Augustine

With the lackadaisical air of a second-semester senior, my philosophy class is grudgingly working its way through Saint Augustine’s The Confessions. As our progression clomps along, halted frequently by the obligatory dialectical quibbles and questions that crop up via my (perhaps overtly) argumentative peers, a vein of time has been opened in which I’ve found a few interesting quotes from this book.

Augustine’s stories and perspective on the world are, at times, scarily similar to things and ideas I hear about or personally experience. Now, this is a guy from 354 AD (BCE, have what you will), or 1657 years ago. And yet I can’t help but laugh or agree with some of his resonant and applicable ideas. Plus, he’s a bloody genius and, of course, rather loquacious. So the odds of something being true are good. But still, look at the below quote. How many of you tired teenagers have not shared this sentiment?

“I was thus weighed down by the pleasant burden of the world in the way one commonly is by sleep… No one wants to be asleep all the time, and it is generally agreed among sensible people that being awake is a better state, yet it often happens that a person puts off the moment when he must shake himself out of sleep because his limbs are heavy with a lassitude that pulls him toward the most attractive alternative, even though he is already trying to resist it and the hour for rising has come…”

Thus writes the most influential interpreter of the bible (up to his time, that is), commiserating with all who face the daily grind of this waking life. This may be a touch irreverent, but it’s amusing to picture Augustine lying in bed, discoursing with himself on the merits of rousing or sleeping. If I had more skill I’d draw a comic, but alas imagination will have to substitute for whatever pathetic images I can generate.

Not only does Augustine relate the allure of a blissfully warm bed, but his take on peer pressure and gossip are also interesting. This sentence, for example, in which he recalls his mother’s ability to avoid gossip:

“She would hear many a bitter accusation from each against the other, of the kind that lumpy, ill-digested discord is wont to belch forth when someone dyspeptic with hatred spews out acid talk to a present friend concerning an absent enemy”

Fantastic wordage and verbage, potent imagery; and look at its relevance! How many times have we heard, or, Augustine-forbid-us, personally flailed at the images and reputations of others when they are not present and able to defend themselves? What terrible ego-buffing occurs among the high school comrades, those that cruelly reveal other’s shortcomings, use the inevitable human failings of others as their own stepping stones to rise higher in the social circle of vicious treachery, maliciously laughing as they pass the trailing strands of broken trust that they have so readily severed. For shame, you belching dyspeptic discords, for shame.

And where would gossip be in the social setting without the co-villain, peer pressure? …Look out! You’re rushing into the same trap that Augustine and other children fell headlong into a millennia and a half ago.

“I rushed on headlong in such blindness that when I heard other youths of my own age bragging about their immoralities I was ashamed to be less depraved than they….when I had no indecent acts to admit that could put me on a level with these abandoned youths, I pretended to obscenities I had not committed, lest I might be though less courageous for being more innocent, and be accounted cheaper for being more chaste.”

How many boasts and brags, bets and fools, have been made among the students and adults who care for these petty appearances? How many trivial competitions flourish within our hearts, oh Augustine? Apologies; I facetiously am mocking no singular being, but the stereotypical image I find some peers conforming too. But to lighten this lengthy preachy compilation of denunciation and condemnation, here’s an interesting statement.

"Even the natural pleasures of human life are obtained through distress, not only through the unexpected calamities that befall against our will but also through deliberate and personal discomfort. There is no pleasure in eating and drinking unless the discomfort of hunger and thirst have preceded them".

I have to agree with the above, and this time less scathingly. How miserable I am, the odd times I find myself in a car, being shuttled from my warm home to this cozy school; how infinitely better it is, the trauma of waiting for the bus in sub-zero temperatures only to be joyously relieved by the warmth, once taken for granted, now greedily cherished. How peaceful it is, to bask in the warm environs of the rickety MTD, how basic the pleasure of a warm enclosure. Current depravations and wants only make their later deliverance all the more powerful. Food, water, Starcraft. Sleep!

It’s odd, the resonance and fraternity I feel for the occasional anecdote in Augustine’s writings. Perhaps my mind happily latches onto the more vituperative statements because, like Augustine, the vile debauchery of society has overwhelmed my soul. I jest, though, rather I’m simply anti-social. Woe to me!

“… the woe I felt over my woe was yet another woe, and I was distressed by this double sadness.”

Reality

The world that I perceive and inhabit is rarely affected by the things I read or hear about in the news, the happenings in foreign countries I can’t ever visualize or sometimes even locate on the map. Because of this disconnect, and perhaps my inherent inability to empathize strongly with foreign places, I find it particularly difficult to even care about these events. I live in an isolated bubble of school and family life, books and writings and perhaps a pinch of video games. The external world is unfathomable to me when I attempt to understand it through my life lens. Take, for example, the protests in Egypt.

You know that something “historically significant” is happening when your history teacher assigns you a paper on a current event, especially given that only three brief papers are the total summation of a semester’s work. The revolution is Egypt is causing many heads to turn; the whole world is watching the ensuing upheaval as thousands clash and march in the streets. I too can watch this with a vague feeling of interest, but I can not imagine or feel what it would be like to live there at this time. People’s lives and entire beings are invested in this moment, for a cause, a belief, a hope— and all I can feel is the slightest stirring of interest as I skim the news on BBC, news that I’ll hardly think about or consider any further, albeit for given assignments and discussions. Left to my own devices, I know I won’t dwell on the turmoil in Egypt or any world events. I can not imagine the tensions and roiling pot of emotions that permeate the major cities in Egypt, I can not even imagine the sensation of a crowd, much less a massive protest…

It is not that I don’t believe these events occur— I’ll blindly trust the news, I’ll “believe” that Egypt is a real place and that no insane, mass-conspiracy shenanigans are playing out— but my life continues as if no news has happened, so it may as well be pretend for me, it might as well be a fictional story. The plane of reality that these events inhabit in my mind is equivalent to the plane where tales from novels reside. I doubt this can be good, for one is reality and the other is not. Perhaps if I watched the news instead of reading of it I would more readily empathize with the events. Even then, though, while my emotions would be briefly riled, the passing of time would glaze things over, and soon all would be forgotten.

Even news in America fails to truly engage me; really, if I’m honest, news from my humble town seems as remote as the protests in Egypt. My unawareness, apathy, isolation, whatever it is, may be traced back to my parents or upbringing; perhaps the absence of TV, or the familial distaste for the paper (excluding the comics). But inside, I feel that this distance is simply part of who I am. It is not a good quality, but at the same time, forcing myself to care about the world, to go out and help and understand different places and cultures— to place that upon myself would be dishonest to those I would be trying to help, and would ultimately only hurt myself. Self-imposed interests and benevolence are of no use, for they can not fully accomplish anything; projects would be feebly started then dropped, ideas morphed, partially implemented, then forgotten. No, I currently can not feel that link to the real world, it is beyond my personal sphere— I am only affected by those who are close to me. These, my family and friends, are the people I can and will help, the people I can connect with and care for.