Wisdom from Rudyard Kipling: Jubal and Tubal

Who do you identify with?


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Scottty

Well-known member
Founder
This poem is one of his good ones.

Jubal and Tubal Cain

Jubal sang of the Wrath of God
And the curse of thistle and thorn
But Tubal got him a pointed rod,
And scrabbled the earth for corn.
Old old as that early mould,
Young as the sprouting grain
Yearly green is the strife between
Jubal and Tubal Cain!

Jubal sang of the new-found sea,
And the love that its waves divide
But Tubal hollowed a fallen tree
And passed to the further side.
Black-black as the hurricane-wrack,
Salt as the under-main-
Bitter and cold is the hate they hold
Jubal and Tubal Cain!

Jubal sang of the golden years
When wars and wounds shall cease
But Tubal fashioned the hand-flung spears
And showed his neighbours peace
New new as Nine-point-Two
Older than Lamech’s slain
Roaring and loud is the feud avowed
Twix” Jubal and Tubal Cain!

Jubal sang of the cliffs that bar
And the peaks that none may crown
But Tubal clambered by jut and scar
And there he builded a town.
High-high as the snowsheds lie,
Low as the culverts drain
Wherever they be they can never agree
Jubal and Tubal Cain!
 
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D

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I am a little bit of Tubal.... But I feel the world has too much of him; and not enough attention to the Sattvic principle--to Jubal and his living.
 

Francis Urquhart

Well-known member
When I started my first job, decades ago, I was given a piece of advice which has stood me well throughout the years. It went "no matter what your formal job description will be, you will always be surrounded by people who can find a thousand reasons why something cannot be done. Your real job description is to find the way it can be done."

Rudyard Kipling was a very wise man
 
D

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Guest
When I started my first job, decades ago, I was given a piece of advice which has stood me well throughout the years. It went "no matter what your formal job description will be, you will always be surrounded by people who can find a thousand reasons why something cannot be done. Your real job description is to find the way it can be done."

Rudyard Kipling was a very wise man

This is completely true. Half my time at work is spent dealing with the latest person who finds a reason to shut the operation down or prevent something from being approved.
 

Cherico

Well-known member
I feel like this is more an argument between the romantic and enlightment ideals.

One party is about finding a spiritual meaning to live the other looks at life as a series of problems that need to be solved.
I identify with cain more, some body always gets stuck with the scut work of making sure things function.
 
D

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Guest
I feel like this is more an argument between the romantic and enlightment ideals.

One party is about finding a spiritual meaning to live the other looks at life as a series of problems that need to be solved.
I identify with cain more, some body always gets stuck with the scut work of making sure things function.

I agree that that's what I feel it was about, mostly.
 

Scottty

Well-known member
Founder
I feel like this is more an argument between the romantic and enlightment ideals.

One party is about finding a spiritual meaning to live the other looks at life as a series of problems that need to be solved.
I identify with cain more, some body always gets stuck with the scut work of making sure things function.
I agree that that's what I feel it was about, mostly.

Interesting.
It never occurred to me to regard Kipling's Jubal as more spiritual than his Tubal-Cain.
 
D

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Interesting.
It never occurred to me to regard Kipling's Jubal as more spiritual than his Tubal-Cain.

Everything he does is worship, and everything Tubal does is materialism, it’s about the war in the human soul between spirituality and materialism.
 

Francis Urquhart

Well-known member
Everything he does is worship, and everything Tubal does is materialism, it’s about the war in the human soul between spirituality and materialism.
I'd say more the war between the idealistic and the realistic. In thinking about that distinction, I'm reminded of Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko's exchange with a proponent of international pacifist organizations when she was on a bond sale tour of the USA during WW2. After hearing an idealistic speech about how international understanding would solve all the world's problems. Tovarish Lyudmila Mikhailovna stood up and made the following reply.

"I am Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko. I am 23 years old. I have killed 309 fascists. When are you going to stop hiding behind my back?"
 
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D

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I'd say more the war between the idealistic and the realistic. In thinking about that distinction, I'm reminded of Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko's exchange with a proponent of international pacifist organizations when she was on a bond sale tour of the USA during WW2. After hearing an idealistic speech about how international understanding would solve all the world's problems. Tovarish Lyudmila Mikhailovna stood up and made the following reply.

"I am Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko. I am 23 years old. I have killed 309 fascists. When are you going to stop hiding behind my back?"

Okay, that's fair. One could argue that Jubal is not at all presented positively as opposed to simply an opposite. Idealism is distinct from spirituality.
 

Scottty

Well-known member
Founder
It's not plain at all to me that someone who composes songs in which he basically complains a lot is necessarily engaging in worship, still less that such worship would be acceptable to God.

I imagine if Kipling's Jubal and Tubal-Cain were alive today and were members of a small Bible-believing church, somewhere where the surrounding society was largely "post-Christian" and godless:
Jubal would compose some sort of poem about the great mystery of the hidden will of the Almighty granting knowledge of salvation to some while leaving others in darkness.
Tubal-Cain would get some gospel-tracts printed, and start passing them out on the street.

Oh yeah - and Jubal would be part of the worship team, but he'd need Tubal-Cain's help to make sure the sound system was working.
 

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