Thoughts

 From The Mortgaged Heart:

     "This city, New York--consider the people in it, the eight million of us. An English friend of mine, when asked why he lived in New York City, said that he liked it here because he could be so alone. While it was my friend's desire to be alone, the aloneness of many Americans who live in cities is an involuntary and fearful thing. It has been said that loneliness is the great American malady. What is the nature of this loneliness? It would seem essentially to be a quest for identity. 

     To the spectator, the amateur philosopher, no motive among the complex ricochets of our desires and rejections seems stronger or more enduring than the will of the individual to claim his identity and belong. From infancy to death, the human being is obsessed by these dual motives. During our first weeks of life, the question of identity shares urgency with the need for milk. The baby reaches for his toes, then explores the bars of his crib; again and again he compares the difference between his own body and the objects around him, and in the wavering, infant eyes there comes a pristine wonder. 

     Consciousness of self is the first abstract problem that the human being solves. Indeed, it is this self-consciousness that removes us from lower animals. This primitive grasp of identity develops with constantly shifting emphasis through all our years. Perhaps maturity is simply the history of those mutations that reveal to the individual the relation between himself and the world in which he finds himself. 

     After the first establishment of identity there comes the imperative need to lose this new-found sense of separateness and to belong to something larger and more powerful than the weak, lonely self. The sense of moral isolation is intolerable to us. 

     In The Member of the Wedding the lovely twelve-year-old girl, Frankie Addams, articulates this universal need: "The trouble with me is that for a long time I have just been an I person. All people belong to a We except me. Not to belong to a We makes you too lonesome." 

     Love is the bridge that leads from the I sense to the We, and there is a paradox about personal love. Love of another individual opens a new relation between the personality and the world. The lover responds in a new way to nature and may even write poetry. Love is affirmation; it motivates the yes responses and the sense of wider communication. Love casts out fear, and in the security of this togetherness we find contentment, courage. We no longer fear the age-old haunting questions: "Who am I?" "Why am I?" "Where am I going?" -- and having cast out fear, we can be honest and charitable. 

     For fear is a primary source of evil. And when the question "Who am I?" recurs and is unanswered, then fear and frustration project a negative attitude. The bewildered soul can answer only: "Since I do not understand 'Who I am,' I only know what I am not." The corollary of this emotional incertitude is snobbism, intolerance, and racial hate. The xenophobic individual can only reject and destroy, as the xenophobic nation inevitably makes war. 

     The loneliness of Americans does not have its source in xenophobia; as a nation we are an outgoing people, reaching always for immediate contacts, further experience. But we tend to seek out things as individuals, alone. The European, secure in his family ties and rigid class loyalties, knows little of the moral loneliness that is native to us Americans. While the European artists tend to form groups or aesthetic schools, the American artist is the eternal maverick--not only from society in the way of all creative minds, but within the orbit of his own art. 

     Thoreau took to the woods to seek the ultimate meaning of his life. His creed was simplicity and his modus vivendi the deliberate stripping of external life to the Spartan necessities in order that his inward life could freely flourish. His objective, as he put it, was to back the world into a corner. And in that way did he discover "What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate." 

     On the other hand, Thomas Wolfe turned to the city, and in his wanderings around New York he continued his fenetic and lifelong search for the lost brother, the magic door. He too backed the world into a corner, and as he passed among the city's millions, returning their stares, he experienced "That silent meeting [that] is the summary of all the meetings of men's lives." 

     Whether in the pastoral joys of country life or in the labyrinthine city, we Americans are always seeking. We wander, question. But the answer waits in each separate heart--the answer of out own identity and the way by which we can master loneliness and feel that at a last we belong."

My Own Comments: 

     The thoughts that Carson McCullers expressed in her essay, struck me with intensity, especially because of the moment that it was presented to me, and of course the deep thoughts in it. Let me explain why. 

     This morning, during my English class, my teacher presented all the students with this portion of essay written by Carson McCullers. The assignment was to read, and reread, and reread again until you thought you got the point of the article. Afterwards, you needed to go back again and highlight the parts that were most interesting to you. Or the parts that you agreed with. The purple parts of the essay represent the parts that I, myself, decided to highlight. The next part of the assignment was to write about and reflect on a part or two that you highlighted, in about half a page or so. Simple enough, wouldn't you say? 

     Not for me. I read and reread this probably 8 to 10 times. It struck me that I wrote the article "Who am I?" not 5 days ago. After reading McCullers essay, it made me think about my previous post, and maybe there IS an answer to the question. It just takes a little more effort than we realize. Would you agree? 

     Now, I will share with you and reflect on the parts that I highlighted and why I did so. Hopefully to make a little bit more sense. 

"...the aloneness of many Americans who live in cities is an involuntary and fearful thing." Of course this is true. How could it not be? Many that have been raised in small towns and move away later in life, don't realize it, but the closeness of small communities is sometimes a security blanket. When you don't have life where everyone knows your business and you don't know your neighbors on a first name basis, you can become very alone, and it can become, like the statement says, afraid. 

"...a quest for identity." Not much is to be said about a quest for identity. Not much is there to be able to reflect upon; but many people spend their entire lives searching, questing, for their identity. When it could be possibly staring them in the face. Maybe try, but not too hard, or you could miss it. 

"To the spectator, the amateur philosopher, no motive among the complex ricochets of our desires and rejections seems stronger or more enduring than the will of the individual to claim his identity and belong." I think what this statement is trying to say is that no motive is stronger, other than the will of someone to 'belong', will affect their decisions, desires, wants, and sometimes even needs. We all need different things according to each person. All other motives are in subjection to the will of someone to belong. 

I do not feel the need to comment on every single highlighted piece of information, but I do believe that this entire article was very well written and it makes sense as to why people feel alone. If someone is looking to answer the question "Who am I?", they should look into reading the entire essay by Carson McCullers.