Writing in the Absurd
I have chosen a path I know to be absurd.
Before me, stretches a winding road, open as far as I can see, yet fraught with peril is she, so much so that each step is precarious, and could be the last. It is a path of hideous juxtapositions and duplicitous dualities. It stretches on, far beyond reach of the eye, and curls around the horizon, and my sight is hindered by neither ravine, nor looking glass. It is open, yet littered with obstacle and gatekeeper alike. No is the word of the day, every day. It is almost like a friend, how often that word is company. And so the path meanders on, and on it I shall flit, gaily and carefree from magnanimous glorification to bitter self-loathing, and back again, and back again, and back again - as if I were a sapient serpent gorging on my own tail. Alas, a writer's life is not easy, nor should it be. For we are not set loose upon the earth to lounge in leisure and drink ourselves dead - the drinking comes later and after the job is done. We are here to put wonderment, and profundity into the mundane, to discover angles, and position them before the mass communal eye. We are here to discover wells, hidden deep within the soul of man - in them, stories - and drag them to the surface, so that we may learn about ourselves. It is so very absurd.
In all other avenues of life; at work, in love, on the street, I am not a confident man. I do not stand tall, nor too do I walk in strides. I do not speak loudly, and I do not speak often. I find myself, express myself, and explore the outer reaches of myself, through writing and through writing alone. I love what I write, and I hate what I write. Such is life on the absurd path. We are a funny old breed. We compete, rather stubbornly at times, but crave the shattered familiarity of fellow travellers. We claim to have the secrets of a good life, but none of us are truly happy. We don't write because we are miserable, but it helps greatly. I don't believe this to be inconsistent with my prior words, for we are fundamentally hypocritical. We seek to bring wonderment and profundity, yet can only find it in our own imaginations, and not as romanticisations of the artist may convey, in a Sound of Music approach to life; much as the archetype of the clown, beloved by all, is the saddest soul in any room, every room. I have chosen a path I know to be absurd.
It is not lost on me that I am a novelist - or a prospective novelist depending on one's definition - in perhaps the worst time to be one. There is no money to be made, no glory to be found. The declaration of one's dreams and aspirations is met, by most, with a thousand-yard stare, befitting a Kubrick finale. If one is lucky, he shall be compared to, or affectionately nicknamed J.K. Rowling, or some other manifested limitation of the average person's understanding of the literary form. Our task, after all, is to elevate these people, but they won't listen, they won't read. Publishers do not want to publish novels, not least novels written by young, white, conservative men. The screaming halls of social media - that bottomless pit of unending despair, from whence esteem is fleetingly gained and irretrievably lost - cry out in a chorus of a thousand voices; snuffed out by industrial indifference, rent due, and audience scarce. And yet I am not deterred, for I know the path to be absurd, and full of foolish things.
Of late, and by of late I refer to my mid-twenties and beyond - I'm twenty-seven now - I have become afflicted by a most dire sickness. Somewhere between the head and the heart, there come bouts where my body begins to scream. It begins with a starting pistol. In my case - for I have learned from the tales of others, each begins differently - it is a slight thump in the chest, a single irregular beat of the heart. It sends a slick pulse up and down, from my chest to my feet and my chest to my brain. And then I become very aware of the feet that carry me, and they wobble and tremor, tripped up by shadows. Then a fog descends, and all becomes surreal. This is the orchestra tuning up. And then, with a flurry so violent, that I am left with no choice but to believe, whole-heartedly, that I am dying or already dead. The concerto begins. My beating heart is the soloist, accompanied by sweating palms and wheezing lungs and anaemic limbs. Then, my attention goes to legacy, or a lack thereof; the shrugs and polite well-wishing of long-lost friends, the regret of the recently-lost, and the suppressed anguish of the dearest. And then I lose all control, my vision blurs and all vestiges of strength leave. I'm off-balance and dizzy, on the floor in a heap and gasping for air, heart racing. And then I write, and all is well again. I believe this to be the writer's bug. Beckett knew the same, Munch and Kafka too. It drove Waugh to madness, Orwell to the grave, and myself to beg for release. But I know that if it did, then what little magic I can conjure would leave me too. Which, at times, begs the question; is the choice really mine?