Day 7

One time I was on the patio of a restaurant. A little while after sitting down I noticed a chalkboard sign, it read, “Thanks for not putting the tables together.”  And I thought to myself, "that’s nice, I’m being thanked for something I wasn’t even previously conscious of doing." Then I wondered about all the other things I’m doing (or not doing) that people are grateful for. Thanks for: not jumping off the patio of the restaurant, not throwing food at other customers, not sticking straws up your nose, behaving in accordance to societal norms, etc. Then I pictured all those “thank you” as words, and they started surrounding me and moving towards the floor like reality was some kind of stop-motion film.  I was swimming in thanks. People are always swimming in thanks or in innocence the same way that Clamence claims in The Fall that they are swimming (metaphor permitting) in guilt. I think that is interesting.

I wish we would have talked more about freedom in class though.  I really loved the large paragraph of it.  “I used to spread it on my toast…” But the best part for me was the last sentence of that paragraph: “At the end of all freedom is too heavy to bear, especially when you’re down with a fever, or are distressed, or love nobody.”

Side Note:

There were some parts of The Fall that were difficult for me to understand. I had to google a lot of biblical references to fully understand what Clamence was trying to communicate and even then it was difficult. Not exclusively because of the references though.  But anyways, I now feel inspired to take a bible lit class.  

Since we are moving on to Kierkegaard I feel inclined to include some kind of Camus commentary in this post. I google imaged him. He looks cool. I realize a lot of people think this because someone stuck him on a Valentine’s day card. I don’t see any Sartre Valentines cards. It’s a funny one: