Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2014 20:32:32 -0400
From: Mthobisi Sibandze <mthobisi.sibandze@gmail.com>
Subject: Maybe it is worth it Chapter 5

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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.