The Sun Also Rises

For a while I’ve been trying to do something about it. And so has everybody else. As the relentless moon pulls the ocean, the tide rushes in, higher than myself. I am surrounded by loneliness. The epic selfish tragedy of us is that we are lonely. It’s epic because loneliness is under most of our thoughts and actions, good or bad, big or small. Except for the ones motivated by jealousy or guilt, but most often it’s a mixture of all three. It’s selfish because the business is utterly self-centered. Our biggest concern is not world poverty, climate change, or justice, but our psychological well-being. But after all, we’re all only human. What can we do about our weak self-pity? Not much. Nevertheless, it doesn’t render the whole affair somehow less egocentric and foolish. Finally, it’s a tragedy because one rarely finds an effective cure. Very rarely, people come across a 100% antidote. Others are mere painkillers, maybe a 40%. But even for the 100% antidotes, who knows? The most effective drugs for an incurable illness are often anesthetics and hallucinogens.

To keep myself from drowning, I desperately paw in the air. I listen to music. You can choose rock to beat your senses up, the blues for deep resonation. At the same time, music is also an effective lock for the loop of depression. I reach out to friends. They shortly fill the emptiness inside, but when we part, and I look down, I find that the eddie below me has grown, gobbling me down. I talk to my family. It's the safest bay, but I’m in a boarding school, so no. A book, perhaps. I am not exceptionally hopeful as I pick up my favorite: The Sun Also Rises.

The Sun Also Rises introduces the Hemingway-ian hero, Jake Barnes. Jake keeps many acquaintances, but he also dislikes most of them, either out of envy or moral judgement. That’s me. He despises Robert Cohn for his insecurity and foolishness, and his hate deepens when Cohn goes out with Brett Ashley. Though half blinded by love, Jake disapproves Brett’s way of coping with the scar of war: having numerous affairs. Nonetheless, Jake hangs out with these people. Friends, food, and fishing relieves his pain to some extent. One important thing to point out is that Jake is strikingly similar to Cohn. They are both writers, athletes, and attracted to Brett. The difference, I suppose, is that Jake is aware of his lonely insecurity and tries to shut up about it. That quality, apart from him being the narrator, makes him more likeable to the common eye. Or to me, at least. So I try to shut up about my epic selfish tragedy, too.

Jake is my favorite fictional character not only because he is quietly insightful, but also because he is broken. Mentally and physically damaged, Jake still goes on with life. Often times, the loneliness washes back, but still I do not wish to succumb. I am no war veteran, but Jake is my hero. But why? Why does Jake go on?

Opening my laptop, I go to an online literature forum. One user asks, “What is the point of The Sun Also Rises?” I click on the question, desperate to know the answers that the literature academics will give us. But the wifi shuts down, and the page won’t reload. I wait for a few minutes. Looking at the beige wallpaper of the half-loaded and refusing-to-load-further forum page, it suddenly comes to me: there is no point. Maybe that’s what Hemingway tried to tell us. That it in itself is the point. The broken people of the Lost Generation struggle to find a meaning in life. The end. We are lost, we are lonely, but we go on. It’s a life-sized, though not odyssean-heroic, struggle. As I float, I look up at the sky up high above me. Maybe I’ll understand why the moon gives us this shit someday. Meanwhile, the tide ebbs out, and I continue to swim.