The Trick Is to Keep Breathing

I gotta find why you always go, when the wind blows [...]
Tell me you’re crazy—maybe then I’ll understand! [...]
God, sometimes you just don’t come through,
God, sometimes you just don’t come through…
— “God”, Tori Amos

You know, I’m not very deterministic—definitely not fatalistic (or much of anything-istic, for that matter)—but I’m totally convinced that The Fates have it in for me.

Furthermore, it occurs to me that all human thought—at least in theology, philosophy and the arts—has been an effort to get to the roots of suffering.

“Have, alas! Philosophy, Medicine, Jurisprudence too, And to my cost Theology, With ardent labour, studied through. And here I stand, with all my lore, Poor fool, no wiser than before.”
— “Faust”, Goethe

Kurt Vonnegut: “Listen. All great literature is about what a bummer it is to be a human being”.

Here’s the plot summary to our human story: “Bad things happen. Then everybody searches for meaning.” Maybe you’ll get your vindication when the Messiah returns? Shall Scientology finally make you happy? Maybe Buddha had it right. As for me, I grow partial to the Stoics.

Controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) is a term developed by engineers at Boeing in the late 1970s. It describes an accident whereby an airworthy aircraft, under complete control of the pilot(s), inadvertently flies into terrain (or an obstacle, or water).
— Wikipedia

Grab the control stick, baby—we pullin’:

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,â€”act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

(‘The Trick Is to Keep Breathing’ is the title of a song by Garbage, from that of a book by Janice Galloway.)

Tara

You’re right that is fatalistic. I kind of agree with Vonnegut—isn’t it some kind of self-schadenfreude that makes us love literature so much?
http://firasd.org Firas

Hey Tara,

Mmm, I wouldn’t say ‘schadenfreude’ per se, because that implies malice, you know—like a sort of perverse glee in others’ misery? Maybe ‘self-schadenfreude’ is an oxymoron by definition. (Of course we might feel schadenfreude about what happens to characters we don’t like, especially when there are clear moral delineations… although, as a sidenote, I’d say that I view moral fuzziness as almost a requirement for great art. Actual life is in shades of grey after all.)

I do know what you’re getting at, though: a sort of catharsis, from sympathizing with the plight of the characters, or at least empathizing if nothing else (I personally think stories, when it comes down to it, are just exercises in empathy.) I suspect that, for better or for worse, the “can you relate” issue is a basic factor in how much you like a piece of art—’Resonance’, as someone I mentioned that to called it. And the art in question doesn’t have to be ‘great’ or ‘timeless’ or a ‘modern classic’ or whatever for that to happen—’chick flicks’ resonate with their audience.

As for why the tragedy, pain, pity etc. resonates so much, even among people who’ve had basically stable lives—that’s the big question isn’t it? Maybe some people are just disposed to being connoisseurs of the tragic vision—permanent fans of the grown-up versions of teen-angst novels and bitter poetry—I might count myself among them. That sort of thing can always slide into patheticness though (cue Dido: “You think misery will make you stand apart from the crowd… well if you had walked past me today I wouldn’t have picked you out”.)

(There’s also another aspect here: what they say about tragedy being easy and comedy being hard. It’s easy to make us root for Prince Charming and feel saddened when Evil Overlord stabs him through the heart—these are the most primal fairy-tale-style archetypes—is that really ‘great’? Then again, you can get across “what a bummer it is to be a human being” while making people laugh, perhaps sardonically: satire, etc.)

Firas Durri