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Chapter 4
That morning I walked into my Literature class with my professor trailing a few centimetres behind me.
"Today we are wrapping up The Crucible and moving on to Romeo and Juliet," he said, without a greeting gesture of any kind. Why was it so hard for people to be kind? A simple `good morning' with a smile would have transformed the atmosphere in the room. I should not have been so judgmental, given that I was definitely not a morning person. My brain was always slow to process or retrieve information in the mornings. Well, my brain had slowed down a lot with my fall into depression and I had not recovered all my faculties.
"Is projecting a true phenomenon?" he asked. I had missed the previous sentences due to musing about my dysfunctional brain.
"We cannot be certain of it, and so the truth of it cannot be determined in the absolute because there are no absolute truths," answered the girl behind me. I didn't have to turn back to know who she was – she always answered with a tone of superiority because she was a Philosophy major. But my professor seemed to like this.
"That is `true', though in a literature lesson we often do not pay as much detail to the use of that word as philosophers do," he said.
"And that is the problem. We use these words carelessly and do not realize that they create an illusion of certainty in knowledge that is left to be questioned only in Philosophy," she retorted. I was so annoyed, though I could see her point.
"Your argument is valid," I said, surprising myself. "With my limited understanding of the conclusions that a learnèd philosopher may draw from epistemology, I am convinced that one of the key lessons is embracing that there are no 'certain' truths that are beyond questioning. While instilling doubt in knowledge is shown to be one of the fundamental pillars in fostering mindful learning – leading to more creative and novel use of knowledge, I cannot help but feel that epistemology often seeks to abandon and cast aspersions on all intellectual tradition... just for the sake of doing it.
"What more can one possibly gain from coming to the same conclusion every day - that our ways of knowing are severely limited and so we cannot achieve certainty in knowledge? Epistemology does not offer any remedies to this conundrum but merely points out that it plagues all areas of knowledge... and cannot be remedied." I paused and turned around to face her.
"Yes, I believe that the thinking individual should very well dismiss any notions and paradigms of absolute facts in favour of scepticism. However, if this is done to the extreme, then by all means it is not worth learning anything because we can never be certain about any of it!
"As opposed to rejecting the only knowledge we are capable of gleaning with our limited faculties, perhaps the cultured mind, to paraphrase Einstein, should adopt an attitude of being vigilantly content with the imperfect knowledge and understanding of the harmony, structure and mysterious forces in the cosmos. Don't you think so?" I asked, but did not give her the opportunity to respond before I faced the professor and delivered yet another speech from goodness-know-where.
"Projection is accepted among some circles in psychology and great thinkers have often referred to it – Ludwig Feuerbach for instance. He posited that humans have projected their wonderful attributes into an external, pure being they call god. But by doing this, we are left feeling, for want of a better word, inadequate or downright evil. I would venture so far as to say that that picture was too brutal, too unbalanced and so we sought a way to project our `evil' attributes such as rebellion, carnal desire onto another external being – the devil. That way we are not at one end of the spectrum with god at the other, but we occupy the middle ground as a kind of ego boost – we are better than the devil and striving to be like god," I finished breathless.
"Those are nice thoughts but let is bring the argument to our primary text," my professor said looking at the rest of the class. It appeared that no one wanted to volunteer any information. And so his eyes landed on me again.
"Well, the accusers are projecting all their sinful behavior onto their victims. This is well known. It's an ego boost. As Abigail projects her shameful behavior onto Elizabeth, who is a morally upright woman, she does something unconsciously. Yes, she wants her dead so she can dance on her grave with Proctor – to paraphrase Miller himself. The crucial point, however, is that Abigail has been worried about her name being blackened in the village, by projecting that onto such a character as Elizabeth – knowing stupid Danforth will believe her – she moves herself along the moral spectrum towards god while pushing Elizabeth towards the devil and so she gains a sense of moral superiority that she does not actually possess.
"It's the exact same situation with Ann Putnam and Rebecca Nurse." I paused and realized everyone had their eyes on me. I hated attention so I slowly sank into my chair, hoping that it would magically turn into a cloak of invisibility.
The girl behind me started speaking and later a few people joined the discussion. But by that time I could not focus – my anxiety was acting up. I kept looking at the door.
I'm not sure when or how I stood up and gathered my things in the middle of the lecture and ran to the nearest bathroom. When I came to my senses I was sitting on the floor inside a stall with my arms pulling my knees towards my chest. I remembered my breathing exercises but they wouldn't work. I was shaking quite severely. I was in tears and my nose was wet with mucus. I don't know for how long I stayed there. I had no sense of time.
After some time I pulled myself up, grabbed my bag and went to the sink to wash my face. In such moments I always avoided looking in the mirror. I had trained myself not to. I hated how I looked in general and seeing that already abominable form made worse by red eyes, slimy mucus and messy hair would not help my condition. I sent a message to my Dean and informed her that I had a panic attack and had to run out of class. She promised to give my professor a call and asked if I needed to be excused from lessons for the rest of the day. I declined that offer.
I was a mess in lab that afternoon, and I felt so sorry for my partner for getting stuck with someone as useless as me. I wanted to just leave but I had to stay because it was hard to redo labs.
I avoided the crowded dining hall during lunch and bought a sandwich and a coke from a café instead. During my French lesson, I sat quietly in the corner not taking in a word. Mercifully, French was my last class for the day.
I wanted to just curl up in bed and miss my black fat cat because he would comfort me with his purrs in such moments. But I had to keep going. A lot had been given to me in order to afford the high education fees in this prestigious institution. I often felt very guilty about my `inactive' status. There were students on campus that were advocating for one thing or the other; some were winning sports tournaments; some brilliant musicians were holding recitals; and the scientists were producing research papers about remarkable discoveries. What about me?
I couldn't do anything exceptionally well. A lifetime ago I could run and dance rather well, but I lost that when everything fell apart.
I spent the rest of that week in that mood, not answering my phone and avoiding people as much as was possible (which led to me missing my appointment with my therapist). I spent the weekend in bed, without eating any food, watching episode after episode of NCIS and Arrow and I finished reading Romeo and Juliet for literally the 15th time.
Monday was a bit brighter. I went through my lessons and was able to focus and to participate very in discussions, albeit minimally.
During lunch I met Emi who was excited about something.
"Why are you so hyper and happy?" I asked.
"Hello to you too," he said rolling his eyes. "It's just that Justin is coming."
"Judging from your look, I should probably know who Justin is..." I said.
"Yes! He is a professional football player and he graduated from this college 2 years ago or something."
"Since when do you call American football just `football'? And I didn't know you had any American football aspirations."
"I don't bro, but imagine how useful he could be if I asked him to be the face of my social entrepreneur project."
"Ah, quite the opportunist," I said, but quickly added an "I'm joking" after the look he gave me.
"Anyhow, he'll be here this Friday and Saturday nights and we get to have dinner with him."
"Well, sounds like a massive orgy. Not my preferred scene at all! But I do hope he will acquiesce to your request and be the face of your project."
"You should come, it will be fun."
"Let me get this right: an American football star is coming and will be surrounded by a cloud of admirers – which are numerous, I imagine – in a dining hall. Do you know what happens when you get a group of people with all their bacteria and other pathogens, and each person has a luminosity of say 780 watts? You get an incubator for all pathogens. And then add to that mix an African, born prematurely with a generally weak immune system, and that immune system does not yet produce the necessary antibodies to protect him against North American pathogens. In short, you would have to bury me the following weekend."
"You are such a drama queen!"
"You have never met a drama queen before because if you had you would not call me that," I responded with my voice getting slightly aggressive.
"Very well then, I don't want to be the guy that kills you, so I won't drag you to see him."
By evening that day, there were massive posters of a guy carrying a football while walking out into a stadium from the changing rooms I supposed. He was not as bulky as I imagined an American football player being. He looked quite nervous – as if it were his first game. I recognized the look because I had seen photos of myself (taken against my permission) during my first recital. I almost felt sorry for him imagining the kind of pressure he must have felt.
It was an immediate paradigm shift. Whenever I thought of athletes, which was very seldom, I always naively assumed that they had it easier than artists. Artists never knew how their works would be received by the public. But then I suppose athletes never know how they will perform. And actually there is a greater kind of pressure that comes with having an opponent. Artists do not compete against anyone but themselves – at least when art is done appropriately.
I do not really know why, but I was suddenly curious to find out how this Justin, big as he was and yet as emotionally vulnerable as any one, coped with all of the expectations and how he dealt with losing a game. I had never really lost because I had avoided all activities that included a direct opponent. The reality, though, was that I would probably not get anywhere near him.
I walked back to my room and passed the tennis courts where several male tennis players were walking around nude. I had my eyes fixed on them all. There was something exotic about Caucasians – their bodies looked so edible.
As I entered my hall, after swiping my key card, I noticed yet another poster of the Justin guy. He was cute. I made a resolution not to pay attention to how people look. The body was a very unstable vessel, subject to all elements that could alter it at any moment. I was getting uncomfortable with all the exposure to men and their bodies such that I ran up the stairs in an effort to get my blood circulating away from certain regions. When I turned the corner, someone was sitting in front of my door. He looked up when he heard me approaching. It was Thomas.
"About time," he said. "I've been waiting for quite a while. I want to know why you have ignored me the past several days."
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