Dr. Seuss and Philosophy - Jacob M. Held [20]
I Was Real Happy and Carefree and Young
In I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew, the child does make it to Solla Sollew. After enduring obstacle after obstacle, from a Midwinter Jicker and a flubbulous flood, to Poozers and a frightful black tunnel full of billions of birds, so many troubles in fact he declares, “I wished I had never been born” (Trouble), he does arrive at Solla Sollew. Unfortunately, the doorman to Solla Sollew informs him, “There is only one door into Solla Sollew / And we have a Key-Slapping Slippard. We do! This troublesome Slippard moved into my door / Two weeks ago Tuesday at quarter to four. / Since then, I can’t open this door anymore!” (Trouble). The doorman can’t get in and informs the child that he will be travelling on to “Boola Boo Ball / On the banks of the beautiful river Woo-Wall, Where they never have troubles! No troubles at all!” (Trouble). The child has a choice to make: Should he follow the doorman and endure another treacherous journey to another supposedly problem-free town? The message is clear, there is no Solla Sollew, and there is no Boola Boo Ball. There is no place on earth or in Seussdom where you can go and escape your problems. Suffering is a fact of human existence; running is no use. There’s no where you can go to avoid the inevitable pitfalls of life. So if you can’t run away or otherwise remove all the problems from your life and you want to redeem your existence in the face of this intractable pain, what do you do? The child holds the key, or in this case, the bat. “Then I started back home / To the Valley of Vung. / I know I’ll have troubles. / I’ll maybe, get stung. / I’ll always have troubles. / I’ll maybe, get bit / By the Green-Headed Quail / On the place where I sit. / But I’ve bought a big bat. / I’m ready you see. / Now my troubles are going / to have trouble with me!” (Trouble).
In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche explains the need to become a child by describing it as “innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a wheel rolling out of itself, a first movement, a sacred yes-saying.”17 To become a child is necessary in order to play the game of self-creation and affirmation; that is, a playful approach to life wherein we revalue and redeem its accidents in the face of our own creative potential. How fitting that Dr. Seuss’s protagonists are almost exclusively young. He writes for children using the image of a child; one who is adventurous, takes chances and risks, is not beholden by convention, demands, commands, and rules. The child is a creator, one who revalues his own life and plows through the world of wiggled roads and frightening creeks to come out the other side with a smile on his face. In fact, one common trope in Seuss’s work is breaking rules, going beyond borders, and traversing new lands in an attempt to create a life worth living. All is redeemed when that child lives his life, his way. That is success, 98 and ¾ percent guaranteed. It’s just too bad we forget this lesson as we grow older, complacent, and frightened.
Nietzsche’s response may seem simplistic. But he is not promoting naïve optimism or self-delusion. In fact, Nietzsche’s response is not only in line with pessimism but also only holds water if we presume the core of pessimism is correct—life is suffering and in need of redemption. Nietzsche recognizes the inherent suffering of life; that our existence is riddled with inescapable pain. But he refuses to give in to it and renounce life. Instead he approaches the pain joyfully, playfully, with vim and vigor. “For believe me: the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment