Whenever I feel lonely, I reread The Myth of Sisyphus. I long for absolute, seamless intimacy, yet an insurmountable distance always remains between people. Language, experience, memory, the body—everything acts like transparent glass, trapping our souls in separate containers. I was sitting in bed reading when I received your text. Almost instantly, I sprang up, opened my laptop, and began writing these words.
Jack London was my favorite writer in middle school. As an adult stepping into this coarse, rugged world, I choose to believe in this way of living. (My favorite writers are Camus, Hemingway, Jack London, and Kafka—and I think that alone says enough about the kind of person I am). During my rebellious middle school years, I preferred Jack London because he was sufficiently wild and violent. Later on, I grew to prefer Hemingway; what he conveys to me is a calm, almost ritualistic resistance against a doomed fate.
Socially, I am a very warm and extroverted person. But this warmth and care are usually directed outward; when looking inward, I uncontrollably fill myself with coldness and scrutiny. If you think this brings resilience, you are mistaken. More often than not, this detached, bystander-like coldness makes it incredibly difficult for a person to stand up in times of adversity. I lack the motivation to escape the predicament because I don’t have enough reason to believe it is inherently bad. Even now, I don't know what I want. Is it love? It seems so. But the love I want is something even I cannot satisfy within myself. It doesn’t exist continuously in a single person; it leaps, traveling across different people, different concepts, and different lifestyles. Then is it freedom that I want? That seems right too. Yet the freedom I desire is laced with timidity and a constant weighing of self-interest. Then surely what I want is money, status, or fame? Probably not—but since everyone else pursues them, must I absolutely reject them? For a long time, I felt that I was spiritually melodramatic. I melodramatically savor pain, like tasting a wine that is too heavy on tannins. I magnify every emotion and write footnotes for every coincidence of fate, as if doing so lends a sense of beauty to losing control.
My attitude toward death has always been warped. On one hand, I possess a vitality far more exuberant and savage than most; on the other hand, I am internally prepared to die at any moment. I don't find death frightening at all. It is quite funny: all living things treat death as an unsolvable problem, yet death is constantly solving all kinds of problems for them. I believe in the existence of ghosts. Many times, I find myself imagining the dead. They stand quietly beneath the shade of the trees. Standing outside of time. Watching us, the living, as we fuss, stress, run, love, and argue—and then step by step, walk toward the place they have already reached.
Ever since I was sixteen, I have deeply wanted a child. I think most people choose to give birth as a way to deconstruct the nihilism of life, but I know that is not the case for me. It is because while I constantly feel an immense loneliness, I am also intensely guarded. I cannot trust any existing creature in this world to share the most authentic feelings of my life. I cannot wait to bring forth a brand new, pure life carrying a piece of my soul—to explore the world together.
I will take them to see the ocean. Take them to see the snow. Take them to read books. And then one day, when they finally learn to read, I will place Camus before them. I will be curious: will this new life, born of my flesh and blood, love Camus just as I do? Will they, too, open The Myth of Sisyphus on some lonely night? Will they, like me, feel shaken in the face of the absurd?
I hold immense curiosity toward this.
The world has no answers. Death will ultimately arrive. All meaning will collapse. But even so, one can still love the sunshine, the seawater, passionate sex, and the morning breeze.
One must imagine Sisyphus happy.