A lonely and desperate exposure in Uncle
The students had always found this teacher to be intelligent, and thoughtful. He never censored them, and was interested in their opinions. They respected him, and thought him a good teacher.
On Thursday, he came and asked them, “can we just talk?” And so they put the syllabus aside and talked, about philosophy, culture, politics. The big stuff. But there were hints that all was not OK. He divulged embarrassing personal details: he was 30, still lived with his parents, didn’t have a girlfriend.
The next day he came to class, and started the same. He spoke of Nietzsche, Confucious, the Sino-Japanese war, liberty, equality, freedom, the past, the future – but these students weren’t at a level of Unclese where they could fully understand him. But still he spoke, he rambled, on and on. One of the French students described it as, “mettre son âme à nu” – literally, “undress his soul”.
And then, in the midst of this undressing of the soul, he undressed his body as well. For fifteen minutes, in front of a shocked, horrified class, he stood, talked, completely naked.
When this true and scandalous story rippled through the university that day, eventually reaching me in the afternoon, it saddened me greatly, and has haunted me ever since. How desperately lonely he must be. How shocking this act, how incredible, but also how human.
Isn’t that what we all want? For people, for someone to know we exist. Know that I am here. See me for what I really am.
And is this blog not a similar kind of sad, self-exposure?
Only days earlier I read this disconcerting story, of a lonely and isolated Unclese student in Sydney who went mad and stabbed a cabbie to death. There is madness in the air. Do we all stand teetering on the edge? What does it take for someone to so suddenly slip and find themselves falling?
I worry about what prolonged loneliness may do to me.
I met a guy at a party and thought him tall and attractive. I liked how deliberately he talked. He had a masculine presence, and when I talked to him I felt like he was really all there, a full person, giving me his careful, clear and undivided attention. And there was something intriguing about him, he didn’t seem like the rest. And I was certain he too was curious about me.
Then I felt a huge, angry sock in my stomach. No!
Why do I do this? Why do I over romanticise like this? Why do I see magic in a moment that has none? There was no special connection, this isn’t the beginning of a story, of which I am a protagonist. I and he are not interesting, sexy or worthy of writing about. There is nothing and no one in this. We are just two strangers sharing the same space. We are all alone together, not touching.
I blame novels. I blame movies, music and art. But most of all, I blame novels.
I am on the verge of finishing Jean-Paul Satre’s The Age of Reason, and I blame him. Life, and the people in it, will somehow never be as alive as the invented reality of that novel. Because in that fictional existence, every single element has a purpose. Every single thing serves a higher meaning, something concrete and purposeful – the beauty of the narrative.
But in my narrative – that is life – there is no point. Things are just there, for no reason, and they don’t give a fuck about me, and any need for something real, and deliberate.
When this guy saw me, he probably saw an empty body, and felt nothing. When I saw him, there was nothing beyond my projected desire for authenticity, meaning, connection, love, respect, friendship, – and a narrative that has some sort of point, some bracketed subtext where I could say “the reason why this happened is because …, and how extraordinary and worthy it was.”
Instead of being here, like a ghost. All of us living in suspended states, revolving door strangers, together alone, not touching.
Trackbacks
- Ever noticed the way all Unclese students wear glasses? « kapookababy
- ‘Yes Woman’: This year, I’m going to learn how to fall in love « kapookababy
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Intense. Just finished reading Revolutionary Road and for me it dealt with the issue of insanity under the assumption that the insane people are the ones everyone think is “normal” and the people who are actually thinking clearly are the ones that society deems as “mentally ill”. Not a word out of place in that book, you should check it out (the movie with Kate Winslet and Leo DiCaprio is excellent too).
What a sad, sad story. And it’s true. So many people (particularly intelligent people?) teeter on the edge of loneliness. I suspect they always have – was it really any better when people were more likely to stay tied to their original communities and connections, is those communities and connections didn’t fit them right?
I don’t agree that you’re over romanticising things, though, by seeing beauty and romance (in the broadest sense) and meaning and connection in them. You’re applying a particular lens, sure, but you would be doing the same thing if you chose to see life as devoid of those things, too.
Well, you could say there is no point to life per se, but I think a better way to look at it is that we need to create our own meaning. A book I just read called “Flow” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (yes, his real surname) says “creating meaning involves bringing order to the contents of the mind by integrating one’s actions into a unified flow experience” (where flow is a state where we are engaged with ourselves, others and our goals). Sounds a bit new-agey, but is actually just practical psychology. Some people never start looking for this level of engagement in their lives, some start and never find it, and some people find and live it… I guess the most important thing is to know there can be meaning and engagement, and to not give up looking.
Also connections to other people do matter — you won’t make the right “read” of someone every time, but don’t give up. There is romance in our relationships with the people around us, even if our everyday communications are such a thin veneer on what is happening inside of us.
Loving your writing and ideas, as always.
Dave
I think you should trust your instincts. Your instinct can tell you more about yourself than any novel or book. Go within, and see what arises.
But yes I empathise with your loneliness. Even in much more awesome cities such as M one can be lonely at times.
I am also stealing your urban myth story about the teacher who undressed himself for a monologue. So sad and so beautiful at the same time.
Not an urban myth! Really happened on Friday.
Thanks friends for your beautiful, thoughtful comments. You are half of this blog!
awesome post.. postmodernism can infect for a moment… but connections do happen, however fleeting and often leading nowhere, and even more so in one parties’ interpretation… but if u imagined it was there.. it may well be.. but will it lead anywhere.. not necessarily.. but it leads to a good cathartic post… i like.
Wow.
Damn. There really is nothing more I can say. It reminds me of my boss at the university I worked at in Nanjing, a quiet graying professor who seemed to spend most of his days napping, and who I sat next to on the bus on my way to work most mornings. I never had any idea of what was wrong, he was married, had a kid, did not seem to have any problems and seemed happy enough just to do his translations and leave day-to-day running of the foreign affairs department to the Waiban – a pretty lady with a single syllable name.
I’ll never forget the day it happened – the 23rd of December 2004 – he stabbed the Waiban in the back with a knife which was at least a foot long, and then threw himself from a 5th story window. The Waiban survived but he died instantly on hitting the ground, his wife and daughter were some of the first at the scene as his wife worked at the university and his daughter was a student. The rumour was that he and the Waiban had been having an affair, but whatever it was in his life that was eating him up, it exploded in him that day.
For myself, I have never been of that type, my own problems leak out easily enough with a bit of alcoholic oiling when necessary. If I ever thought I was going down the same road as my old boss, well, I’d try and get some help quick. Don’t worry though, everything you say seems very normal.
Holy shit! What a story.