Recently, I've read a pretty fabulous little novel called, The Stranger, by Albert Camus (translated by Matthew Ward). If you're not into deep reading, I wouldn't recommend it for you. Didn't really strike something internally until I hit chapter five at the end. Merseult is condemned to die by guillotine in the name of the French people after being tried and found guilty for killing another man. In this final chapter, the reality of his being condemned to die hits him full force, and he begins to really consider what his execution means. For Merseult, it's truly the end of the line. He recognizes that he will have to die no matter what, and meanwhile he recognizes some really impressive things.
Something of note that I picked up was that instead of deeming everything important, he has decided that almost everything is trivial with the exception of his execution. Every real life account and fictional account I've come across in my literary travels has been one of the two ways but not either. Either the person / character that is doomed to die takes the time to really stop and smell the roses, or he loses all interest in everything going on in the world around him. I've never personally encountered a scenario where a person is selectively super observant and consciously deciding to ignore other things.
I'm pretty sure that I'm not looking at impending and unavoidable doom any time soon, but it made me think about how we observe the world around us. How many people are being super observant and really taking time to learn the intimate details of their surroundings? How many people aren't? It's a common belief that if you are taking your time, you'll learn something. A truth about yourself, or the world, about anything really. In the new age hustle and bustle with our fancy new smart phones, etc. how many people are losing something? They say what you can learn from just watching can't really be learned any other way, and I believe it. You can't hear silence with your eyes and you can't see the sun rise with your ears. I'm curious if there is a single best way to deal with things in your environment, whether it really is worthwhile to smell the roses or not, whether you'll be just fine with or without that addition to your life.
[Author note: this blog has been pre-scheduled to post as I will be unavailable this weekend in an attempt to be more reliable. Thanks for reading. ]
No comments:
Post a Comment