Harari mentions Borges in understanding that we need to hold on to our delusions to justify the pain endured. It’s Borges’ examination of Cervantes’ Don Quijote, offering three possible outcomes to the question, What if Don Quijote had accidentally killed someone as a consequence of his delusion? In case you haven’t heard, Don Quijote didn’t kill anyone. Harari gives us the name of Don Quijote, but no one here or anywhere have I heard saying so, no one remembers the character’s fictional name, except perhaps for Borges and Harari, because no modern reader could’ve read it in its entirety. Don Quijote is the second most read book in the history of literature, surpassed only by the Bible; and just like the Bible, I suspect many people haven’t really read it. Perhaps, the fact that these are such universal literary marvels, people would want to just own a copy and that counts as a reader. It reminds me of a line by Isabel Allende: “Everyone talked about the book but very few actually read it.”
What Harari tells us of Borges’ third possible outcome was that the character might’ve succumbed to an even worse psychotic state, in vehemently believing in his paranoid delusions, forever lost in his mind because of the severity of his crime. That’s interesting for several reasons, chief among them being that the sick mind creates a delusional arena in which the stakes have to be higher. It sounds terrifying a prospect, not only the chilling realization that the mind of a murderer and that of a madman are nearby linked. What both Mr. Borges and Mr. Harari fail to see, or perhaps mention, is that a delusional mind does not necessarily make a psychopathic one. It is a common misconception, to believe the mentally insane capable of atrocities; such rare cases like that of the assassination of John Lennon in which an apparently deranged man shot him point-blank and later ran through the street shouting, "I killed John Lennon" seem suspect. It's not that a madman is not capable of committing such atrocity; it is that, unless he or she is aided in accomplishing, the idea seems unlikely. What's more, the idea that a man (most violent crimes are committed by males) can take upon such a psychopathic behavior is also rare; not all psychopaths are violent and those who have violent tendencies, too, do not always act upon a murderous agenda. Violence, studies find, requires both nurture and nature; a psychopathic murderer has to both be raised in an environment that auspices such drives and also have a genetic disposition for it. All of us have an innate predisposition to violence if the circumstances call for it. Say someone threatens a loved one, or we find ourselves in a life or death situation. The fight-or-flight response inherited from our ancestors when faced with a dangerous situation.
Like schizophrenics, we talk to ourselves but not in the detached and disenfranchised way of severe psychosis. There were no crimes committed by Don Quijote, in the fictional tale, but his madness was not imaginary. It is heinous to imagine that a character so benevolent and beloved could carry out an "accidental" killing. That he was detached from reality had more to do with a comical twist, due to his fervent lecture of chivalry novels, as Cervantes suggests, but are we to insinuate that there is an actual connection between reading fiction and madness? Again, no. His madness made him imagine the world in his very unique way, for comical purposes, and Cervantes' characters did not have the psychological proclivity of Shakespeare (both writers wrote their works unaware of one another around the same time). Neither Borges nor Harari has a background in psychology; Borges thought himself a writer of fiction, a modest assertion since his intellectual work comprised or better yet tapped onto many other scientific fields well beyond the fiction that categorized his other contemporaries; Harari considers himself a historian even though his work, too, covers a wide arrange of erudite disciplines (futurist, biology, anthropology, etc.) which would best suit a philosopher. On several occasions, Harari has said that philosophers have all the time in the world to debate their ideas, and I may be in the wrong here and merely paraphrasing, but it seems that the role of philosophy is greater than just hypothesizing and arguing. In a few hundred years, philosophy transformed not only the world of Athens but the world to come, served also as the backbone of other scientific fields that would not have been possible if it hadn't been for philosophers. It seems to me that is historians who have all the time in the world, needing to wait for things to happen in order to assess them, sometimes centuries, if not more. Etymologically, philosophy means the love of knowledge; back in Athens, at the time of its inception, there were men who called themselves sophists (sophism, in its etymological sense, a "man of wisdom") who taught oratory as a means to argue their way out of things with the only requirement being to appear knowing what the speaker was talking about. Sophists were exposed by Socrates who, unlike them, argued that he did not know much but that at the very least he had clear knowing that much. Sophists the lawyers of their heyday, bringing accusations against Socrates, until eventually succeeding in sentencing him to death. Talking freely, in the freest society that ever lived, a true democracy of its day, was a risky business as it has always been. It reminds us of Voltaire's Candide: "They arrested both of them: one for speaking and the other for listening with an air of approval." If anything, it is history that has all the time to reenact the past, impossible as it may seem a task, whereas philosophy has made it clear from the start the importance of time. It's enough to read Seneca's On the Shortness of Life to appreciate this. Now, both disciplines aren't at odds: history relies on a good understanding of philosophy, and likewise, philosophy without a sense of history is but a waste of time.
No one wakes up one day and decides that it is a good day to be a horrible human being. Either you are, or not. And this depends on the story we tell ourselves, the narrative that dictates the norm in our lives. What’s more, perhaps, is that every story we tell ourselves serves no actual purpose, as it’s usually believed. Oftentimes, things happen and we come up with the hypothesis after the fact. Nothing has any meaning, except the one we give it.
Again, anything that we tell ourselves, whatever that inner voice inside our head tells us, has to do with the person we are, not a particular circumstance. In other words, we lie to ourselves because we ignore the truth. And so, we go about making it our business to come up with things that we can call “true”, “real”, as opposed to fake or imagined. Meanwhile, we’re to concord, according to this analogy, that Mr. Harari’s story, too, is fictional. Not that it isn’t instructive or revealing, some stories do have more to offer than others. But it doesn’t make them any more or less “real” (whatever we mean by it). And the unrealness of reality, things and experiences that we come to pass as mundane given their recurrence, we only have to imagine how strange and awestruck a spectacle it would be to see the world anew as if we were seeing it for the first time. A poet once observed how amazing a starry night would be if it only happened once every one hundred years.
Instead of telling ourselves the truth, that all our suffering perhaps has no meaning, that everything may have even been in vain, or simply accepting that the ideals we swore by did not measure up in reality, that nothing was won, no sacred ideal upheld... perhaps we should tell ourselves the opposite, find the hidden treasure in the leftovers, live the best possible life right now. Would you, or anyone you know, be willing to live life over in the way? Would you sit and watch yourself writing this line? Would you be content to know that there are prying eyes as you read the words that are being written here? What is it that we want? Fame? Please! Is it money? Not really. What then is it that drives us? Vanity? Maybe not. How about not telling them that their lives are in vain? I remember grandma, my mom’s mom, who listened to the possibility that there might not be a Heaven after all. She was a clever woman, open-minded for her age, and the place she grew in, listened closely as I related to her how her Christian faith had grown from a small sect within the Roman Empire and spread until it conquered the world. I talked to her of emperor Constantine, who made it the official religion in Rome. I wanted to instill in her the doubt that religion denies us, the uncertainty of existence at its core. But then, I saw how her eyes widened in awe, how the magic dissipated in her demeanor, how dispirited my words had been, so I softened my tone and reversed my story to say that it was possible to have a Heaven after all because we don’t really know, but who knows, right? She wasn’t convinced so easily, but I continued to tell her of a Heaven, not like the one we grew up believing in and even at that, none of us knows how such a place would be, for who knows how old would be everyone in the afterlife, I mean, if someone dies young do they appear as they would’ve been when older and if someone died really old do they appear a younger version of themselves? Also, the things someone can do to end up instead in Hell leaves us with just about a handful of people who would definitely be in the afterlife party, even though you won’t know any of these people, or maybe you will. It’s just complicating thinking of assimilation that could make sense of this other world. There are many technicalities that have not been solved in this hypothetical Heaven, a place that is called Nirvana in Buddhism, but unlike Heaven, Nirvana is a place on earth.
How is it then that many religions speak of such places, nothing can be dismissed? I told her, and she sighed, “I guess.” One thing’s for sure: if you get only one life, you have two choices: either get depressed about the absurdity of our condition or enjoy as best you can. And so, if there’s another life, why bother much with this one? But if this one happens to be the only thing you will experience until the boring law that governs this vast universe of ours, the so-called chaos theory, turns us into nothing. Now, it was fun to go out and party and feel that the more people I met, the more cities I visited, the more I would feel, the more I’d be. It turns out, that was fun, all in all, but the most fun is in realizing that we were perfect from the start. Starting from the standpoint of having something missing, whether it is a goal, someone, or something, the idea is that we are never complete. That’s just it: an idea. It’s not that is not true, if you believe it, it will be. I know it sounds sketchy, but thinking whatever it is that you think, chances are, nothing’s real, not in the way we consider it. Or in any way we may look at things, there’s a fictional component, a reality that only exists because we conceived of it. If we were to travel a few hundred years, or even decades, who could nowadays imagine growing up in the eighties without a smartphone. If you were like me, you had to wait thirty-something years old to see the first iPhone. We live in magical times compared to the surreal times our parents lived. I am one of those parents, and life’s changed since I partied all throughout the nineties and a good portion of the first decade in a new millennium. Partying was fun, but it never fulfilled anyone; alcohol made things passable, erased the memories, and kind of color in the sketchy distortions of our character under its bliss. What if one day you decide and do start eating better, working out more often, reading a good book a month, listening to music that makes you happy, hanging out with people you love. How is it that we can seclude ourselves the way we have and not lost a little tiny bit of our sanity? Well, the outdoors, when the pandemic hit, it impacted worse those who couldn’t conceive of the world minus the booze, taking out the noise, a paced one foot at a time kind of world suddenly changed the way we do everything. It would’ve been easier if you were not going out anyway, reading anyhow, sitting still without doing nothing more than just that. Or do it while walking, and by the way, giving up sex for months of seclusion isn’t going to make you any more relaxed than before. I haven’t had sex in two years, not that I had to force myself. But if you go and spend time by yourself, sleep early, don’t go out, don’t drink, and love yourself, well it is simple math.
And as for who knows, what is the purpose of life, Carlos Fuentes spoke of not believing in there being an actual “meaning” to life, but that he believed in the search for such meaning. Is there a purpose at all? What’s the meaning of it all? Is it something we extract from elsewhere? Can it be shared? Should it? Doesn’t feel good to be good and show off just how good you can be and are? You never get back home with your hands empty. Does it lie dormant, inherent but dulled because of indifference? Is there a reason for being, and if so, what? Ask, and you shall find a different story, coming from a common lineage. We may think the narrator in our head has the upper-hand, it kind of takes center stage, leads the charge, has little opposition, right up until one day you stumble upon an awkward sight: the mindlessness meditation brings leaves you perplexed. Never did I realize this was going to be so much fun. It’s like a room full of guests muted suddenly, lights dimmed. Thinking relies on feedback, you may end up arguing with yourself over your actions, your inactions, you’re the worst critic to yourself. Seneca said, “Be rough with yourself.” Awful advise. Shouldn’t everyone be entitled to a story with a happy ending? Well, if it is of any consolation, take Seneca. He lived a great life and left humanity a superb collection of writings, among the wisest in universal literature. In the end, his doom came from emperor Nero, who had previously tried to poison him with a drink. But Seneca had refused, as he did not drink. If things do not work out for the greatest minds, what is there left for the rest of us?
Here’s what: pleasure brings pain. You love, and then no more, so it sucks. You drink and suffer a hangover. It kills you to have a cigarette. Obesity kills. What if instead, we become addicted to things that are good for us? Yes, there are good things in life that make us feel good doing. Like exercise. Or yoga. Or meditation. Or eating healthy. You can know that you did well because it feels good, and doing well, turns out, it’s good for you. When we overeat, or drink often or more than should, we suffer. But when we treat ourselves with respect and go to bed earlier, wake up and hit the gym (recently reopened, I’m in!) and stay there for a few minutes. It significantly improves the rest of your day. It makes you feel like a more lively, enhanced version of yourself. It’s not like people engage in healthy habits to be miserable. And yes, it is addictive to be good.
It feels great.
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