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By Brett Kessler -- 12/99
As children, we can be told not to touch a fire. Until, however, we actually burn our fingertips, we do not realize what hot is. We must gain the experience ourselves, through our successes and failures that shapes us into mature adults. These short stories, "Siddhartha," "Metamorphosis," and "The Stranger" demonstrate how three different men go on journeys to learn about themselves and the meaning of their lives.
"Siddhartha," by Herman Hesse, is the story of the Buddha. It describes how a man searches for the meaning in life, only to discover that there really is not one; there is only the meaning that we instill within our own lives. Siddhartha tries everything from self-deprivation to living a life of decadence, to the simple life of a ferryman. He finds that the simplistic life of the ferryman suits him best, and through this makes peace with his soul and the spirits of the river. He finds that pain and suffering are caused by what we perceive to be our desires, and when we eliminate these mundane needs, we will be happy.
Albert Camus once said, "You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life."
I believe that Camus wrote the story, "The Stranger," to illustrate this point. It describes a man who is apathetic in regards to his own life. He does not cry at his mother's funeral, and does not show remorse after killing a man. When put on trial for his crimes, he comes to the conclusion that he does not care about religion, and about what others think of him. It was inevitable that he was going to die, so therefore, he was free of society's restrictions. Towards the end of the story, Meursault, when asked if he regrets what he has done, says, "I was always busy with what was happening next, today or tomorrow. From somewhere deep in my future, throughout the whole of this absurd life I'd lived, a dark wind was moving towards me across the years still to come." This story is about the realization that life as we know it is so superficial. The Buddha had this realization, as did Meursault and Franz Kafka's main character in "Metamorphosis."
Gregor Samsa woke up one morning to find himself as a dung beetle. Not only was he a dung beetle, but he was in the position to look in upon his life and his family and see what had been missing when he was a human. Samsa comes to the realization, after having been shunned by his family because of his current physical state, that his only purpose in life had been to provide for them. He had not experienced immense feelings of love for his family, nor they for him; he had served as a breadwinner in their lives. Gregor Samsa realizes that the main part of his life had been putting forth effort to do things for others. Samsa had expended tremendous energy merely to make others happy.
Each of these complex characters is described in a simple story that teaches the reader that what matters in life is self-realization, not what others are searching for, nor what others wish us to search for. There is a quote by Camus that embodies what these characters have learned. "You cannot acquire experience by making experiments. You cannot create experience. You must undergo it."
I have written a story, in the style of Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree," which I feel represents what I have learned from the above mentioned stories. This story has a somewhat satirical twist, and is meant to demonstrate how the flaws of human nature can corrupt our lives. The tree in this story can be interpreted as our mothers, or even as our souls. The boys in the story represent the demons we have within us, that misguide us. Siddhartha searches for a way to conquer these demons, Gregor Samsa discovers their existence, and Meursault learns that we must merely ignore these demons to content. The boys in my story are only discovering what it means to pay for the indulgence of their desires.
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--end academic paper-- begin fictional short story designed to relate these three books to "the giving tree" |
-The Buddha
One evening, as the sky turned to gold and then to red, the boy came to the tree with his friends and a large black sack. "Tree, my friends and I wish a cool soft place to sit and consume illegal chemical substances," said the boy.
The wind blew through the tree's limbs and she sighed, "Boy, you may sit beneath my branches on the grassy carpet, and lean against my trunk. That is all I have to offer." So the boy did. They stretched out upon the soft yellow grass that grew beneath her canopy, and smiled contentedly. And the tree was happy.
"Cain, pass the piece," said the boy, "I want to pack this tight before we break out the hard shit." A red shiny box, lined with velvet emerged from the deep black sack and was placed before the boy. Cain laughed, and the party commenced beneath the tree. The tree was rather curious about this whole lurid affair; she had seen the boy swing from her branches, pick her red ripe fruit, and sleep beneath her boughs. This was a new experience for both of them.
"Hey, Able, pass me the O, its green, green, bricked chronic, so its gotta be good shit. Look at the colors," said Cain. The boy laughed uproariously at this, and gleefully, his friends joined in, while partaking of marijuana.
"Dude, I'm high as a mother fucker." The tree was happy because her boy was happy.
Soon, the boy and his friends were quite intoxicated, and climbed the tree's trunk, and hung from her lush branches. They joked and joyfully sang bawdy songs, and the tree was pleased because the boy was swinging from her branches as he used to do. It did not occur to her that perhaps the boy was unaware of what he was doing in her branches, or that perhaps if he knew, he would feel ashamed, as teenagers often do, when placed in childish situations. So the evening dragged on, and the pink-red sky turned to gray.
Able soon noticed the presence of the tree, and gazing up at her, made a somewhat random observation. "Dude, I think the tree's havin' a nic-fit!" They laughed at this, and the boy, feeling he should compensate the tree for all she had done for him, decided to help her out.
"C'mon you guys, let's calm that tobacco craving!" So the boy and Cain and Able removed a dark tin of shoe polish from the deep black sack. They proceeded to tag the tree with a large open mouth, and stuck Marlboros and swisher sweets into the dark grooves of her bark. Flattered that these boys would include her in their fun, the tree's green leaves rustled as she laughed out loud.
The enjoyment carried on late into the night, and the ash-gray sky turned to black. The Marlboros and swisher sweets burned down further and further, and the tree began to feel a slight singeing sensation upon her bark. Her branches swayed, and the boy's laughter became obnoxious, lewd. The scent of burning wood filled the air, mingling with the sickly sweet scent of marijuana. Caught up in their intoxicated mirth, the boy and his friends carried on as if the only thing burning was the cherry on top of their bowl. The tree winced, and her trunk shuddered as it burst into flame.
"Dude, I'm trippin', look at that, that tree is like, flamin'!" laughed the boy.
"Hell, yeah, look at that shit, it's like, on fire," laughed Cain.
"Hell, did you say hell? There's flames in Hell, my ma said," laughed Able. He was clearly pleased with himself for making this connection, and completely oblivious to the flames consuming the tree. The red-hot fire licked at her branches, and she was enveloped in a cloud of smoke and heat. As this loving source of life was burned to the ground, her last thoughts were, "I'm not happy."
The boy fell asleep next to what he believed to be the smoldering remains of a campfire. When he awoke, next to Cain and Able, he was in a small black clearing with the black charred remains of the tree, underneath a dark black sky.
Brett Kessler -- 12/99
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