Angst

My fight against my demons.

Christmas Day 2012.  I find myself swimming in the Caribbean Sea, an hour before dusk. I am wondering what will happen if it gets completely dark. I am pretty far out and nobody knows where I am.

Where I am is on Curacao, for a 30-day rehab at the Jellinek Retreat, a serious attempt at sobriety. This is typical of me, this coming to an exotic place to get sober. Believing that the tropical sun can take the pain away, looking for the path of least resistance. Paying a lot of money so the extra guilt will propel me forward. I am 276  hours sober now. But I am the only one counting. My fight, my demons. 

The water is surprisingly warm, causing sensory confusion in my brain which is absurdly visualizing a white Christmas.

While I am putting an ever wider distance between myself and the beach, it occurs to me that it is completely up to me whether I continue swimming to open sea or not. Nobody will tell me to turn around and swim back to shore. It makes me weary to think of this complete freedom to either live or die. I feel utterly alone and groundless, literally as well as metaphorically. Am I really unobserved? Is there nobody to stop me? I did not create myself, yet I am stuck with me. If I am part of the universe, why does it not care? I shiver despite the warmness of the water.

For some reason, I see Edvard Munch’s The Scream in my mind, the iconic painting of the hopeless figure grasping its cheeks in dread along a Norwegian fiord. I am guessing this pops up now because on the plane over, I read in the Wall Street Journal  that the painting has just been sold for 100M$ at Sotheby’s in London. While swimming, I get an image of a 15-year old me, looking at that painting for the very first time in art class, being explained by the teacher that it depicts existential fear. I remember her using the German word Angst to describe the emotion of the character in the picture. The younger me listening, fascinated both with that word and the art. I remember that evening looking up the word Angst and wondering what ‘intense inner turmoil’ meant really. 

I know my own mind, nothing is ever a coincidence. Angst perfectly describes the loneliness and frailty I feel here in the ocean. I feel more self-conscious than I want to be. I picture myself in a Google Maps kind of way, a small red dot in a vast blue body of water. A very mortal creature in a brutal cosmos.  

Not a new feeling. Since I was a boy, I have always been more aware of the absurdity of it all, like I was missing a basic map of the land. Surely there must be a point to all this? And that point cannot be me swimming on and then drowning? All my life, I have been waiting for an outside power to give me purpose. I have been roaming around, circling in a holding pattern above my life, looking down and observing myself. Counting down for real life to begin.  

Like a shipwrecked person, I am looking for something to hold on to. My mind’s eye sees a raft. If I have not come imprinted with the right Operating System, I can build one myself. I can create an essence out of my own existence. I realize that how I solve my inborn desire for meaning directly affects the quality of my life. I suddenly feel I am back in control. I will aim high, I will aim for the meaning of my life.

I feel a sudden exhilaration with this new insight, a surge of power from a center that was hidden and off-limits until this very moment. 

I decide to swim back to shore. It does not end here, not today. 

Author's Note

A new version v2 has been uploaded. Thanks for the feedback to you all!

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

A well-written and entertaining story.
"Like a shipwrecked person, I am looking for something to hold on to. My mind’s eye sees a raft. If I have not come imprinted with the right Operating System, I can build one myself."
I like the logic of the above lines. Made me wish to read more. Thank you for sharing the excellent short story.
Coyote

[Stars and Whales]

Very nice....this is excellent. Your descriptions draw me in, and you are very good at engaging the reader. Great job, I have nothing negative to say right now. Just keep writing and keep pushing, you have the talent and I can tell you have the grit to make it as a writer, if that is what you want, of course. Good job, again.

[Collections]

Wow, So this perfectly ties in with my story.

You did the hope part, I can feel his search, his sadness at being unseen, so many of what he is feeling directly correlates.

And then he chooses life and I do to. He swims back to shore and takes me along. I love that.

I would just like to know more of his struggle, what drove him to this point. How did he become an alcoholic?

[Philip Muls]

'He' is me. More to follow. Thanks for the review.

[Samuel Dickens]

First, let me say that I think the idea of a troubled soul treading water, evaluating his/her life is outstanding. Mostly, you've done a great job of it, but there are some improvements that could be made. Right off, you've used the words "where I am" twice in succession, and might consider changing the first to "knows my location" or something similar. Also, you used "mind's eye" twice, which rather sticks out. For my taste, I'd like to see it condensed a bit, leaning more toward human emotions and less toward the painting, google maps and technical references. It's your baby, however, and you're the one it has to please.

[alifeacoustic]

Excellent write Philip. I recognise so much of my own in your words that I felt getting drawn in, just as you were getting drawn out further from land. The painting, the scream, I totally get. I am at times transfixed with that picture. I have it as my screensaver and understand completely your connecting it with angst. Inner turmoil is learned from life, not from a book, as most find out themselves. I am glad you saw that raft, it would have been so much easier to let go in that moment you were lost.
And a very fitting end, to realise that this is just the start.
Very well written. I honestly did enjoy this very much.

[Taylor]

Philip, I am returning the favor of your review of my story "Male Enhancement." My practice is to critique as I read. When others critique my work, I am always grateful for anything they say but I find the most helpful is comments about what is not clear, what is distracting, what could be phrased better, what is boring. So, in that line I hope to offer you something towards improvement. Having said that, I should say that I am an amateur and the only real authority on your work is you. Therefore, please take what you can use and as they say in the addiction world, leave the rest behind. To begin I like what you have written and I find myself wishing you had written more. That's always a good sign to leave the reader wanting more. I notice that you currently live in Belgium so perhaps English is your second language--if so your command of it is remarkable a la Joseph Conrad (remember him? His first language was Polish.)
In specific terms, I think your first paragraph does capture the reader's interest and poses an essential conflict to be resolved. You go on to give the reader a sense of the internal struggle within the narrator. I wonder what would happen if you give the reader a sense of the exterior world he is experiencing (also from his eyes). Perhaps how is body may be flowing easily out with the current or a different view he gets of the shore as the waves take him to a new height. Seaweed against his legs? Something so that he is not just a brain thinking. You speak of his addiction/rehab as the purpose of his presence in Curacao which is a point that raises a lot of questions in the reader's mind but which is not developed. Does any of that flash back to him as he makes this life an death decision? What would happen to the story if you end it with observations of the stars expressing a sense of awe or something of that sort instead of just the flat summary statement of "I feel a sudden exhilaration with this new insight"? Does it require any effort swimming back to shore, has the tide switch so that he must struggle to hold onto life? Lots of possibilities that might strengthen the story. Of course, all of this is just my opinion and may be worth less than a grain of salt. I like the sparseness of your writing and the flow. Keep writing. I'll look forward to seeing more.

[Kaliope]

"If I have not come imprinted with the right Operating System, I can build one myself." - Working in IT myself, how could I possibly not love this line? The inner struggle, the existential fear, the decision to hang on to find purpose - all of it comes beautifully across. A powerful text and certainly a good start for a novel.

Being a native German speaker I have to get one thing off my chest though - it's NOT a criticism against your text, mind you, but I always find it strange how the rest of the world has turned the word "Angst" into something special. It doesn't mean existential fear in German, it just means fear. As in fear of darkness, heights, spiders, rejection, failing at an exam. So to me the word doesn't hold any peculiar powers and thus the whole concept of "Angst" always makes me snicker. But that's just my own little semantic problem, so never mind, I perfectly understand the intention behind its usage :-)

I liked your text very much and would like so see the story continue. Well done!

[emmajoy]

The style in which you've written is more late 1800s than now. My probably wrong interpretation is that initially the character is trying to solve an unknown, rather than re-hash modern-day psycho' mumbo-jumbo.
i appreciate that feeling of being locked or placed in the past. Your phrasing is specific, almost unemotional at times, again, that suggests entrenchment - until that ending when somehow, almost miraculously (it's a short story at present) you've found an escape, The long moment has saved you..
' I feel a sudden exhilaration with this new insight. ' Your summation is quite something, there's food for thought in so much of, ' Since I was a boy, I have always been more aware of the absurdity of it all, like I was missing a basic map of the land. I did not create myself, yet I am stuck with myself. Surely there must be a point to all this ? Surely that point is not me swimming on and then drowning, not after all I have been through ? '
That painting has a lot to answer for. As does the word. Tis the little acorn from which.. we often find our own answers when facing truth.

[TylerAlex]

Interesting story. I enjoyed the inner struggle you presented. I wish there was more. I want to know how you got to the point of needing to find meaning and sobriety. Good read. Thanks for sharing.

[King Kutlo]

The book you planning to write is not a bad idea, in fact I think I'd make a great book. I like how you took me through this characters life story, I felt his soberness and wonderment at the same time, somehow this piece gives me that insight of 'At the end, we all have a choice.' Like Coyote says, it's well written and thanks for sharing that.