inauthentic life

What is the Real Thing?

/ Cheryl / Leave a comment

So they lived. Everything went along without change and everything was fine.

“What if my entire life, my entire conscious life, simply was not the real thing?”

“But what is the real thing?”

—Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich

I continue to re-explore some of the books that delivered crucial truths to me at a pivotal time in my life. The Death of Ivan Ilyich was the second book assigned in my Western Classics II class during the fall semester of 2002. Whenever I think of this story, the words that come to my mind first are “inauthentic life.” I read this story and cried for the Ivan in all of us, but mostly for the Ivan in me. I did not want to continue living my own inauthentic life. Mine was very different from Ivan’s, but still not real even though it may have appeared to be fine to those who shared my world at that time. The hope this story holds was a needed light.

Ivan chose the right career, married the right spouse, bought the right house, filled the house with the right things, had the right children, went through all the right motions of life. Only on his death bed did he realize these were not the real things of life. For too long, I had been going through the motions of the life that I felt was expected of me. I suppose I expected it of myself just as much as anyone else did. We all want to be happy, and when we are young we have a picture in our mind of how a happy life should look. We can put the external pieces in place yet know some of the pieces don’t really quite fit. We go on with each day anyway, hoping not only that nobody else notices but that we will not notice. Sometimes, it was impossible to not see clearly that the pieces of my life did not only not fit but were probably not the right pieces at all.

My copy of Ivan Ilyich is well-marked and annotated. The quotes I chose above are only those that seemed to gather together the messages I grappled with as I read this the first time and as I ponder it now. When I closed the last page for the first time, I cried —really cried— for close to an hour. Beginning to learn truths can do that to us. The hope and light held even in the dark story remained with me, though. Hope and light have always had a way of finding me and helping me to find my way.

Living in a Hieroglyphic World

/ Cheryl / Leave a comment

In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs….

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

This novel is full of quotable lines, of relatable truths that I have been tumbling about in my brain and heart. Being the word nerd that I am, I decided to look at the meaning of hieroglyph before sharing my thoughts. From dictionary.com: pertaining to a pictographic script, particularly that of the ancient Egyptians, in which many of the symbols are conventionalized, recognizable pictures of the things represented. The central character, Newland Archer, seems to already have an inkling of the unreality in his own world of 1870s New York society, but he also realizes the safety in this structured, hieroglyphic world. He wants to believe himself broader and freer-thinking than his friends are, but he realizes that he is equally tied to the external expectations of his social strata. The unexpected entrance of an outlying member of this same circle, one who does not fit the form, opens his eyes wider.

In the fall of 2002, I went back to school to earn my bachelor’s degree. More than the degree, I was yearning for a way to break free from my own hieroglyphic world. I had always been drawn to literature, especially to stories and characters that had something real to offer me other than a good plot. That semester, I took Western Classics II. Our first novel was The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia by Samuel Johnson. Another novel we read was The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy. I go back now and read my annotations and know that each of these stories gave me insight to the inauthentic life I so wanted to break free from. In each of these stories there are characters caught in lives that are perfunctory – going through the motions – and in which, it is assumed, they are “happy”.

Most of us crave order to some extent. We want to feel safe and to know, at least some of the time, what to expect. We tend to find some comfort in having the same people around us even when their company can be hard or even hurtful. For all of us there are seasons of tedious routine. When, though, is it time to look beyond these created or evolved conventionalized, recognizable pictures of the things represented or the arbitrary signs? I believe that what is real can still be found if we open our eyes and hearts, if we allow ourselves to be aware, if we are willing to face the fear of truth. Each of us must decide to what extent we allow the structures in our life to become hieroglyphic. At this point in my life I crave what is real and vibrant, even if it is a bit scary.

Some related quotes from The Age of Innocence:

“Does no one want to know the truth here, Mr. Archer? The real loneliness is living among all these kind of people who only ask one to pretend!:”

“It’s you who are telling me; opening my eyes to things I’d looked at so long that I’d ceased to see them.”

“…but sometimes life is difficult . . . perplexing . . .”