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May 18, 2004
"...shine the light of words upon it..."
I've been breezing through Life of Pi this week. This is one of those "runaway bestsellers" that I've been seeing it all over the place for the last few months. Naturally, part of me feels guilty for actually reading it, much less enjoying it — remember, I'm a snobby fascist who turns up my nose at John Grisham novels, even though I have never actually read them.
I'm not done with the book yet, but I am glad that it's earned so much popular acclaim. It's an imaginative book with a lot of heart.
Briefly, the story in Life of Pi involves a young Indian boy who manages to survive a terrible shipwreck in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. He finds himself adrift on a lifeboat with a very large Bengal tiger. Pi must fight the elements and his own fear in an effort to keep both himself and the tiger alive.
Today as I was reading, I came across an extraordinary quote which I'd like to post here, sort of as a reminder to me, as a gift to both of us.
I am quoting it here with absolutely no special permission from the publisher, but I trust that if this quote sounds interesting, you will put some money in Harcourt's pocket and buy the book. It'd be a good investment.
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I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot soldier. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. You become anxious. Reason comes to do battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread...
Fear next turns fully to your body, which is already aware that something terribly wrong is going on. Already your lungs have flown away like a bird and your guts have slithered away like a snake. Now your tongue drops dead like an opossum, while your jaw begins to gallop on the spot.... Every part of you, in the manner most suited to it, falls apart....
Quickly you make rash decisions. You dismiss your last allies: hope and trust. There, you've defeated yourself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over you.
The matter is difficult to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.
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Oh, did you catch all of that? Fear... seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. Could anything be truer?
I'm in a strange place these days. Maybe it all started when I turned 30 a couple of weeks ago. Maybe it's just my time to account for where and who I am. But after 30 peaceful years of generally accepting the things I have been taught and having no desire at all to question authority, I suddenly feel the foundation trembling beneath me. These days I'm calling into doubt practices and ideas that I have considered rock-solid for as long as I've been able to think.
Really, this isn't happening as suddenly as it seems. It's been about to happen for a long time. For years, in fact. I've been ignoring it, filing it away, pushing it off. Lately only one thing is clear: that I can ignore it no longer. Now seems as good a time as any for an earthquake.
As I told Jessie last week, lately I feel like I'm packing rations for a long journey through a dark country. It's a scary time, and fear is a constant companion. How will I ever resolve [xyz issue]? What if I offend someone along the way? What if I have to let go of [xyz] idea or [xyz] friend? What if I end up becoming a completely different person? What if, what if, what if?...
You may see some of Pi's influence on these pages in weeks to come. Perhaps I will invite that persistent fear to state its case here on this site, and see what happens. Perhaps we will engage in a little clash of wills here in the journal.
So — this is what life is like lately. I arm-wrestle with fear. And it paralyzes me at times. But then I read something beautiful like this from a fictional Indian boy named Pi. And then my friend takes me out to dinner and promises over plates of steaming curry that I will always have her friendship no matter what. And then I remember that I am not alone. And then I am filled with hope.
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