Thoughtspasms of the Posthumous Trudger
So now I am alone in the world ... I have slipped unwittingly from waking into sleep, or rather from life into death ... I have resigned myself utterly and recovered my peace of mind ... Everything is finished for me on this earth ... Neither good nor evil can be done to me by any man.
Reveries of the Solitary Walker by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Every weekday morning I trudge to work, heavy with resignation. My commute takes me through the centre of Glasgow—past the pub where the helicopter crashed, along the street where a bin lorry careened into pedestrians—at a time of the day when the world seems entirely populated by zombies. Whether it's stressed-out, barely-caffeinated workers or bedraggled indigents blinking into semi-consciousness, none of us morning trudgers seem to have any free will or empathy. We are automatons, performing familiar actions out of habit. Too tired to think, we are assailed by thoughtspasms: incoherent reactions to unresolved memories.
One of my unresolved memories is from 15 years ago, when a professor informed me that Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Reveries of the Solitary Walker was an attempt to live posthumously. At the time I was too vain to admit that I didn't know what he meant by this seemingly oxymoronic observation, but ever since—and without reading the book—I had a fantasy of what a posthumous life might be like. I imagined a life with no obligations or responsibilities, no bureaucracy or rules, no aches or pains, no cleaning or shopping, no bills or work, no resentment or inequality: death as the ultimate escape. If only you didn't have to die.
I am fascinated by people like John Darwin, the canoeist who faked his own death. Shackled to debt and bourgeois comfort, Darwin broke free from his own life to live in Panama. Then there's the extraordinary John Frankenheimer film, Seconds, about a banker who pays a shadowy corporation to fake his death and give him plastic surgery so that he can live a hedonistic life in Malibu. In both cases, they felt compelled to go back to their old lives, realising that that responsibilities are what give life meaning in the first place.
Rather more prosaically, it is a common trope in self-help literature to write your own idealised obituary as a way of honing in on what you should be doing. If you want to be remembered a great humanitarian, they say, you should probably spend less time wanking (unless, that is, your humanitarianism consists of helping infertile couples). Meditating on death gives you an opportunity to see what is important and what is unnecessary. As Steve Jobs said:
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
When I eventually did read the Reveries a couple of months ago, I found a series of reflections on what it means to withdraw from society and enjoy solitude. Rousseau wanders the countryside, identifying plants and insects, and thinking about, and preparing for, death. My professor's notion of living posthumously comes from Rousseau's ability to write about his life from above or beyond. He has given up on the competition or continuing the narrative in any significant way and is content to just be.
One of my favourite passages comes when Rousseau gets knocked out by a galloping Great Dane and describes what it felt like to wake up:
I was born again ... entirely taken up by the present, I could remember nothing; I had no distinct notion of myself as a person. I did not know who I was, nor where I was ... I felt throughout a wonderful calm.
All too often we find ourselves gripped by a frenzied attempt to control life. We want more - are always reaching for more - and are never satisfied with what we have. Some people try to change the world, arranging it so that it is more to their liking. Others try to ignore the parts they don't like so that they can concentrate on the good parts. Worse still, you might focus on getting the bad out of the way first so that I can enjoy the good unimpeded. The result of such thinking is that the bad never seems to end. You delude yourself with thoughts like "let me just spend a few minutes organizing these files and then I'll write that novel", ignoring the fact that admin is fractal and will never end. As Rousseau writes towards the end of the Reveries:
Everything here on earth is in a continual flux which allows nothing to assume any constant form. All things change round about us, we ourselves change, and no one can be sure of loving tomorrow what he loves today. All our plans of happiness in this life are therefore empty dreams. Let us make the most of peace of mind when it comes to us, taking care to do nothing to drive it away, but not making plans to hold it fast, since such plans are sheer folly.
So the other morning I trudged to work, heavy with resignation. Only this time the resignation was in the form of a letter that I was going to hand to my boss. It occurred to me that my miserable walk to work wasn't something that I am forced to endure. We are free. And so, at the time of writing I am serving out my notice period. My excitement and anxiety grows with every day. So this is what it feels like to be alive.
This article originally appeared in issue twelve of New Escapologist magazine.
Read my other New Escapologist articles.
