The Cynical Idealist - A Spiritual Biography of John Lennon is an amazing book about an enigmatic figure with endless imagination - John Lennon. The author, Gary Tillery, presents the spiritual picture of John Lennon. He analyzes his songs, describes circumstances and tries to explain the mind of a legendary idol. From Lennon's early years through his life with the Beatles and final years with Yoko Ono, the book describes many less known details. This is not just another John Lennon Biography - it is a unique description of his life and work.

Assume for a moment that you discover you have some terminal condition and your doctor advises that you have only two years to live. How would you choose to spend your remaining time?

Unless you are independently wealthy, two years is too long to simply set aside your present lifestyle and live out your fantasies. You would have to accept compromises. But in any case would you choose to ignore the steadily approaching end? Would you continue to do what you do now on a daily basis? What is at stake is the dwindling remainder of your life. Wouldn’t you indulge the passions of your heart—whatever they might be?

Perhaps you would take the trip to Tahiti or Athens or the pyramids you have always fantasized about. Perhaps you would make an effort to write the novel you’ve had in mind or try to leave behind a legacy of painting or sculpture or music. Perhaps you would move to the place you have yearned to live. Perhaps you would stop working such long hours and spend more time with the ones you love. Perhaps you would begin to speak up in meetings and say what you truly thought. Perhaps you would stop trying to accumulate more wealth and devote more time to philanthropic work, maybe commit yourself to work for peace or some other cause that stirs your emotions.

Perhaps you might even indulge some wild desire to try stand-up comedy, take up hang gliding or cross the continent on a Harley-Davidson. So what if things go wrong or you fail? You will be dead anyway in two years, but you will have lived in the meantime.

The point is, of course, that we are all living our lives against the background ticking of a clock. Most of us have more than two years remaining; some of us have less and do not realize it.

Regardless, do any of us really want to come to the end of life without having reached out for our heart’s secret passions? Which would we prefer—to look back on lives that were undirected by us, flowing along channels laid out by someone else, or lives made just as interesting and colorful and personally satisfying as we could make them by our proactive choices? Don’t we owe it to ourselves to live our lives as though creating a work of art, utilizing whatever resources fate has thrown our way?

When he married Yoko Ono, John Lennon made a conscious decision to make his life his work of art. Working initially toward the goal of world peace, then branching out into the arenas of social and political justice, they staged a number of theatrical-conceptual events, all designed to focus attention on the world’s inequities and point the way to something better.Their work of art was not an elegant, finely drawn, subtly colored piece ready for display at the Salon. Far from it. Theirs was improvised, controversial, and heedless of tradition. They had messy encounters with authorities, drew vitriolic attacks from critics and the public alike, were hounded by the media, and for all their efforts they were appreciated by relatively few people. Their own marriage eventually suffered, and they separated for more than a year.

However, the experience had the strength of being authentic—they chose the path and continued to follow it because they felt it was the most valid way to spend their lives. And compare the figure of John Lennon that has come down to us as a result of his commitment to live his art with how he would be viewed today had he settled for being a wealthy ex-Beatle. Think of him living comfortably on his Tittenhurst estate and regularly churning out more Beatlesque songs for the Top Forty charts.

After 1975, when Lennon reunited with Yoko Ono, the work became more three-dimensional. He committed himself to focusing on a neglected part of his life—the domestic situation. With typical iconoclasm, he brushed aside tradition. He and Yoko redefined the gender roles within the family to suit their own dispositions.

How many philosophers take into account the domestic side of life—baking bread and tending to the needs of a growing child? For Lennon, fatherhood and the mundane acts of family life became an enriching part of his existence, his equivalent of Gandhi’s daily sessions at the spinning wheel.

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"His openly stated goal was to be measured against Shakespeare and Van Gogh and the other cultural giants who communicate across all borders, across all times."

 

"Lennon maintained that people themselves have the power to reshape culture and world events if they will only recognize the fact and act individually and in concert."

 

"The more I have, the more I see, and the more experience I get, the more confused I become as to who I am, and what the hell life is all about." -- John Lennon

 

"Ever since the simultaneous and paradoxical arrival of success and meaninglessness in his life, [Lennon] had struggled to escape despair by discovering his own mission and using his influence as a Beatle to disseminate his message."

 

"The decade from 1966 to 1975, Lennon's long, dark night of the soul, assailed him with a string of experiences that reaffirmed his cynicism, and the years of his own personal and intellectual maturation coincided with the arrival of an era of cynicism in the Western world -- particularly in the United States."

 

"Lennon, tempering idealism with cynicism, never lost his hope for an egalitarian, loving, and peaceful society."

 

"Along with Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lennon stands out as one of the twentieth century's three icons of peace. All three died by gunfire."

 

"Fundamentally, he stood for a human-centered approach to daily life and world affairs. God is not some individualized entity to be worshipped and counted on for assistance but 'a concept by which we measure our pain.' He/She/It is not an all-powerful being representing what is good in the universe but a nebulous background force, a 'powerhouse,' a neutral source of energy that can be employed for good or ill."

 

"In essence, John Lennon was a cynical idealist. He understood the innate self-interest that hobbles our progress toward a better world, but he never lacked optimism that we would get there if we kept our dream in focus. As a philosopher he kept encouraging us to gaze at the horizon; as an artist he felt free to vent his frustration about our dogged myopia."

 

Gary Tillery on Lennon's optimism: "As readily as we can choose to see the world as dog-eat-dog, we can choose to see it as budding utopia. How we see it influences how we act. How we act influences those around us. Thus, every day we are faced with a simple choice: contribute to the creation of a world we find repugnant or contribute to the creation of a world we find satisfying."

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John Lennon’s spiritual death and rebirth crystallized a global anthem of planetary peace and love that transcends labels, dogma, and social expectations, offering the gift of hope for the coming generation. Praised and ridiculed in equal measure, investigated by the FBI, hounded by the media and ultimately assassinated, Britain’s “Man of the Decade” ignited a revolution of our consciousness. This extraordinary figure deserves an extraordinary book and, in The Cynical Idealist, Tillery provides readers with a new and fascinating framework for assessing Lennon’s life and works.