Old Man: Autumnal

(For a newer draft of this story, click here.)

I once knew a man who claimed that the surest proof for the existence of God was the season of fall. "The leaves don't have to be so beautiful," he'd tell anyone who would listen. "They could very well have just gone straight to brown. Leaves could change from green to grey to black. They don't though. Nature grants you a reprieve."

The wispy hairs on this long white beard would wobble with the movements of his jaw. Although his eyes were clouded with the onset of glaucoma, they retained the sincerity of his youth. "Everything is ready to sleep or die around you, but the mood of the transition isn't somber. It's merciful. The brilliant reds and yellows and oranges are full of clemency. The trees are saying, "Do not be afraid. Take hope from our vibrancy. Death is not the end--be emboldened for the struggle against the upcoming cold hardships." Could nature on her own ever be so compassionate? Where else is she so wise? The rest of the year, she is capricious. She's manic. She gives too much or takes it all. Never does she seem concerned with her tenants. But in the fall she coddles you and whispers the sweet truth--not sweet because it is artificial, but because it satiates. She fills you up not on earthly goods--tasty berries or savory meats. She graces you with transcendent goods, those that can be stored forever in the soul. Berries shrivel and meats rot, but truth, goodness, and beauty--they are always with us as the perfect food for our aspirations. The leaves fall, but we remember their splendor draped upon the jagged branches. Aren't you thankful for that juxtaposition? That something so awesome can be here with us even when the winds prompt us to seek shelter?"

Even though the notion was outlandish and far removed from the taste of the usual apologetics, there was something in the way he spoke that made you want to believe. His voice was full of warmed gravel. His breath would tumble over the residue of years of speaking that caked on his vocal chords. "Some people tell you that winter is the most accurate of all the seasons--that it speaks the most truth to existence. After the flourish of spring and the vitality of summer, the living whimper and grow tired and hard. Life proves itself to be the accident we always worried it was. In the distant future, the universe will return to normalcy. Everything will be cold and dead."

At this point in his speech, he'd place his heavy, knobby hand on your shoulder for emphasis. The warmth of his mitt would seep through your clothes. "But I say, "No," and he would grip you tighter. "I say it's fall that most captures the way things are. It tells you, "Your ambition outstripped your potential. You got ahead of yourself with all of that budding and shooting of vines. We'll have to put your in your place. It's going to be painful, but you can bare it." And every spring, the world gets excited and every summer it forgets its proper pace. And every fall we are taught the meanings of the stern lesson of winter--that stultification is necessary but that beauty can see us through."

Gauntlet

If a writer wishes to set before himself a great task, he needs to try writing the story of a genuinely happy person. The great preponderance of literature, film, or anything else that takes a human as its narrative subject, that manages to tell the story of a happy person manages only to portray her happiness as accidental. She is a mirror, a responsive medium. The circumstances shine upon her and she thereafter shines back. A boyfriend catches a flight, a long-lost brother dies and leaves his estate to her, she becomes the unlikely winner of a contest--all of these scenarios are easily pleasing. They refrain, however, from speaking to genuine happiness. If the flight departs without him, if the brother lives to see another ten years, or if the wheel spins slightly further--what then? Can we picture our protagonist happy? No; she continues to reside in the tepidness that was her state before the possibility of circumstantial salvation.

Why does the author, the director, or the other artist so often concern himself with only the accidental? Could it be because it is the simpler route? Could it be that a change in situation is all the imagination the ordinary audience can muster?

There is something maniacal about the implications of the preponderance of human stories that portray happiness. It suggests that all that is necessary to make a man unhappy is to give him a raggedy wardrobe and that to make him happy all one needs to do is give him a closet full of Italian suits. Is this the way the humanity works? Are we really just balloons adrift in the weather systems of the world?

Not all of us are, at least. There are some who we may consider genuinely one way or another. These people are essentially weatherproof. They have transcended to the utmost humanly possible the influences of accident. Unlike a mirror that returns what it receives, they are flames. They give something distinct from what they consume. They are transformative.

What makes it so difficult to capture genuine happiness? Since one is not born genuinely happy, one must become so. But, the chain of events cannot appear crucial. If they are, then we are back to mirror-life. The process is similar to making a marble statue. The great sculptors have explained the creation of their works as consequences of an unexpected process. The layman supposes the sculptors see themselves as forming the rock to the image. There is a slab or marble, the sculptor chips away, and makes the image appear that had been envisioned previously. The greats, though, claim the inverse. They form the image to the rock. There is a form trapped within the marble. Upon study of their material, they see it and release it. The creation does not return what it receives. Though raw, the material emanates a refined form. This is the mode of development of a genuinely happy person. They contain within them the principles for happiness--they need only be released. It is much easier for an accident to be put in rather than an essence to be taken out. A man can be made to appear happy, but a happy man is so whether he is seen or not.