‘Strikes and gutters: abide with me’
In his last line in ‘The Big Lebowski’, Jeff Bridges’ self-styled ‘Dude’ drops one of his most quotable pieces of dialogue: ‘The Dude abides’. As Ben Sherlock explains here, there’s real depth, hidden meaning, and pathos to this most memorable of lines. No matter what life throws at him; no matter how many ‘gutters’ come his way, with ‘strikes’ disappearing into the past like a road sign in the rear view mirror; no matter how hard the going gets… still, like the rising of the sun, ‘The Dude abides’. In his article Ben explains it brilliantly, the phrase nodding to an Ecclesiastes scripture:
‘“One generation goeth, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth for ever.” As kingdoms rise and fall, the ground they’re built on is the only constant. The Dude is saying that he’s more like the earth that kingdoms are built on than the conquerors who build them.’
The distance between happiness and misery, joy and worry, flow and inertia — in my life experience anyway — can at times be paper-thin. I find myself navigating the razors edge this weekend pondering how to access my inner ‘Dude’. This is the month that sees me turn 49, and I’m still in transition, finding my way after a turbulent and torturous 2023. This last week I’ve found it hard to access those calm and confident parts of me, the places where I have faith that the Universe will provide, that…
