Mère

Chapter 21

When I got home, I didn’t know what to do…she was leaving me. First…I find out about my uncle, then Vanessa said she was leaving me…and my mum would have to get surgery soon. “Well…how much worse could things get?”, I thought. Vanessa was special…I felt like she understood me… and I didn’t think I would get over her. “What if she was my soulmate?”, I thought. Who knows…maybe she was. Someone knocked on the door. It was Abel. He told me that Kate told him about Vanessa moving.
“So…you and Kate are talking?”, I asked
“Yeah…she’s still a little mad at me…but she said that she missed talking to me. Listen…I’m sorry about Vanessa…you two were good together.”
“Do you think she was my soulmate?”
“I…I don’t know…”
“How can anyone know…”, I said, softly
“Hey, I have something for you…Kate told me that Vanessa gave her this to give you.”, he handed me an envelope.
“What’s this?”
“Just something Vanessa wanted to say to you, apparently.”, he said
“Oh…thanks…”
“I’m here for you…always.”, he hugged me.
After he left, I went into my room and stared at the envelope. I felt angry…but I still loved her…so I opened it.

“Sebastian…I’m sorry that I have to do this to you now…I know that you need a friend during all of this…but I hope that I was at least a friend long enough to make some kind of positive impact in your life. You mean so much to me…and I love…oh God, you don’t understand how much I love you. I love the prawns out of you, bro! And you know that, that’s quite the statement. I swear…I don’t want things to end on a bad note for us…I just thought that if we fought, it would be easier for us to get over each other…but who was I kidding. How could I get over you? You’re so amazing, my love. I can’t tell you how much I think about you…you might think I’m insane…but I’m just drunk with love. Do you remember our first day together at the beach? We were both so nervous…but I blurted out that I liked you. I just couldn’t hold it in…heh, heh, another prawn reference. And our first kiss…it was so bad, but so good. I’ll admit that, that was mostly my fault…but no one told you to bite the bubble-gum and pull it too, you bum. Oh, remember that lady, who’s head the soap fell on. When I ran into her at the mall, she said that she recognized me and that she knew it was you, who got the soap stuck on the ceiling. I thought she would be mad, but she actually laughed about it. I also didn’t know you could dance so well…you really showed me that night at the prom. Who knows, maybe in a parallel universe we get married and we dance like that at our wedding. But I can’t think about that too much…if I do, I’ll cry. Who am I kidding…to be honest I’m crying right now. I wish I could stay…or that you and your mom could come with…but…unfortunately it seems that it just wasn’t meant to be. Maybe it was just the timing that was off, my love. Maybe we’ll see each other in the future and fall in love all over again. I don’t know…but one thing is for sure: you’ll always be in my dreams. Please don’t let this ruin your life…I’m not worth it. I want you to be happy, more than anything else…even if it’s with someone else. So, please don’t be afraid to move on. You truly do have my blessing. I also understand if you’re angry with me…I know that you need help with your mom…I’m so sorry for her. I pray that she feels better…and if she’s going to go through with surgery, then I pray that it works. I love how you take care of her. It shows what kind of person you are…and it shows why I fell in love with you…and boy did I fall hard. You are kind, caring and intelligent…and any girl would be lucky to have you. I sure was. I love you, Sebastian. I fear I may always love you. Love, from your favourite little prawn, Vanessa.”
I cried after reading the letter…I didn’t think I would. I tried to call Vanessa, but she didn’t answer. If I knew that the last time I saw her would be the last time I would ever see her, I never would have stopped kissing her. She was my first kiss, my first love, my first girlfriend. She understood me…or who I was at that time. I wasn’t sure what the procedure was to get over someone. I still had the chain with the pendant at the end of it, with our initials carved into it, that she gave me. I knew that I should get rid of it…but I didn’t want to. I don’t know why people do that…we hold onto things that we know will hurt us…that we know we should let go. We destroy ourselves. It’s almost like we punish ourselves…or we feel like we don’t deserve something better, because of some inferiority complex. No one deserves happiness anyway…but then again no one deserves suffering…because it’s impossible to deserve, as who deserves what. is subjective. So…why strive for happiness…when one doesn’t deserve it…perhaps the fact that we don’t deserve it is what makes it sweeter…no, that would mean that the possibility of deserving happiness would have to exist and you just didn’t deserve it in that particular instance…so what good is there in striving for happiness that is not deserved where there is no happiness to be deserved, because there is no deserving, for attaining it would not be sweet, for the reason of not deserving it. Sometimes I think about things too much…I don’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse. I might be too ‘big picture’ for the actual world. Being in this dark place…it lets me fester on too much…but anyway. I remember…that after I read the letter, I put it away into my cupboard. Daniel then came to check on me because he heard about Vanessa. We spoke as we walked to Abel’s house.
“Sebby, are you okay?”, he asked
“Yeah…I think so.”
“Bro, I’m sorry. I know you loved her…but there was no other way for this to go. She’s leaving the country, you know?”
“Yeah…”
“Listen, if you want to get your mind off of all this, then maybe you, Abel and I can go out or something.”, I remained silent. We then arrived at Abel’s house and Daniel took us to his house. He was home alone again, so we sat outside on the porch.
“So…do you want to do something?”, asked Daniel
“Not really.”, I said
“Did she say anything important in the letter she gave you?”, asked Abel
“She just said what you’d expect…”
“Which is?”, asked Daniel
“That she loves me and that she will miss me. She also gave me her blessing to move on.”
“Wow…she’s mature. I don’t think I would’ve done that.”, said Daniel
“Maybe that’s why you’re single.”, said Abel
“Shut up, you’re single too.”, laughed Daniel. “Listen, bro, when you’re ready, and if we aren’t busy with school or anything, then we should do something.”
“Sure…”, I said, softly.
“Well…does anyone else have any news?”, asked Daniel
“Like what?”, asked Abel
“I don’t know…did anyone read anything new? How about you, Sebby?”, asked Daniel
“I read a lot actually…”, I said
“What did you read?”, asked Abel
“Some psychology and philosophy…”
“Anything particularly interesting?”, asked Daniel
“I remember reading some of Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer’s work…they wrote about the nature of reality and how we perceive it. Kant developed a philosophical theory called Transcendental Idealism. He said that a fundamental part of the theory was the distinction between reality as we experience it and what Kant called ‘things-in-themselves”, which is the world that exists independent of us perceiving it. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz believed that through reason, one can obtain objective knowledge. This is called rationalism. David Hume, however, believed that since we experience the world as individuals, our knowledge is subjective and contaminated by the point of view of the knower, therefore, reality is only what we perceive. Kant said that the world of appearance must occupy space and time and we can’t imagine there not being space or time, but Kant said that without them there could not be a knowable world at all…even though they are constructs. Schopenhauer interpreted Kant’s work as meaning that space, time, and causality were features of the mind, meaning that they don’t exist in the world but are constructs of the mind that we use to understand our experience. He believed that the objects of the world depend on the mind for their existence. Wait hold on…”, I pulled out my phone and googled a quote from Schopenhauer. “…if accordingly we attempt to imagine an objective world without a knowing subject, then we become aware that what we are imagining at that moment is in truth the opposite of what we intended, namely nothing but just the process in the intellect of a knowing being who perceives an objective world, that is to say, precisely that which we had sought to exclude. For this perceptible and real-world is obviously a phenomenon of the brain; and so, in the assumption that the world as such might exist independently of all brains there lies a contradiction. - Schopenhauer.”
“So…is he saying that nothing is actually real? It’s all just our perception?”, asked Daniel
“He believed that all objects of experience are dependent on one’s brain or a knowing subject and he believed in the crux of Kant’s arguments but felt there was an inconsistency. Kant claimed that we could never know “things-in-themselves” and called these things transcendental objects, that were mind-independent objects, which cause our subjective experience. That didn’t make sense to Schopenhauer, because, according to his interpretation of Kant’s transcendental idealism, space, time and causality are features of the mind, which means it makes no sense to speak of things-in-themselves causing our experience, because causation requires a knowing subject, or in other words, an observer. Similarly, since objects can only exist within space and time and because space and time also require a knowing subject, it also makes no sense to speak of objects which exist independently. But Schopenhauer did agree with Kant on the idea that there must be some sort of bedrock that underlies our perception. Hold on…”, I googled another quote from Schopenhauer. “…on the path of objective knowledge, thus starting from the representation, we shall never get beyond the representation, i.e. the phenomenon. We shall, therefore, remain at the outside of things; we shall never be able to penetrate into their inner nature, and investigate what they are in themselves, in other words, what they may be by themselves. – Schopenhauer”. He claimed that the will of a being was the inner nature of everything that exists.”
“I don’t know about that man…”, said Daniel
“What about you? You’re being uncharacteristically quiet…”, I said, to Abel
“Well…I mean…reality could just be what we perceive…and we could never possibly know what true reality is. I guess it’s like that saying…if a tree falls in the woods, but no one was around to hear it, did it fall?”
“Obviously.”, said Daniel, abruptly
“Why?”, asked Abel
“Because the tree fell.”, said Daniel
“But how do you know it fell if no one was around to hear it?”, asked Abel
“Well…how would we even know if the tree fell if there wasn’t someone to hear or see it fall in the first place?”, asked Daniel
“Exactly.”, said Abel and I, at the same time.
“Oh…”, said Daniel
“What if you take a Kantian perspective to existence…or rather a Schopenhauer approach…in the sense that the universe is a materialization of a will. What if there is a divine will, that wills existence into being. Since humans are a manifestation of the will, as we strive for survival and propagation of genes, wouldn’t it make sense that we could be manifestations of another’s will…what if we are the propagation of genes? What if the divine lives on through us? And since we’re characterized by a constant striving…it makes me think about how people of faith are in a constant struggle for it. It’s like the feeling of the empty void, and the contradictory feeling that “someone must be out there” are both inscribed into reality itself…echoing the Hegelian Dialectic, where the negation of oneself results in the actualization of the potential in oneself, as the negation of the lack of faith results in faith, and perhaps the actualization of potential.”, said Abel
“What the hell did you even just say?”, asked Daniel
“I’ve been trying to understand Hegel’s philosophy.”, I said
“What’s Hegel’s philosophy?”, asked Daniel
“Oh boy…you tell him”, Abel told me
“Okay…well, at the heart of the concept of the Hegelian Dialectic is the idea that everything that exists is contradictory in itself. The dialectic is the essence of everything that exists, material or immaterial, and is the unity and identity of being, throughout the actual process of change. For Hegel, the being at the end of the dialectical process is the being at the beginning of the process, which means that the being at the end of the dialectical process is the actualization of the same being that started the process, but existent there as an idea.”, I said
“Say that again…but slower.”, said Daniel
“Think about it this way…when an architect wants to plan, the architect already has the house in their head as an idea. The actual house, at the end of the process, is the same as the idea of the house, at the beginning of the process. It’s just actualized. Hegel’s concept of essence is a constant process of change, of constant negation, but Hegel’s concept of negativity doesn’t just involve contradiction; it involves the concept that being is always in the process of becoming, which is similar to Jung’s idea that you should view yourself as the thing that changes…you are the process of becoming yourself. Hegel called the process of actualization, by way of negation, sublation, which is the perishing of the old and the birth of the new, where the new is the actualization of the potential that was in the old. A given form of existence cannot become itself without perishing. It’s a constant state of contradiction…where you burn off the deadwood of yourself. From the moment we’re born we contradict ourselves. We aim towards life but walk towards death. From the day you’re born, you’re a dead man walking.”, I said
“So…how does that tie into what you were saying?”, Daniel asked Abel.
“Well, I was just thinking about when Jesus was on the cross…because the crucifixion of Jesus was an event unlike any other and is what sets Christianity apart from every other religion. The first symbolization of the crucifixion is not unique to Christianity, that is, the symbolization of dying and becoming reborn. The idea of dying and becoming reborn is also in the transformation of the Phoenix, because it dies in a fiery demise, yet is reborn from the ashes and returns to its nascent form. Christ does this when He dies on the cross, because he loses his mortal form and gains His immortal form, days later. The second symbolization of the crucifixion is what separates Christianity from other religions. When Jesus was on the cross before He died, He uttered the words, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachtani?” which means, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”. The gravity behind those words is insurmountable. It shakes reality to its core with one of the most profound ideas in human history, because it implies that at that moment, even God Himself felt like He lost faith in the goodness of being. What this means is that the very nature of existence is the struggle of faith. It seems that the struggle of faith is inscribed into the path to the divine itself, for Jesus, the son of God and God incarnate, suffered so much on that cross, that the weight of that suffering felt like it was too much to bear. This is a sign of God’s sympathy for humanity and is a hint towards what the cross represented as the meaning of life. The cross symbolizes our burden, of which we must willingly carry, as there is nothing more noble than that. Our very struggle and our ability to contend with the beast of suffering is what makes us the heroes of our own stories, thus, fulfilling our life’s purpose of battling the beast, while attaining happiness from the journey rather than the destination. That seems to be the ultimate purpose of life, rather than a speculative reasoning for meaning, as it shows that the meaning of life is not created but is unveiled, for it existed before you did.”, said Abel
“If you strip what you said of its metaphysical substrate, then it's basically what my speech was about.”, I said
“Yeah…but I think the metaphysical substrate is what gives it meaning.”, said Abel
“So…I see you’ve grown stronger in your faith.”, I said
“I have…and I think that every time I challenge it, it gets stronger.”, said Abel
“I honestly don’t understand how you have faith…”, said Daniel
“Why?”, asked Abel
“There’s just an overwhelming amount of religious aspects that have been disproven or could be explained rationally.”
“Like?”, I asked
“Well…I often hear religious fundamentalists talk about knowing that their God exists because they feel his presence…but that doesn’t make sense. How can you base your belief on a feeling? Also, let’s say you believe in a Christian God, and you have a warm feeling that he exists, how can that justify your belief, when there are people of other religions who have the same feeling? Devout Muslims get a ‘warm’ feeling that Allah is with them, when they pray at Mosque, but does that mean that their God exists? Devout Hindus get a ‘warm’ feeling when they go to their temples, but does that mean that their Gods exist too? Even your phenomenon of prayer…it can be explained through probability, and I always hear of Christians talking about how they pray for something, and it happens, but they don’t ever talk about when it doesn’t happen, so what happened there? And religious people talk about how prayer and ‘being in a relationship with God’ cured their depression because they felt Gods presence, which can be explained by the placebo effect. I mean…what’s your justification?”, asked Daniel
“I don’t justify my belief through a feeling…and, to be honest, I don’t know if I can justify anything. I just think that there are some fundamental ideas about reality that just don’t add up without God.”, said Abel
“Like what?”, asked Daniel
“Okay…if you think about the Big Bang…the components involved were so perfectly to scale, and in such perfect amounts, that if they were any more or less, the universe would have never existed. It’s a highly mathematically improbable event, that turned out to work perfectly. Also, I know that the book of Genesis isn’t a scientific textbook, but I think it’s worth meditating on. In the book of Genesis, the first words are, “In the beginning, there was nothing…”, which is quite the coincidence, because we now know that there was a beginning to the universe. Although, scientists are still debating over the theory that the Big Bang could have just been the end of another universe and the beginning of ours, in a long, infinite series of Big Bangs, but for the most part, scientists agree that the universe had a beginning. So how did the people who wrote the Bible get that right? Yes, it was a fifty, fifty chance, because either the universe began or it always existed, but still, it’s impressive. Also, after the first line, it says that Gods spirit was hovering over the waters. What waters? I don’t know, but when I picture Gods spirit hovering over waters, I imagine ripples in the water. Now keep in mind that this is before there was light, and before what was possibly the Big Bang, so what God was supposedly hovering over couldn’t have been actual water…so what was the Bible talking about? I was reading up on Einstein’s theory of relativity and what it implies for the fabric of space. We know that the theory of General relativity implies that the mass of objects in space curve space-time, causing the fabric of space to stretch and warp. Since there’s an actual fabric of space, that implies that there could be ripples in the fabric, which scientists have detected, in the form of Gravitational waves. Maybe God hovering over the ‘waters’ implies ripples through the fabric of space…and I’m not saying that this is proof or even solid evidence for the existence of God…but it’s just something to think about.”, said Abel
“Yeah…I mean-”, Abel cut off Daniel.
“But wait…that’s not even the best part. If you look at the account of human life, God created the animals first and then the humans. Also, according to the Bible, the first life was aquatic, and because of evolution, we know that the first microorganisms lived in the water. Now again, it may have just been a fluke that they got the fact that animals came before humans right, but it’s just something to think about. Something else to think about is Adam and Eve. When they were created, everything was perfect, until they ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That sounds a lot like consciousness, which makes sense, since it takes a conscious human being to be able to conceptualize good and evil. Adam and Eve were also the first humans, and humans are the only creatures endowed with a consciousness that enables us to be aware of our suffering, like how they became aware of the fact that they were naked. How the hell did the people who wrote the Bible get that right? I mean seriously…that is such a monumental philosophical discovery…and it may not seem like much to you, but it’s a profound concept.”, said Abel
“That still doesn’t justify your faith…”, said Daniel
“I know…but there’s a lot of things that I think wouldn’t be the same and wouldn’t be good if it weren’t for the belief in God. I think that means something.”, said Abel
“True.”, I said.