My Philosophy of Life
Read 'My Philosophy of Life' by 'John Ashbery' and provide your summary and literary analysis in the comments section below.
My Philosophy of Life by John Ashbery
Just when I thought there wasn't room enough
for another thought in my head, I had this great idea--
call it a philosophy of life, if you will.Briefly,
it involved living the way philosophers live,
according to a set of principles. OK, but which ones?
That was the hardest part, I admit, but I had a
kind of dark foreknowledge of what it would be like.
Everything, from eating watermelon or going to the bathroom
or just standing on a subway platform, lost in thought
for a few minutes, or worrying about rain forests,
would be affected, or more precisely, inflected
by my new attitude.I wouldn't be preachy,
or worry about children and old people, except
in the general way prescribed by our clockwork universe.
Instead I'd sort of let things be what they are
while injecting them with the serum of the new moral climate
I thought I'd stumbled into, as a stranger
accidentally presses against a panel and a bookcase slides back,
revealing a winding staircase with greenish light
somewhere down below, and he automatically steps inside
and the bookcase slides shut, as is customary on such occasions.
At once a fragrance overwhelms him--not saffron, not lavender,
but something in between.He thinks of cushions, like the one
his uncle's Boston bull terrier used to lie on watching him
quizzically, pointed ear-tips folded over. And then the great rush
is on.Not a single idea emerges from it.It's enough
to disgust you with thought.But then you remember something
William James
wrote in some book of his you never read--it was fine, it had the
fineness,
the powder of life dusted over it, by chance, of course, yet
still looking
for evidence of fingerprints. Someone had handled it
even before he formulated it, though the thought was his and
his alone.
It's fine, in summer, to visit the seashore.
There are lots of little trips to be made.
A grove of fledgling aspens welcomes the traveler.Nearby
are the public toilets where weary pilgrims have carved
their names and addresses, and perhaps messages as well,
messages to the world, as they sat
and thought about what they'd do after using the toilet
and washing their hands at the sink, prior to stepping out
into the open again.Had they been coaxed in by principles,
and were their words philosophy, of however crude a sort?
I confess I can move no farther along this train of thought--
something's blocking it.Something I'm
not big enough to see over.Or maybe I'm frankly scared.
What was the matter with how I acted before?
But maybe I can come up with a compromise--I'll let
things be what they are, sort of.In the autumn I'll put up jellies
and preserves, against the winter cold and futility,
and that will be a human thing, and intelligent as well.
I won't be embarrassed by my friends' dumb remarks,
or even my own, though admittedly that's the hardest part,
as when you are in a crowded theater and something you say
riles the spectator in front of you, who doesn't even like the idea
of two people near him talking together. Well he's
got to be flushed out so the hunters can have a crack at him--
this thing works both ways, you know. You can't always
be worrying about others and keeping track of yourself
at the same time.That would be abusive, and about as much fun
as attending the wedding of two people you don't know.
Still, there's a lot of fun to be had in the gaps between ideas.
That's what they're made for!Now I want you to go out there
and enjoy yourself, and yes, enjoy your philosophy of life, too.
They don't come along every day. Look out!There's a big one...
My Philosophy of Life Summary and Analysis
John Ashbery presents a mind trying, and failing, to settle on a neat system for living. The poem begins with a burst of self-conscious ambition: the idea of a personal philosophy arrives almost as a nuisance, another thought crowding an already crowded head. From there, the poem moves in a zigzag of qualifications, comic examples, and sudden digressions, as if the mind itself were demonstrating why no philosophy can stay perfectly orderly once it meets daily life.
The poem's central motion is between principle and improvisation. The imagined philosophy keeps promising guidance, but it quickly collapses into ordinary scenes such as eating, traveling, using public toilets, chatting with friends, or worrying in a theater. Ashbery turns those scenes into tests of whether thought can really govern experience, or whether it merely decorates it after the fact. The ending accepts that tension rather than solving it: life may not submit to a clean doctrine, but there is still pleasure, absurdity, and usefulness in the spaces between ideas.
Tone in My Philosophy of Life
Ashbery's tone is wry, playful, and lightly skeptical, as if he is amused by the very idea of bottling life into a code. The poem keeps sounding conversational and mischievous, but it also carries a quiet seriousness beneath the jokes. For the reader, the mood shifts between comic confusion and recognizably human anxiety: the poem feels roomy, restless, and a little destabilizing, yet ultimately generous toward uncertainty.
This literary analysis was generated with AI and may contain interpretive differences. Provide your analysis in the comments section.
Themes in My Philosophy of Life
- Impossible systems - The poem toys with the desire to organize life by principles, then repeatedly shows how slippery and provisional any such system becomes when it meets real experience.
- Everyday life as philosophy - Mundane actions like traveling, standing, eating, or washing up become the true setting for thought, suggesting that philosophy is inseparable from ordinary behavior.
- Self-consciousness - The poem keeps noticing its own thinking, revising itself as it goes, which creates a comic but revealing portrait of a mind unable to stop observing itself.
- Compromise over certainty - Rather than arriving at a firm moral code, the poem settles for partial gestures, suggesting that a livable life may depend on adaptation instead of rigid belief.
- Play and interruption - Ashbery treats digression, confusion, and the gaps between ideas not as failures but as places where energy and pleasure can appear.
- Social awkwardness - The poem repeatedly worries about other people's reactions, showing how private philosophy is entangled with embarrassment, tact, and public behavior.
Literary Devices in My Philosophy of Life
- Free verse - The loose, unmetered form mirrors the poem's wandering thought patterns and allows the argument to unfold as an associative monologue rather than a polished lecture.
- Extended metaphor - The opening fantasy of discovering a hidden staircase behind a bookcase becomes a metaphor for the seductive discovery of a new worldview, complete with mystery and false promise.
- Parenthetical digression - The poem constantly sidetracks itself with examples, corrections, and qualifications, enacting the very mental instability it describes.
- Humor and irony - Ashbery undercuts philosophical seriousness with comic details, making abstract reflection feel ordinary, awkward, and slightly absurd.
- Colloquial diction - Casual phrases and conversational turns keep the poem from sounding solemn, reinforcing the sense of a mind thinking out loud.
- Allusion - The reference to William James brings in pragmatic philosophy, but the poem uses the allusion playfully rather than reverently, testing rather than endorsing authority.
- Juxtaposition - High-minded ideas are placed beside bodily routines and public places, exposing the gap between intellectual ambition and lived reality.
- Rhetorical questions - Questions such as which principles to follow or whether actions count as philosophy highlight uncertainty and keep the poem open-ended.
Symbolism in My Philosophy of Life
- Watermelon, the bathroom, and the subway platform - These ordinary settings symbolize the stubborn material reality that any philosophy must confront.
- The hidden staircase - It suggests the thrill of sudden insight or initiation into a new way of thinking, though the poem quickly shows that revelation may be misleading.
- The bookcase - This image can represent the surface order of thought, which can slide aside to reveal hidden desires, fantasies, or deeper uncertainty.
- William James's book - It stands for practical philosophy and the appeal of ideas that seem grounded in real life rather than pure abstraction.
- The seashore - The shore evokes freedom, leisure, and an open-ended relationship to thought, but it also remains one more location where the mind tries to make a system.
- Jellies and preserves - These homemade preparations symbolize modest, seasonal forms of planning: practical, human, and far less grand than a total philosophy.
- The crowded theater - This setting symbolizes social pressure and the difficulty of balancing self-expression with consideration for others.
Historical Context of My Philosophy of Life
John Ashbery is often associated with postwar American poetry that resists plain statement, fixed argument, and neat closure. His work reflects a broader modern and postmodern interest in fractured consciousness, shifting voices, and the instability of meaning. In that context, a poem like this turns philosophical language into something provisional and improvisational rather than authoritative.
The poem also fits into a long tradition of American poetry that questions grand systems while still borrowing from them. Its references to pragmatic thought, ordinary urban life, and the comic pressure of social situations place it near a twentieth-century literary culture that was increasingly suspicious of certainty but still eager to test ideas against experience.
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