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Jean-Paul Sartre asserted
not only that reality is subjective but that no objective reality exists at all. For him, objectivity was not just a mistake but a complete
illusion. This radical subjectivity entails a total absence of objective
meaning, leading us to a kind of existential angst .
This is not a new idea. I
guess Shakespeare at least brushed upon this thought by the end of the 16th
century. Did it make him dizzy? Surely, it is more than just a common fear of
death Hamlet expresses in his monologue? In any case, it is interesting
how concepts can be linked, how a distinct concept like subjectivism can imply meaninglessness.
What do this line of thought create? Hesitant, amazed at the implications of this thought line, time and again on stages throughout history
To
sleep, perchance to Dream; aye, there's the rub,
For in
that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we
have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must
give us pause.
---
But that
the dread of something after death,
The
undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No
traveller returns, puzzles the will,
Hamlet, full play
Hamlet was not worried that
death meant a complete end to everything. He was worried that it might have an
afterlife and the “dreams” it could contain.
I saw a dead hare in the
blueberry bushes one day in the forest. It had terrible wounds, and I stopped.
But it wasn't that it was dead or the way it had died. It was how it clashed
with the summer forest. The total immobility of the animal, I thought, was
unnatural. A summer forest, as everyone knows, is a tapestry of intense life.
The birds, the trees swaying in the wind, the bumblebees, and then the hare in
the blueberry bushes, which by being an otherwise living creature, created a
strong asymmetry. It created a kind of hole in the
fabric of life. It all made me think about how absolute death was.
To sleep, perchance to
Dream; aye, there's the rub,/ For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come.
Sova, kanske drömma; ja, det är problemet. / För i den sömnen, vilka drömmar kan finnas?
What is reality that disappears the moment we experience it? Samuel Beckett's words in 'Waiting for Godot' capture this fleeting existence: "They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more."
*
I return now and then in
memory to places where I have lived, walking the streets and meeting people who
have long since left my life. As best I can. It takes an enormous amount of
brainpower to recreate memories sharply and sequentially, as if it were a
"self-experienced film." But it happens quickly. A few moments to
arrive despite the distances. Light-years away.
Often the same autumn. The
wind, the darkness that heralded the arrival of late autumn. The hills beyond
the house covered in fallen leaves. In a way, the end of time. It was 2009. In
retrospect I can marvel at how far we travelled. Perhaps it was an escape.
Naturally, it was a kind of escape, a circle where we ended up almost in the
same place where we started. Anyway, that autumn my wife and I had long since
decided never to return home, and the month before we travelled home was no
exception.
One of those strangely
transformative days I could smell snow in the air even though it was only cold.
The inner city was full of hurried city dwellers shivering in their too-thin
clothes. I stood at the traffic lights and watched the traffic rush by. People
looked cold standing next to me, waiting for the green light. Light jacket,
blue shirt. The job awaiting. It was nearing one in the afternoon
Later that day I shivered
in a hospital corridor in the city. Hard wooden bench, my vision periodically
blurred, and a headache. It didn't improve by sitting and watching a mix of
stressed hospital staff, emergency cases, and more stable patients. Blue
hospital clothes, a blue movement mass mixed with the patients. A black-clad
red-haired guy with a thickly bandaged hand sat down next to me with a white
plastic cup in his healthy hand and some pills in the injured one. I glanced at
him as he swallowed the pills. Something amused in his gaze. I saw how he
judged me. Weighed and measured me with his eyes, and I was too tired and raw
to ignore him that afternoon. So I assumed I was found wanting and felt hurt.
You know nothing about me, I wanted to protest in my blue shirt.
Suddenly he took off his
big headphones and smiled at me. The open and genuine smile. Perhaps with a
hint of sympathy that made my irritation flare up again.
“Great headphones,” he
said, handing them to me. “Just bought them, listen, what sound quality.”
My first instinct was to
say no, but I was irritated by the role I had been assigned in our interaction.
So, I said yes and took the headphones. Expecting to hear something modern that
I would absolutely dislike, I gritted my teeth and put on the black headphones.
And was pleasantly surprised. Bob Dylan's raspy voice hit me from 'Blood on the
Tracks'. I didn't think young people listened to such old music anymore.
“Excellent music,” I said,
handing back the headphones. Stress. Nothing but stress. Maybe a longer
holiday?' said the man in blue hospital clothes absently. I remember his purple
circles under his eyes. How utterly exhausted he looked. When I came out, the
smell of snow had turned into flakes that melted as soon as they touched
anything.
As I turned off to the
little house, I was met by a brown hare. The hare used to huddle in the sandbox
in the garden and was probably on its way home because the weather had become
so wet. Why did the guy linger in my memory as I drove home? It was as if the
meeting had been important, as if he had touched on a riddle I had long
half-consciously pondered.
We were expecting guests
that evening. The little house decorated in a way that reflected her style but it had also become mine. It felt i had done everything the year I turned thirty. When friends gathered in our
house it felt crowded. She was dressed in green and had something regal about
her when she lit more candles. Glass plates and those wine glasses we were so
proud of, boxed wine and some kind of stew awaited the guests. I noticed the
shadows they cast along the walls. How they flickered in the draught. Enlarged.
Shrunk.
Late at night, I was
exhausted but could hardly ask everyone to go home, so I put on my shoes,
pulled on my too-thin autumn jacket while they drank wine from the hand-blown
Spanish wine cups and chatted about art, the sixties, music. I opened the door. I remember how I stood hesitantly for a short moment between the interior of the house and the dark silence outside before I closed the front door. The rock fusion from the album Forever Changes abruptly fell silent.
Darkness. Soft snow under
streetlights. It no longer melted but settled over the black garden, on the
streets around the neighbourhood. I chose to follow the street down to the
town. The street lighting showed only the snow falling and falling. The lights
from the houses and cars. Now and then, night was disrupted by sirens howling.
It was snowing when the plane took off. We had waited until night because the storm had been relentless. She fell asleep almost immediately, before take-off. The cabin was dark and I could only look down at city lights as they disappeared. First, I saw the city and then the landmass.
Cabin lights came on. Nothing but a grey-white mass outside. A little later, darkness.
When morning came, we arrived. Walked through the grey terminal. A morning scented by coldness, forest. I rolled down the car window. The homeland was still there. Snow over pine forest.
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