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I still did not understand how people did this. Get up every morning. Do all these meaningless tasks and then call it a day. Wake up the following day and do the same.
Of course, I had done it myself – with grace and an illusion of great control. I had done it for the first 17 years of my life without thinking twice about it. My mother died on a Sunday in the month of November and the following Monday I was in class at 7:30 and I never missed a day of school.
Over Christmas break my cousin had used me sexually for his own pleasures. I never told a soul. And when the break was over, I was still at the very top of my class. I cried by night and was perfectly capable of doing anything by day. It was not too easy – but I never thought about it. Maybe it was due to my religious beliefs back then.
Everyone had convinced me that the Lord had taken my mom for a reason and that the Lord had amazing plans for me. I had wondered why it was that I was crying every night if I had an Almighty Father who ruled the universe – could he not have granted me some relief?
When I finally had to confront my sexual orientation, I had been a mess. Only by night. During the day I'd had my mask on – it had no longer felt like a mask but it had started becoming my second skin. I had been in agony fearing I would go to hell or that my family would cast me out. But I had never missed a day of class. I had enjoyed learning and maintained my perfect grades.
Even when I had started questioning whether there was a God or not, or whether he cared at all, I had functioned perfectly well. I had gotten up every morning. I had never asked why I did it. It was not a question I was capable of thinking of – or maybe my subconscious had hidden it from me knowing what that single question would do to me when I finally asked it.
And ask it I did.
At first I had sensed desperation and read the Bible, prayed and asked for a sign. I never got one. I had read all the philosophy texts I could access. No one had the answer. The great secret philosophy had taught me was to `revolt' and to make my own meaning. From what and with what could I do that? Where could I start? I had been lost and confused. The answer from my priest had been to pray harder.
I had asked one thing from God for several consecutive months. I would pray and say "Father you have taken the only person dear to me and now I don't know what I'm doing. Everyone thinks they know what they are doing – maybe they do – but I doubt it. They just haven't asked the question and felt its full effect as their intellect wraps around it. But I have asked it Father. I have eaten from the tree of knowledge only to discover the emptiness in the universe. As such, let me die in my sleep. Let me not wake up tomorrow. Amen."
Despite all that, I had woke up every morning as alive as I could be. I had lost all faith and I had burnt my Bible - literally. None of it was true. All the false hope. I had tried to hold on, and I had somewhat managed – I'd had a perfect set of A*s for my GCSEs. But the weight had been too unbearable and I had crashed.
I used to wake up. I just never got out of bed. I never ate. There had been no point. It was all meaningless. False notions of freedom, revolt and hope had all been laughable. I had wondered why I had never seen it all before. Why people could not get it – I, at least, had known I was not altogether insane because a number of `respected' intellectuals had gone through that. And yet they had bounced back – except for Tolstoy who had been so lost after his existential crisis. I doubted that I would ever recover.
That was all a couple of years ago. While I sometimes felt a surge of energy when I played my clarinet or composed or looked at the stars. It was very temporary. I could not hold on to it. Sometimes I could hold on to it for a week or two at most and then I would be back to the same question again. My psychiatrist and psychologist could not treat this. I had seen several different ones. Their advice: "up your dose of sertraline, exercise, spend time with friends, meditate and do some relaxation exercises."
I hated all of this. I hated it. I wanted it all to stop. But I could not close my mind to the question that still troubled me. I could not make my own meaning because I did not know how. Sure I loved learning and had some friends scattered across the world. They were not nearly massive enough to exert an appreciable force of gravity.
I had to find a way out. Why had I not killed myself already? I did not have an answer. I had tried and very nearly succeeded, but a pumped stomach filled with charcoal was all that it got me. And looks of pity from those who knew .
Some people held on for love but I could never experience that. I could never allow myself to open completely to another person. And more importantly, no one could possibly love me. Why would they, when I was a pathetic mess that struggled just to get up in the morning?
Some held on for money and wealth. While its convenience was undoubtable – it would not be worth holding on for that.
Some wanted kids. I would never forgive myself if I ever brought an innocent life to suffer in this cold, unfeeling, unkind and callous world. No one deserved that. Not even I. Thought it was a bit too late to ask my mother to consider some form of birth control. If someone managed to build a time machine in my life time, my first priority after having stolen it would be to go back 20 years into the past and perform some sordid procedure on my mom that would render her infertile. Then I would cease to exist.
But that only started the issue of the time paradox. If I was never born, then I could not have existed and could never have gone back to the past to ensure my mother's infertility.
This was a very unhealthy way to start a Tuesday morning. I supposed a lot of it was sparked by my conversation with Tom the previous night.
"I have not been avoiding you," I said very defensively because that was partly false. While I did not craft any elaborate schemes on how to actively avoid Tom, I had not made the effort to remain in touch with him.
"If you say so," he said in a dismissive voice.
"I do say so – no need to caption the obvious."
"Nothing is ever obvious with you."
"Don't be ridiculous."
We were standing awkwardly outside my door. I decided to open the door and welcome him inside. He half-sat and half-slept on my bed – with his shoes on! Boys! I bit my tongue before I could tell him to get off or take off his shoes.
"I am by far the easiest person to read – I never lie to people Tom. I never lied to you. I, for want of a better expression, laid all my cards on the table when I met you. I told you most of what was going on in my head."
I thought he needed reminding.
"I know," he said, "it's just that I don't know what you think about me."
"Is something wrong? You never doubt yourself and you never care about people's opinion of you. Where is this all coming from? I'm thoroughly confused."
He looked out my window for a moment before responding. "I like this girl and I'm not sure what my chances are with her."
"Of course, your chances are very high – you are great! You are very intelligent – much much more than I am and I'm not that stupid – you are sensitive for a heterosexual male; you are kind, loyal and genuine; you are athletic and have a great build; you are cheerful, optimistic and possess a certain charisma that draws people in. I am quite certain that this is the prevailing opinion – Emi and Jana certainly think so. And I have told you all this before."
He smiled. Yes, there was the problem: he doubted himself – a phenomenon that was so rare because this was the first time I was witnessing it in the 6 and a half months that I had known him.
"Thank you," he said looking out the window again.
"No need to thank me. I was merely captioning the obvious – something I hypocritically criticized you for moments ago!"
"You see...the problem with this place is that there is a certain etiquette to dating. And it involves a lot of money, to name but one thing – something I don't have. There are several of those resources that I lack... 60% of the students here pay all their fees from their parents' overflowing pockets or the likes, and are genuinely very wealthy."
I did not know what to say. While wealth had great use, I never really had much of it. We had a few days almost every month when we had nothing to eat back home. And yes, more than half the students were very wealthy – if cars and clothes were any indicators of wealth. I did not know how to comfort him.
"Tom, the universe is unfair – wealth and great attributes are not spread out evenly to us all. That is harsh and yet very real. I am certain I have less money than you do..."
"Oh I am sorry, that was insensitive of me," he began to say. But I raised my hand to silence him.
"That was not my point. If there is a girl that expects to be pampered with flowers and chocolates – or is it silver and diamonds these days? Then I don't think she is the one you ought to be running after. I have lost a mother and a father and half my mental abilities. One of the strangest lessons I have learned from it all is that it appears that affection and the ability to love really add to the proliferation of happiness. You have that ability and also have much much more to give than carbon that has been crystallized under great pressure."
Another pause.
"I know that. Thank you. I suppose I needed reminding. I'm really sorry; I came here to check on you, not to talk about my problems."
"I share my difficulties with you, Tom. Friendship is a give and take."
"Yes it is. Now, what's new with you?"
"Could you be specific?"
"Don't give me that bull," he said laughing.
"Nothing is really new, though I have been making connections between Camus and Voltaire. I was just rereading Voltaire's 'Candide' and it occurred to me that his analysis of the meaning of life is sound and effectively leads to his conclusion: that metaphysical speculation is useless as it will never shed any more light on life's purpose. He suggests, that one ought to keep oneself occupied and busy so as to not engage in this kind of meaningless speculation. This, I reckon, was one of the early texts that suggested a solution to the problem of the absurdity of life (I am not discrediting Kierkegaard's works which hint at this issue from a very religious perspective).
"Camus, then comes along and accepts, not without satisfactory, thorough and vigorous assessment, Voltaire's supposition as being axiomatically true for the purposes of his philosophical essay. Unlike Voltaire, Camus thinks that keeping oneself occupied will only work for so long until one becomes exhausted, and in that exhaustion awaken the conscious mind to the hopelessness of our plight.
"He postulates that 'work' merely masks the problem of the absurd and does not address it. He then suggests that there are other solutions, of which the first is physical suicide. Now, Voltaire disregards this, in my view, on account of human fear; that we fear the unknown and a great example of this fear manifests itself in our aversion to the loss of consciousness (death). Voltaire says that though many are miserable, they do not commit suicide. Camus takes another stance here, one I disagree with. He says suicide is cowardice, an evasion and not a true 'revolt' - just a desperate attempt to remove oneself from the world and its absurdity. I think it take extraordinary strength to liberate ourselves from the world and that irrational hold it has over us.
"He suggests a second choice, and the first 17 years of my life were lived under this 'delusion': he says this is the 'religious solution of positing a transcendent world of solace and meaning beyond the absurd'. In physical suicide one removes oneself from the rude world, while in 'philosophical suicide' - which he so graciously called choice number 2 - one removes the world and all its absurdity and replaces it with a more pleasant alternative solution. He condemns the latter as fraudulent, an annihilation of reason and no less cowardly than the former. Voltaire does observe this option as well (though not explored in 'Candide') hence his famous declaration that 'even if God did not exist, we would invent Him' because it's much better to assume that our suffering is for a reason, and most importantly because it overcomes that natural aversion to death through the promise of the restoration of consciousness ('eternal-life', or 'life-after-death' phenomena). I believe that both men's explanations are concise and point to the heart of the matter, so to speak.
"The third solution is to revolt and live life as if it has no purpose or meaning. Camus even boldly states that a life without meaning can be more fulfilling and fun! He uses Sisyphus as the hero and model of this solution. He also mentions, to my great enjoyment, the legendary Don Giovanni (Mozart had even composed an opera on this iconic figure). Don Giovanni is nothing short of an unrepentant heretic with an insatiable sexual appetite. He commits many sexual atrocities and engages in the most shameful debaucheries with all sorts of women. It is not the behavior that Camus hails, but the spirit of revolt that resides in Don Giovanni. I would also tentatively suggest that Count Dracula and Theseus exhibit the same spirit as Don Giovanni. Anyhow, Camus wrote 'The Outsider'/'The Stranger' to illustrate this principle through the detached and aloof Meursault.
"I don't really know why I said all that, but those are some new thoughts are occupying my mind."
"That is rather profound, but I do not have the mental energy to engage in such a serious conversation," Tom said while stretching and lying flat on my bed.
"I have a fun then one: What is zero? Is zero a value or an absence of a value? Can an entity that does not exist have a value of zero or, indeed, an absence of any value? Does zero actually presuppose the existence of an entity to which we can then attach a value or merely notice that its value is absent? Strangely, if you think of this in the context of deterministic non-linear dynamical systems – in agreement with chaos theory – you reali..."
"Another one that needs too much thought." He gave a small yawn and arranged the pillows to get comfortable.
Unable to restrain myself, I asked him to remove his shoes. He removed them and was soon breathing very deeply, sound asleep. Well, it was awkward – he'd never taken a siesta in my room before. Especially when I was tired and wanted to take a nap as well. I decided to work and wake him up later for supper.
I turned on my computer and put on my earphones. Some Tchaikovsky would do, I thought. After all, there was no sound sweeter than the gentle murmuring of the strings, the melancholy and piercing tone of the oboe, and the mellifluous sounds of the piano in his 'Andantino semplice - presto - tempo' from the first Piano Concerto in B-flat.
I really had to let Tom go. Something about him telling me he wanted some girl made my conviction more resolute. There merely was not as much resistance from my primal hindbrain anymore. I was sad. Even though I never had any reason to hope, I had done so without realizing. A majority of our problems that caused much pain and sadness came with unmet expectations and hopes.
Hope? Yes. Hope. The elusive and mysterious Dame. We could never catch her. She was always around the corner but we never caught up with her. We lost sight of her and felt lost until we caught a whiff of her perfume. Hope would return and we would pursue her, thinking she was definitely close by. But no one ever caught up with her or captured her. No one had shared their strategy that led to her capture. How come? Why, she was merely a figment of an imagination that was desperately trying to establish order by finding 'proof' that life had a meaning; that the Universe cared and that one day we would find her. But it was a vain hope - she did not exist anymore than Zeus or any of the other Olympians!
When I woke Tom up, he was a bit disoriented and left saying he was very hungry. After I closed the door behind him, I sat on the floor and wept silently. The moment had been symbolic. I was going to shut him out – not completely. That I could not do. We would be friends for as long as he wanted me around, but I would never allow myself to see him as anything more than a friend and risk the pain. After several minutes, I moved to my bed only to be overwhelmed by his scent. I quickly changed my bedding – coincidentally it had been 2 weeks since I last washed my duvet, so it was due for a wash anyway. Sleep came very easily though I did have a nightmare. In it I was alone on a field in the middle of nowhere. It was cold and I was terrified and screaming for help. No one could hear me, or no one cared. No one came to my rescue. I was left there alone. Alone. Always alone.
It was time for a shower and to distract myself, I made myself think of the liar's paradox – I had read about it in Alan Turing's biography. Something so circular it never ended. The author had suggested writing a series of `true' statements with a twist at the end, like this:
My name is X. I am X years old. I am X feet tall. All statements on this page are false.
If one read the last statement, it would imply that the last statement was itself false, which would make everything true, including the last statement. And if the last statement was true, then all the statements would be false, including the last statement. And so all the statements would be true... and so on. Caught in an infinite loop.
Whatever the application is computer science, I had been fascinated by the simple idea of it. Thinking about it, I realized that I was nearly clueless about computers. I knew how to use them, I knew how binary and encoding worked, and I had played around with python – with a lot of `syntax error' notices on the output screen. It was too frustrating, so I never pursued it. Consequently, I didn't even know what an algorithm was. I knew the word and when to use it correctly but I couldn't really define it.
The entire day I floated by – not saying anything in any of my lessons. It was the same for the whole week. I couldn't hold on to any thought – I was not sad. I was neither happy nor unhappy. I felt empty – like all my internal organs had been harvested and I was so light on my feet I felt like I was gliding. Like Dementors. Or rather, like a victim of the Dementor's Kiss.
I was soulless and floating around but I was still alive. It was a painful way of being and it made me think of all 7 suicide strategies I had perfected in my mind. They were my back-up. I could never go on without back-up plans on how to end my life if and when it got overwhelming. I collected a ticket on Friday afternoon to see Justin. I did not think I would actually go.