In a cafe, deep in the depths of a hellish middle-class suburb on Dublin's south side, I sat and put the following to paper last Sunday.
The sun is out. I know this because I have my own personal barometer, namely grave, tormented feelings of nihilistic anxiety. What is supposedly a great boon can be such a crushing misanthropic experience. There is no such thing as hope on a sunny day in the suburbs, a veritable lethargic Hell, pervaded by a will to do nothing. Mankind has never achieved anything as a sloth, not even happiness, when you consider things in the long run. I'm sitting in a cafe, where a pianist plays familiar songs, each one a lament. He is perhaps harking back to another era, desperately longing to be elsewhere. Perhaps he is running his fingers along a career that never was? He wishes to roll back a decade or more, and do it over, or better yet, he wishes to wake up in a bygone era — perhaps Paris at the turn of the last century — and stay there forever. Looking at him, I wonder if he was lamenting his life this time last summer. And what about the year before that? How many years has he been doing this? How ugly it is to lament your life perennially. And how ubiquitous such a sentiment is; a yearning to find your way back to a time consigned to the past. I know far too many adults who are all ice-cream and kittens. I used to get excited about ice-cream, but then I turned nine. I can tolerate a dreamer, an idealist, or someone who holds a vision, but not if the dream is to return to childhood. It reflects poorly on your if your aspirations are virtually no responsibilities, playtime, ice-cream, lying around, fawning over the naivety of animals, and onesies. Is it not pathetic, to beat on like a boat against the current, being borne back ceaselessly into the past, as I would so originally phrase it?
The pain of lounging helplessly in the sun is compounded by people talking about it. Here in Ireland, we use this bizarre tone that makes our gratitude sound like a back-handed compliment. "I can't believe it's so sunny.", you'll hear one say. "I wish it was like this more often.", says a more transparent other. "It's gorgeous, isn't it?", asks the less confident one, needing confirmation when scolding the weather for being unreliable, as if the gods of the sky might hear them. Beware these wretched creatures — strange folk who resent something that clearly has no agency, often with poor, joyless sarcasm. I appreciate that circumstances anchor the conversation, but talking about how sunny it is makes me feel like I'm in a banal limbo of mindless chatter. A close runner-up is talking about food while having a meal, which, I am willing to bet, has been responsible for deaths, such is the level of bourgeois tedium. Incidentally, the sandwich I just finished here was so pretentious I wasn't entirely sure if I was supposed to eat it. Food rots so much quicker on sunny days, incidentally, as does my mood. If you like flies and dehydration, then 'tis the season for you.
Brighter days do energise people's mood, but you pay the price for the accompanying nihilism. The heat exhausts me, and I lose my cool both figuratively and literally through my sweat glands. Sunny days oblige me to do something, to make hay while the sun shines, and I have to do it then and there. The opportunity will disappear. And soon. Looking out the window, I cannot help but notice how ugly the suburbs look in the sun, uglier than the busy city centre. I would escape to the beach or the nearest patch of nature, but the suburbs always follows me. Even if I could escape them, it would bring me only limited joy. Cake and desperate longing to return to childhood are great if you like growing fat with your head buried in the ground, but some of us prefer something more difficult. There is a joy is facing the hardness of things, in overcoming a difficult situation. No flavour can compete with the satisfaction of relieving hunger or thirst, in the same way that no pleasure can measure up to the alleviation of pain, especially an alleviation borne out of struggle.
I have no doubt that many of you reading this are telling me to 'live a little' in your mind, but you most likely say this without any real thought or consideration, and you may not be familiar with the glorious feeling of taking the harder path. Deep down, you must know that life is ultimately a struggle. Physical and emotional attrition greets you everyday, even when you do nothing. Things will get worse, at least for a while, and if the universe has a plan for you, if you have a destiny, it is certain annihilation (as well as annihilation of everyone you love). Make your life harder and cast away your dependency on sunny days; not for the sake of it, but the sake of an unrivalled joy. Being a wise, venerable man of action, it is time for me to stand up and walk out of this place. I may be a nihilist with a neurotic inability to enjoy a sunny day, but at least I'm not you, precious reader.
The sun is out. I know this because I have my own personal barometer, namely grave, tormented feelings of nihilistic anxiety. What is supposedly a great boon can be such a crushing misanthropic experience. There is no such thing as hope on a sunny day in the suburbs, a veritable lethargic Hell, pervaded by a will to do nothing. Mankind has never achieved anything as a sloth, not even happiness, when you consider things in the long run. I'm sitting in a cafe, where a pianist plays familiar songs, each one a lament. He is perhaps harking back to another era, desperately longing to be elsewhere. Perhaps he is running his fingers along a career that never was? He wishes to roll back a decade or more, and do it over, or better yet, he wishes to wake up in a bygone era — perhaps Paris at the turn of the last century — and stay there forever. Looking at him, I wonder if he was lamenting his life this time last summer. And what about the year before that? How many years has he been doing this? How ugly it is to lament your life perennially. And how ubiquitous such a sentiment is; a yearning to find your way back to a time consigned to the past. I know far too many adults who are all ice-cream and kittens. I used to get excited about ice-cream, but then I turned nine. I can tolerate a dreamer, an idealist, or someone who holds a vision, but not if the dream is to return to childhood. It reflects poorly on your if your aspirations are virtually no responsibilities, playtime, ice-cream, lying around, fawning over the naivety of animals, and onesies. Is it not pathetic, to beat on like a boat against the current, being borne back ceaselessly into the past, as I would so originally phrase it?
The pain of lounging helplessly in the sun is compounded by people talking about it. Here in Ireland, we use this bizarre tone that makes our gratitude sound like a back-handed compliment. "I can't believe it's so sunny.", you'll hear one say. "I wish it was like this more often.", says a more transparent other. "It's gorgeous, isn't it?", asks the less confident one, needing confirmation when scolding the weather for being unreliable, as if the gods of the sky might hear them. Beware these wretched creatures — strange folk who resent something that clearly has no agency, often with poor, joyless sarcasm. I appreciate that circumstances anchor the conversation, but talking about how sunny it is makes me feel like I'm in a banal limbo of mindless chatter. A close runner-up is talking about food while having a meal, which, I am willing to bet, has been responsible for deaths, such is the level of bourgeois tedium. Incidentally, the sandwich I just finished here was so pretentious I wasn't entirely sure if I was supposed to eat it. Food rots so much quicker on sunny days, incidentally, as does my mood. If you like flies and dehydration, then 'tis the season for you.
Brighter days do energise people's mood, but you pay the price for the accompanying nihilism. The heat exhausts me, and I lose my cool both figuratively and literally through my sweat glands. Sunny days oblige me to do something, to make hay while the sun shines, and I have to do it then and there. The opportunity will disappear. And soon. Looking out the window, I cannot help but notice how ugly the suburbs look in the sun, uglier than the busy city centre. I would escape to the beach or the nearest patch of nature, but the suburbs always follows me. Even if I could escape them, it would bring me only limited joy. Cake and desperate longing to return to childhood are great if you like growing fat with your head buried in the ground, but some of us prefer something more difficult. There is a joy is facing the hardness of things, in overcoming a difficult situation. No flavour can compete with the satisfaction of relieving hunger or thirst, in the same way that no pleasure can measure up to the alleviation of pain, especially an alleviation borne out of struggle.
I have no doubt that many of you reading this are telling me to 'live a little' in your mind, but you most likely say this without any real thought or consideration, and you may not be familiar with the glorious feeling of taking the harder path. Deep down, you must know that life is ultimately a struggle. Physical and emotional attrition greets you everyday, even when you do nothing. Things will get worse, at least for a while, and if the universe has a plan for you, if you have a destiny, it is certain annihilation (as well as annihilation of everyone you love). Make your life harder and cast away your dependency on sunny days; not for the sake of it, but the sake of an unrivalled joy. Being a wise, venerable man of action, it is time for me to stand up and walk out of this place. I may be a nihilist with a neurotic inability to enjoy a sunny day, but at least I'm not you, precious reader.
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| Sarah knew what it's all about. |
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