Brutally Honest Rant - 11/15/06

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: Sartre Was Wrong
Audio Transcripts
11/15/06

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – "American Idiot Remix" – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)

Good evening, and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

I guess it’s a good thing that the elections are now over with. No more barrages of lies, hysteria, and outright phoniness for another two years. The signs and the negative attack ads have been put away. The people have chosen, either through their vote or through their non-vote, and now the people have to live with their respective decisions until the next election.

With no real issue to dive into right at the moment, I thought I’d get something off my chest for a nice quick rant this week.

I’ll be turning 40 this coming Tuesday. I don’t normally advertise my birthdays, much less talk about milestone birthdays like turning 40. I hate the fact that I’ll be turning another decade older.

It’s one thing to do so with a solid and healthy past to look back on. To reach that milestone and look at yourself and the things that you’ve done and say that you’ve done good so far.

I can’t say those things. I’m turning 40 with regret, not with hope. I’m looking back at the things that I haven’t been able to do… things that I’ve wanted to do… and things that I no longer can do…

And of those almost 40 years, I can say with certainty that Jean-Paul Sartre was WRONG! Hell really isn’t other people!

For those of you who do not know what I’m talking about, the French existentialist playwright Jean-Paul Sartre once penned a classic play called "Closed Door", although you may have heard of it as "No Exit". It’s a play consisting of three main characters and one valet whose only role is to bring the trio into the room one at a time. The three are brought together to be tortured for the crimes that they committed, not knowing until the very end that their respective torturers were in the room the whole time… the real torturers were each other and their own sordid pasts. This leads, of course, to the infamous quote that sums up the entire play: "hell is other people".

But the truth is that hell is only other people when you can’t stand to be with them. When the sins of your own past are laid out bare, stripped of any pretenses and excuses and easily accessible for others to use for their own purposes, it is easy to say that hell is other people because they are using your own weaknesses against you. In truth, though, it is not others that make it hell… but rather hell is of our own creation.

There is a far worse hell than just other people; a fate much more dreaded than anything that other people could invent. That fate is isolation.

Imagine, if you will, the plight of a very visible ghost… one that is seen but not acknowledged. One that can affect the things around them but does not seem to affect others. One that doesn’t scare people, but is instead ignored.

Welcome to my so-called life.

Humans are, by nature, a social creature. Biology requires us to have more than one person in order to keep the species going, and obviously that other person has to be of a different gender. Even if you hate that other-gendered person, you know that if you’re trapped for all eternity in the same area with that person, at some point biology will kick in. The three participants in "No Exit" certainly have plenty of opportunity to demonstrate that much and, at least in their words, they do.

But there are other stories that demonstrate that a far worse fate would be to have those participants sitting in three separate rooms all by themselves, with nobody to talk to but themselves.

We’d like to think that we could find some way of surviving isolation. In the classic Twilight Zone episode "Time Enough At Last", a henpecked bank official is not allowed to escape his dreary existence through books. But then he sneaks a few minutes in the bank vault to read, and after he wakes up from an impromptu nap, he realizes that the world has been blown up. Everyone he ever knew was gone. But he finds the library is still intact… a place full of books. He thinks that he can escape his isolation through reading… which is what he loves to do anyway… only to break his glasses.

In the movie "Cast Away", Tom Hank’s character is surrounded by nothing but other people, and he doesn’t seem to have any time for the things that matter, until he ends up on a plane that goes down in the Pacific. He survives, but eventually that isn’t enough. When he does get back, his life is pretty much over. Everyone that he knew moved on without him. He pretty much has to start things all over again… and by himself, which is what he is now accustomed to anyway.

Isolation is not a pretty sight. Isolation pretty much sucks. That’s why it makes for good punishment. That’s why shunning still works today. Oh you can try to escape it. You can come up with ways to get around it. But it doesn’t work. You’re still reminded that there is a gap between you and the rest of the world. And no matter how hard you try, you can’t seem to bridge that gap by yourself.

Did you know that the original architects for today’s correctional facilities had a totally different idea of how to rehabilitate criminals? These were Quakers, very religious people, and they believed that complete isolation with nothing but a bible would reform a criminal. I don’t know about the reform part, but complete isolation is certainly a worse punishment than the current warehousing process.

I can go on and on about this, but you pretty much get the picture.

Now I want you to think about the number of people who are shy, quiet, introverted… keep to themselves… don’t really do too much. Don’t really care too much about them, do you? Why should you? They’re not a part of your life.

We hear about the people who just snap… go crazy… do something completely horrific… and when the police and the media interview the neighbors or coworkers, how are they described? Oh, they’re shy… quiet… keep to themselves…

Are you noticing a pattern here?

Let’s get brutally honest here… isolation is a learned behavior. If you isolate a person long enough, they may become used to it, but that doesn’t mean that they like it. They’ll do things by themselves out of habit, but that doesn’t mean that they WANT to. And being surrounded by people who are able to enjoy life is as torturous for the isolated person as an anorexic surrounded by obese people at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

And you cannot tell them to simply go rejoin the rest of the human race! That’s like telling that anorexic person to simply start eating and everything will be fine. Well the same thing with people who are shy, quiet, and keep to themselves out of habit. They need to be brought in… welcomed in… to get used to the fact that they don’t need to be isolated. And it’s not going to happen overnight either! You can’t just bring a lonely person to a party and expect it to wipe away decades of isolation. And yes, in my case IT IS measured in the decades.

I look back at my almost-40 years, and while the reasons why I have more regrets than achievements are numerous, there is but one common theme in them all: marginalization. Feeling left out. Feeling like I don’t belong there or anywhere. It’s not something that you can get over quickly, easily, or all by yourself in cold turkey fashion.

Being isolated is a learned process. It comes from years and years of being isolated. Bringing that person back into the mix requires pretty much the same amount of time and effort. But if you look at the alternative… it’s a pretty good endeavor.

(Computer – some appropriate audio clips for this kind of rant)
(Fade Music In – "Mythodea" by Vangelis)

In a way, it’s good that I bring this subject up right now. We’re just a few weeks away from the official start of the holiday season. A time for families and friends. A time for togetherness. And for someone like me, it’s nothing more than a constant reminder of that gap between myself and the rest of the world.

So my word of advice as I approach my 40th is this: if during your travels this holiday season you know someone who seems to spend more time apart from others, don’t be afraid to engage in a little conversation with them. Don’t be afraid to ask a lonely coworker to join your little lunch group, or drop off a little holiday note to your next-door neighbor. You don’t have to marry them or adopt them or live with them or even invite them to dinner, but just let them know that they aren’t invisible to you.

Trust me… even something that little can go a long ways.

(Quick pause)

Oh by the way, folks, for those of you on the transcript list or who are reading these out on the Brutally Honest weblog, if there’s something about tonight’s rant that touches a nerve or sounds like someone you know, please feel free to pass it on to your friends. And be sure to let me know as well.

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production, all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

(Fade out)
(Computer – Ending/"End of Recording")

[End of program]
------------------------------