whole and we must wrestle with them equally.
I think that’s an incredible take on a story that’s thousands of years old. Of course you can still perceive the parable as strictly about forgiveness, but I like this interpretation much more. It’s about forgiveness and the reckoning we all experience between ourselves and the pressures and influences that surround us. We’ve got to be understanding while also unflinching and forgiving while also formidable. That’s the ticket. So thank you Guy Ritchie for the food for thought. I’ll have to try out pocket squares now.
Below is the embed link for the podcast. The portion I’m focusing on begins around 19:46.
