a long-lost post
How much of human life is folly? Dare one even ask? If I’m an employee, I have only to utter some magic words: “It doesn’t matter, so long as they are paying me.” Or, if I’m an entrepreneur: “It doesn’t matter, so long as it makes money”. Thus we and the mess we generate create a legacy, whose come-uppance will lay waste some unspecified tomorrow.
A week ago the snow was thick and new, and cars were abandoned on the hill slopes, and a few intrepid walkers trudged, and it was almost silent in the sparkling dawn. It must have been like this a hundred years ago, when the workers in this street would have gone to their factories on foot, and returned at lunch-time for a hot meal prepared by their wives before returning for more hours of assembling chairs or French polishing. Their world was mostly circumscribed by the visible horizon.
The recent unusual snow did what nothing else could do, and disabled most of the automobiles. I consider this to be a Good Thing, dependence on automobiles being one of the biggest follies of the twentieth century, awash with unintended consequences. Despite the biting cold which troubled my flesh, my instinctive self felt comfortable in this old-fashioned world. I let this primitive self, the hunter-gatherer in me, speak its mind and it said I should only go out to gather winter fuel, like the poor man spotted by Good King Wenceslas. Having gathered it, I should return to my hearth and gaze into the hollows where the embers glowed bright between the logs, and count the blessings of earth, wind, water and fire. (In fact I have central heating radiators, so my hearth-gazing contemplation takes the form of this blog.)
Because of the weather, I haven’t been out so much as usual. For weeks I’ve had a big project indoors, which may melt into a messy puddle of folly, we’ll see. I’ve felt at odds with my environment, and wonder if everyone does, merely smoothing over the joins with magic words, like “adapt …”. To say “adapt or die” would be too stark for some, and unthinkable to others, who sold their souls so long ago for the reward of getting on in the world, that they’ve forgotten they still have souls. Adapt or die: yes, one day I will choose death, and it will be sweetened by the joy of defiance. Integrity of soul is the true life, and the unconscious slide into compromise is the true death. I wonder if, deep down, everybody knows this.
Another of my projects is to translate The Myth of Sisyphus from French into English, I mean proper literary idiomatic English, that’s enjoyable to read. I have the title already: Sisyphus and the Rolling Stone, and part of the first chapter. He claims that the big philosophical question is whether, given life’s absurdity, one should commit suicide. His theme is certainly absurd, and I’m constantly teetering on the edge: not of my own life, but whether to carry on with the enterprise. Is it another of my follies? The big question for me is whether the translator needs to be able to think along with the author in order to translate his words. My answer is “Yes!” for I find that the translator is not like some machine (Babelfish, for example) but a kind of actor. Instead of interpreting the character he plays, he must interpret what the author is trying to say: think the same thoughts, feel the same emotions—live it. In the case of this book, simply to render literally in English what the author did say would be to repeat the folly of the original translator.
I am wondering whether “absurdism” as delineated by Kierkegaard and Camus, has any kinship to the English word “folly”—a building designed entirely for decoration; or any project which does nothing but waste time or money. What Camus considers a reason to kill oneself, Kierkegaard considers a reason to submit to the will of God. Camus doesn’t approve of suicide really of course, that’s just intellectual posturing to dramatise his eventual solution, which requires no God or afterlife.
Neither Camus nor Kierkegaard touches the English soul, excepting a few intellectual fools who have time on their hands or are paid for their folly by universities. No, to guide us through the absurd we have clowns, fools, jesters, who reveal the truth and conceal it in laughter, at the same time. As King Lear’s fool says, “Marry, here’s grace and a cod-piece; that’s a wise man and a fool.” We face the abyss with the jester’s guidance, like Dante visiting the Inferno with Virgil by his side. I’ve been watching Dylan Moran in Black Books, and Ricky Gervais in The Office. Each is in the long tradition of the tragic clown or court jester. Moran’s Bernard Black is a selfish misanthrope constantly irritated by customers who persist in coming to his bookshop despite his high-handed rudeness. (From this he sounds like Basil Fawlty, but the series is funnier than Fawlty Towers, and stands almost infinite re-viewing.) Gervais’ David Brent is the opposite: a man so desperate to be liked that he refuses to see how things really stand. Instead of managing the office responsibly, he tries to be an entertainer to maintain staff morale.
And the moral of all this? To ask whether you are like water, which finds fulfilment in fitting the space which confines it; or whether you are a clown, whose comedy and tragedy is to bounce forever against the walls.
Charles Bergerman: I am both. Water in order to conform to expectations of society in order to provide for myself and my family. I don’t mind a hard days work, but I’ve found myself involved in foolish enterprises—paycheck, not free choice. And thus, as you put it, I’m a clown. It’s natural to demur at conditions that don’t make sense. It may be folly to object out loud. I’ve realized I’ve a different way of looking at things than many of my peers. Some think I’m odd, others are intrigued. If I am a clown, it’s for standing out from others and facing harsh judgement for it. Like you Vincent I’m comfortable with my primitive side. I sense what is natural & instinctive, what connects me to the universe. It is not what many would have us think. I don’t need to be part of the herd. These days the herd has strayed far from natural, instinctive behaviors, constructed their own norm.
Hayden: I was clown from the beginning, am clown still: banging against the walls, taking a bruising all of my career, unable to believe that policy can be so deliberately heinous, certain it’s merely “mistaken.” Perhaps if I enlighten them? Sometimes I’d struck lucky with a benevolent organization, till I realized otherwise and had to move on. Even did a stint as a clown, so I guess that seals it. My anguish in the last job was to remain after learning the truth: still at war with it, yet forced to comply until I could find a way out. I hope never to do that again. Nasty business.
a wayfarer’s notes 