When Jack got fired from his job, he thought it would be great. Now, he can finally finish his novel…except he no longer had money for the rent, just some unemployment, so he moved in with his girlfriend, Anna, and her two cats.
His dog, Frank, wasn’t happy, but Jack needed to get to work. He wrote furiously for a few weeks, then got bored. It is a story about being shortchanged. Almost getting everything, but not quite. Just when you think you have it all – it slips away, and he wrote about a couple who’s marriage disintegrated, and the ashes of their romance came down to who pays the mortgage.
Even Anna suggested he sign a note should his book sell, so she could benefit from the any profits in lieu of rent. She was a smart cookie, no nonsense, high-functioning, industrious. The house was always clean an he knows he didn’t clean it. There was always food in the fridge and he didn’t buy it. She was a Nazi. But, he needed her, and as he delved into the raw emotion of love or death of love, he modeled his characters on her, but not so much himself. He always saw himself outside of the relationship, like a distant observer. If the book sells…There is was again…the Myth of Sisyphus…pushing the rock uphill only to have it roll down again.
He went outside to walk Frank and ran into Raquel, the neighbor. He didn’t know her, but knew she was some kind of Hollywood writer. He should get to know her so he walked up to her and greeted her.
I heard you were a writer?
Yes, but I’m unemployed right now.
Really? Me, too…
What are you writing?
A love story…
Nice…
Well, a dark, twisted love story.
Raquel’s ears perked up.
Can I buy you a coffee?
Don’t you have a girlfriend?
Yes, but we are not married, and I’m not asking you to get married either, so?
Raquel was impressed with his honesty.
Sure.
#
Later, Jack wrote Raquel into his dark, twisted love story and positioned her as just a passing temptation, a siren. Damn, this is good, he told himself. What shall I call this story? He was stuck on the title since he didn’t want it to be Ashes of Love or the Mortgage Marriage or something stupid. He would have to come up with something short and concise…about a marriage on the rocks or a rocky romance or a modern romantic notion of romance which was more about convenience and money than anything to do with love. Jack believed in love, but he never really found it.
Love is one of those delusions or illusions where you feel passion and lust and then suddenly it all crashes to the floor. Or is is the emotion of security and mammary glands, the fear of being alone, and the fear of being with somebody who will destroy you.
Anna came home then, asking how the writing is going.
Much better, honey.
Good, I might have a publisher for you…well, not a publisher, but an agent…
Really? Who?
Yeah, let me make some dinner and then we can talk it over….his name is Eric Christian..Wine?
Sure…
#
The following Saturday, Jack walked Frank, or Frank walked Jack, but they ended up by the freeway where a couple of homeless panhandlers held up signs for commuters. Jack was completely out of cash and thought maybe he should try his hand at this.
He approached the girl and asked her if he could try it, and she got scared and ran away.
He pick up her sign which read hungry and homeless. He took out his pen and wrote on the other side: “DEAF”
and held it up for the line of cars, stopped for the light.
A woman handed him a dollar.
He was a little shocked.
Then another woman handed him a $5.
He said Thank you and remembered he was deaf, so he said it like a deaf person.
How bad could this be? A novelist/panhandler?
Suddenly, some maniac gangbanger showed up screaming at him. He didn’t cross the street but Jack thought he would just leave, pondering where he could panhandle….
but still out of cash since he gave his ‘roommate’ his unemployment check’ for the rent, he hated not having running money. When he asked her for $5 or $10 bucks, she scoffed at him, and gave him $2. He thought a little panhandling would at least give him some coffee money…money for gas…a lottery ticket, anything
So, he went to another freeway offramp by Rick’s Place in Silver Lake and came home two hours later with $30…. he was utterly thrilled.
tbc…#
Myth of Sisyphus
The central concern of The Myth of Sisyphus is what Camus calls “the absurd.” Camus claims that there is a fundamental conflict between what we want from the universe (whether it be meaning, order, or reasons) and what we find in the universe (formless chaos). We will never find in life itself the meaning that we want to find. Either we will discover that meaning through a leap of faith, by placing our hopes in a God beyond this world, or we will conclude that life is meaningless. Camus opens the essay by asking if this latter conclusion that life is meaningless necessarily leads one to commit suicide. If life has no meaning, does that mean life is not worth living? If that were the case, we would have no option but to make a leap of faith or to commit suicide, says Camus. Camus is interested in pursuing a third possibility: that we can accept and live in a world devoid of meaning or purpose.
The absurd is a contradiction that cannot be reconciled, and any attempt to reconcile this contradiction is simply an attempt to escape from it: facing the absurd is struggling against it. Camus claims that existentialist philosophers such as Kierkegaard, Chestov, and Jaspers, and phenomenologists such as Husserl, all confront the contradiction of the absurd but then try to escape from it. Existentialists find no meaning or order in existence and then attempt to find some sort of transcendence or meaning in this very meaninglessness.
Living with the absurd, Camus suggests, is a matter of facing this fundamental contradiction and maintaining constant awareness of it. Facing the absurd does not entail suicide, but, on the contrary, allows us to live life to its fullest.
Camus identifies three characteristics of the absurd life: revolt (we must not accept any answer or reconciliation in our struggle), freedom (we are absolutely free to think and behave as we choose), and passion (we must pursue a life of rich and diverse experiences).
Camus gives four examples of the absurd life: the seducer, who pursues the passions of the moment; the actor, who compresses the passions of hundreds of lives into a stage career; the conqueror, or rebel, whose political struggle focuses his energies; and the artist, who creates entire worlds. Absurd art does not try to explain experience, but simply describes it. It presents a certain worldview that deals with particular matters rather than aiming for universal themes.
The book ends with a discussion of the myth of Sisyphus, who, according to the Greek myth, was punished for all eternity to roll a rock up a mountain only to have it roll back down to the bottom when he reaches the top. Camus claims that Sisyphus is the ideal absurd hero and that his punishment is representative of the human condition: Sisyphus must struggle perpetually and without hope of success. So long as he accepts that there is nothing more to life than this absurd struggle, then he can find happiness in it, says Camus.
Camus appends his essay with a discussion of the works of Franz Kafka. He ultimately concludes that Kafka is an existentialist, who, like Kierkegaard, chooses to make a leap of faith rather than accept his absurd condition. However, Camus admires Kafka for expressing humanity’s absurd predicament so perfectly.
Rock of Vampyre 