Revisiting the Underground - Doestoyevsky - tribute

 

Revisiting the Underground - Chapter 1
 

I know the happiness of the hermit. When I encounter another of my
species, I scurry in horror as a fleeing rat so my self could not be so
reflected in the mirror of others. Human beings ruin this wonderful
experience called life.

For being thrown into this world, as Heidegger puts it, I will never
forgive my parents, who selfishly believing in the wonderment of the
race, conceived me. Their foolishness I will repay through a torrent of
anger, a rain of fury that is my revenge.

People I do not know call me a pleasant man, people I do know call me a
viscous harper of death and misery. Who I am but a deceit of
delusions attempting to create my own reality through the raw material of
experience, to create a constant state of joy...I am doomed to failure.
Everyone I meet either inspires me or disappoints me. Some persons alter
my life forever; others make me want to annihilate the human race. In
either case, eventually, I am left alone thinking cyanide thoughts.

I am to venture out tonight to a social gathering of strangers and a
woman I shouldn't desire. My love for her is a fool's gold. I am sure
to act the impish fool without wit or charm, a buffoon with a shot in
hand of some whiskey I cannot afford, a costume of decent clothes that
deceives others as to my well being. I am not well. I sleep on a bare
mattress, the few clothes I have scattered on the floor of my carpetless
room, beds for the mice that scurry about my flat. When sleeping I am
rocked to consciousness by a hacking cough from the years of inhaling
cigarettes and drugs. Some days my liver hurts and my false teeth, even
those are broken.

But who are these strangers? A community of artists and financiers,
stock brokers and scientists, engineers, and teachers. All filled with
the idea that what they do is important and fills some value in the
world as if what they do helps not only themselves, but improves the race.
What fools are they! Don't they know that all large suns turn into
black holes? And don't they know that the first human will be the same as
the last? Civility and an industrious life amount the to same thing:
paintings of stick figures in a cave where there is no one left to
witness. Even history will be annihilated. But still I will go, hide my venom
and curl up in a corner, uncomfortable as virus in a clean
room.

I arrived soaked in rain, in my work clothes, uncomfortably
overdressed, uncomfortably silent amongst the other guests. People made food with
a joyous passion, talked, music reverberated throughout the house and
down the street - it was the epicenter of life and energy. People
laughed, smiled with the greeting of a new face, people everywhere. People
whose glee was alien. I despised myself to a empty chamber to drink
whiskey and read a book I eventually reviled. An embarrassment to the
social race am I! But what value does a human have in a room full of
others of his kind? Just another bark amongst a pack of rabid dogs in button
up shirts and thrift store skirts. Let me stand in front of a mob and
pastor them, but do not include me in their company for I am not one of
them. I do not belong. I should live in a cave painting those damn
stick figures always away from the joys of life for I will only dull its
sheen with my bitter presence.

For my joy of life is so subtle it is shattered by a single word or
voice from the canopy of sounds that surrounds me. In front of one person
or two, I can maintain my joy and a conversation. I can lie with
confidence and bravado. Place me in a room full of people and my joy
vanishes to bile.

The only pleasure of the evening was the time I spent alone with her
talking, stoned and drunk as she cleaned her bedroom. She talked of how
she needs to stop self-loathing. I could feel my eyes widen, my
interest piqued by a topic I know as well as a doctor or a prostitute knows
the flesh. It gets in the way, she said, it sabotages her, she said, it
is an obstacle to overcome. Like a blathering idiot I told her to
embrace it, utilize her self-criticism, and to know that when in the worst
of her self-hatred she is wrong and lying to herself. But we are
always lying to ourselves. Everything we do or believe, every pursuit or
ideal is a poisonous romanticism. How do you stop self-loathing? Through
action. Make your actions produce results that suit your needs and your
community's needs at the same time and do not think. Be Fortinbras,
not Hamlet.

For who was Hamlet but a self-examiner who could do nothing but
criticize and complain, rationalize and annihilate purpose and meaning. Save
one motivation: revenge. His brethren, Fortinbras, a man of action and
purpose didn't slay his time on earth with whines. He marched towards
victory. He had no need of revenge. He never despaired of being born.

Self-loathing is a hatred, not of life, but of the consequences of your
actions. And the consequences of your actions are reflected by the
people who make up your community. Change your actions, the consequences
change, the community changes. The only solution to self-loathing is to
lose yourself to the consequences, to the future result of your
actions. And then you lose your concept of the self to a mob.