BLESS STEVEN, ALPHA, ALAN AND WALTER AND THAT OTHER GUY

I just came from reading a short story by the French writer, philosopher and existentialist Jean Paul Sartre – the first time I am reading anything by him – such gripping stuff!! The story is called ‘The Wall’, and it is about three men captured during WWII who have just been informed that they will be executed the following day; it gives an account of their last night. What a fascinating read! Sartre himself was captured by Germans during the same war and was kept in a camp for a year before he was released (or escaped), so maybe he could well imagine what it was like to await one’s death – who knows he actually lived through such a night himself. What was really interesting was how one of his characters grapples with the idea that there is complete nothingness beyond death (a belief that Sartre no doubt held), but then appears to be unable to sustain this belief when the time of his death arrives.

These days I try to read with a writer's perspective, and one of the main things that occurred to me here was that one can really immerse oneself in an experience and write about it – even though one has never actually had such an experience - such as imagining what one’s last day on earth might be in this case. I have often worried that I did not have enough world experience to write convincingly about anything, or that I have not interacted with enough people or gone to enough places. This fear was mitigated somewhat when, as I read Sartre’s short story, I found myself able to imagine or invent various possible directions for the story to go – though I have to admit Sartre’s decisions were far superior to any I had come up with! At any rate, from now on I choose to believe that I am able or invent believable characters, create drama, and engage my reader at all levels! If nothing else, all the reading that I have done has been enough exposure to events, places and characters. At any rate, I emerged from ‘The Wall’ (because in truth the man had me completely captivated) feeling like reading is the best gift that God could have given me!! Bless Steven, Alpha, Alan and Walter and that other guy whose name I cannot remember now!! Tumusiime something or other. These are the young men who introduced me to reading when I was about 10 years old, although it has to be said my mother played her part too – I remember her buying me two books around that time: ‘A Call of the Wild’ and ‘Romeo and Juliet’. On the other hand, I read the bible ferociously, and since I remember reading it just for the pleasure of reading rather than religious reasons, I guess I also had a natural predisposition to reading.

(The title of this post is me trying to learn the skill of naming short stories – as any post here is – I have discovered that titles are a crucial part of the short story as they communicate just as much as the body of the story itself)

So, this brings me to another question that I have set myself – what kind of writer shall I be or am I? I find myself drawn to literature that posses questions, that explore experience, that probes the unconscious, rather than that which sets out to merely to entertain – I think I should be very satisfied producing this kind of writing. I have spent the morning reading famous last words, as well as the famous quotes of philosophers like Immanuel Kant and Voltaire (that is another subject yet to be mastered – Philosophy – but all in good time!), and they are the kind of things to really get you thinking. At one point, I was prompted to look outside my window and consider the true nature of things – to ponder the swaying of the leaves in the breeze, day after day those branches sway – and to what purpose? One might say there does not necessarily have to be a reason for everything, but I compare this to the life that man leads - sometimes it looks like we are going round in circles, no different from these leaves. Hmmm. No wonder some philosophers have driven themselves mad thinking about these kinds of things… Jean Paul Sartre was constantly tortured by his own freedom for instance, and what a great responsibility weighed down on him as a result, without prospect of escape from it as long as he lived. Looking at some of his sayings exposes this state of mind:

‘Hell is other people’.
‘Man is anguish’.
‘Man is a useless passion’
‘He was free, free for everything, free to act like an animal or like a machine...he could do what he wanted to do, nobody had the right to advise him...He was alone in a monstrous silence, free and alone, without an excuse, condemned to decide without an excuse, condemned to decide without any possible recourse, condemned forever to be free.’


I tend to agree with him to a certain extent about personal responsibility: we really are completely responsible for what we do, for what happens to us and so on, but I find that I can not go to the extremes he went; that we decide our reality, our destiny (although I believe that to an extent) – but somehow his thinking was too hopeless, too full of helplessness, uselessness, aloneness; in a word, too much for me to embrace. Although even the wise Solomon said everything under the sun is useless, everything has been done, and will be done over (or something to that effect). In a way, my hesitation to explore the extremes of Sartre's thinking makes me a little anxious about my commitment to exploring the nature of reality – why do I reject, or hold back from considering some of these ‘extreme’ positions? I should be able to go right to the edge and face the abyss. What am I afraid of? After all, I sometimes think that whatever is beyond the edges of my knowing is something warm and comfortable, rather than something waiting to gobble me up. Speaking of which, I have often wondered where I get this feeling of security – maybe it is just a state of mind that I choose, and therefore create.
At any rate, reading is just the biggest pleasure – observe what wealth of experience emerges from it! That short story has engaged me all morning - it has exposed me to one of life's greatest mysteries – the distance between what we believe, and what is likely to be the truth after all. Sartre’s last words were: ‘I Have Failed’. I certainly am aware that all this thinking back and forth, and wondering and pondering and reflecting may be a futile exercise, great thinkers have rehashed these same ideas and gotten nowhere as far as I can see, but what pleasure it brings me!