Existentialism?

Thoughts after being T-boned off a bike

“Subway Reflexions” - Sara Friedlander

Existentialism?

What do I know about existentialism?

I’m not some guy who sits around philosophizing in my spare time: thinking about thinking, and so on. I’m an adult! I’ve got serious things to take care of, as well as a cat. So please, don’t bother me with questions of existentialism, or what it all means. I just don’t have the time.

And you... you’re still here?

Incredible!

Look, I’ve gotta go to work, like five minutes ago. But first, a quick coffee stop! And second, the train: which may, if I’m lucky, spark another episode of psychopathic rage as the hellish grind and halting of the MTA parks me somewhere deep underground and surrounded by concrete, alongside my fellow eukaryotes, who (just like me) would rather be anywhere else.

Look at us now: real, bona fide human beans. Packed inside these aluminum tins on electrified rails, like some fucked up Rube Goldburg machine.

I can’t avoid a sense of deja vu. And then it hits me: I’ve once more been caught in the most devious trap imaginable. These bastards have robbed me of my wireless connection to the Internet. Yet again! And I keep letting them get away with it. Now I can’t even listen to music to take my mind off of things. This dull state of frustration has become my life.

Trapped! In the interstitial realm of: ads for shit I don’t need, but now may dream of later; the unintelligible conductor, who sounds like Skrillex, live at Gitmo; followed by the robot’s dulcet tones, whose placid nonexistence just makes it all better, somehow.

I’ve got to get out of here. There’s been a mistake. I’m not meant to be here, now, at this juncture in space and time. Let me out!

Sometimes I see with perfect clarity why folks decide to “make the news”.

The sudden mechanical lurching back to life occurs. Lurch. Stuck...

Times like these, I consider carrying a book. But reading, honestly? Who has the time? And to voluntarily encumber myself with such an egg-headed accoutrement seems... unseemly. Still, among my present company, the ones who seem to be surviving best in our current climate (sans Internet), are those eggheads over there, with their four-eyes and their paperbacks, and - oh, my word - one of them even has a pencil out, taking notes on whatever esoterica his eyes are soaking up.

Curiosity’s got me, now: what’s this book that has him so absorbed? Come on, lift that sucker up a couple inches, so the class can see. And there it is! Just some light reading for the morning ride - good old Durkheim, with his isolation, anomie, and alienation. Now my question becomes: why’s this guy need a book to see what he can live and breathe, just existing in the most affluent city in the world?

Nonetheless, he’s positively riveted. Just look at him: one with the book, one with the train; somebody ought to - I don’t know, yell in his ear about “how much bullshit it is that the goddamn train don’t work like it should”. Oh wait, here we go... it’s happening, right on queue. And he doesn’t even blink! No startle response, no reaction, at all. Incredible. He just turned the page and kept right on... reading. He can’t keep getting away with it!

Upon reflection, (contemplating my image in the dark glass opposite,) I realize it’s probably unrealistic, not to mention unhealthy, to continually ascribe these conspiratorial intentions to the MTA, strangers on the train, etc. Better to take stock of things I can control, rather than getting all wound up by stuff I can’t.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I wouldn’t be in this position to ruminate if I had my way. Previously, I would have taken my trusty ebike to get to work. But that old routine ended completely one dreary autumn afternoon last year. I got T-boned right off that bike by a lovely little Subaru whose brakes didn’t quite stick the landing on the slick pavement after the day’s rain.

It happened, no kidding, like this: “Oh, shit,” - bonk - hey, that’s me: laying there in the intersection, gray sky and strangers’ faces in view. “That could have been worse,” was my first thought, on coming back to consciousness. Hurt to breathe in. Wow, what the fuck? At least my skull was intact.

Here’s the part that I actually find interesting, though:

Where had “I” gone for those few moments in between getting hit, and then suddenly “coming back” into existence? It’s curious to me that one moment I was “here,” as an active perceiver of the world we share, and the next I was “gone” without even realizing my departure had taken place. Only upon “returning” was I able to put together a narrative regarding this brief jaunt into and out of the darkness. And with time, reflect on it.

Something like one in seven people who come close to death see the bright light, chit-chat with a dead family member, have their life flash before them, or float around in an out-of-body experience, etc. I didn’t get any of that; but my incident, for reasons that will become clear below, was sufficient on its own. In short, what I gathered from it was that you’re either here or you’re not, and it’s just a light switch away from clicking your brain off without any epilogue, denouement, or otherwise long goodbye.

So, that’s the rub. I got caught out rushing home to better myself professionally, to hit the books after another day of dragging my carcass through one more shift at the old dead-end job. And - wham-bam - would you believe it: laid out cold, with a short stint at the ICU, major rib surgery, and all that jazz, as you can imagine. (They gave me four titanium plates, so that’s fun.)

Like most people who come close to dying (“You’re lucky to be alive,” said the doc,) I have found that I’m actually quite happy to still be here (“And you’re going to make a full recovery”).

Which is still funny to me, about a year later. Because for a long time I didn’t really want to do it anymore. Go on with the whole “being alive” thing, I mean. You see, I’ve had the distinct displeasure to develop and retain chronic back pain since the age of twenty-four (that’s nearly ten years, as of writing); it even radiates in all kinds of fun ways throughout my lower body most days.

So, I’m not just bullshitting you when I say “Oh wow, it’s nice not to have died!” I can absolutely contextualize what it means to enjoy life; the present moment; and a notion of the future, after not having the physical capacity to relax, be at ease in the “now,” and look forward to anything. It all seemed like a dark tunnel without end.

So many times, I flirted with just throwing it all away: most visibly, with speed. That antithesis of the dead-stop which finally got me to take stock of things.

Zipping along crazily, hazarding life in another brain-dead weave through a red light, looking both ways just enough to yell “fuck you” to whoever was crossing my way, before laughing hysterically at whatever response they gave. Probably pissed because I’d cut clear cross their path, made them scared and snap back to the road instead of their phone. I just didn’t care. It hurt to exist, if you can grasp that. Never at ease. Unable to relate. Physically in pain in so many ways, and just expected to accept it and manage it and move on as best as one can.

It could always be worse though, right? To drag in Sisyphus and his myth: one could glamorize the pain, mythologizing how it’s played out over time, and say “Oh, you know, it’s my cross to bear”, and so on. But long-suffering is itself insufferable. It’s bad enough to have the pain. Why make a show of it? This only distorts the space between you and others more. To identify with the symptom rather than the struggle is anathema. And if you aren’t pushing back against the problem, well then, “lie down and die?” You can thank Camus for that one. But just to see what happened next, I thought I’d stick it out.

Still, I was terrified of living the rest of my life this way, and saw no hope in connecting with human beings ever again. It’s not like I didn’t try everything under the sun, either. I had. And it sucked beyond words to have all that not be enough. So, I found some sublimation through aggressively riding my bike to and from work in the most dangerous ways. It hurt to ride, too, which just spiked every kind of negativity in me. Somewhat masochistically, I referred to my bike as “the pain machine”.

Which is how I reached the conclusion that purchasing a 70-pound ebike with fat tires, cruiser bars, and a split-cheek seat would be just the thing for me. Ergonomics, baby! Inescapable; a lifestyle, even. And it was a glorious ride - for about a year, until the accident happened.

The ebike is still fine, don’t worry. But I never have a reason to ride anymore. I’m not traumatised, I swear! I’ve even ridden a citibike (unfortunately) twice since then. It’s just that my work sites these days are either near enough to walk, or far enough to require the train. Which is another thing that changed, since getting hit: my line of work. I don’t feel such crushing despair due to working a dead-end job anymore.

Something else different: these days my chronic back pain, remarkably untouched by that Subaru or wet concrete, feels manageable, though never fully absent. Perhaps nothing changed physically under the skin (save a little titanium, however that’s out of the way, in the ribs), but my outlook on “now,” and “the future” has certainly shifted, to the point where I know I can sustain this forward momentum I seem to have fallen into.

Living in the moment no longer feels impossible; nor do I find it inconceivable to imagine the future as something worth living for. And I find it easier to laugh off inconveniences: the alternative to being here, dealing with this annoying, quotidian surprise (pick one) is to not be here at all! And that makes me laugh. It’s a relief to experience this point of view, after the preceding long, dark tunnel of despair.

All this to say: the eggheads would go on about “the dark night of the soul.” For my part, sometimes I brush up against other people who have been through something which marked them indelibly, which they’ve since absorbed, processed, and sublimated - whatever “it” was they went through during that night, or in that tunnel, it no longer weighs them down, but rather buoys them up whenever the lights go out or the train gets stuck somewhere deep underground.

Because “it could always be worse,” right?

To attempt to wind this diatribe down: it’s not enough to just go through something arduous. People have all kinds of responses to trauma, whether it’s long and drawn out, or short and sharply acute. In my experience, Viktor Frankl is right in saying the two things that help most of all in passing through great difficulties are: 1) meaningful interpersonal relationships, and 2) personal goals as of yet unfulfilled.

The latter is why I laugh at the thought of (alternatively) just not being here, in lieu of having to deal with bullshit: it’s because I get the chance to fulfill my own goals still, that I am incidentally dealing with some annoyances along the way.

And the former is the real reason why my pain decreased: I found love! Is it any wonder why they write all those songs, shows, and poems about it? As a chemical cocktail released and exchanged between the brain and the (rest of the) body, love soothes all aches from a system otherwise chronically in fight-or-flight; it’s the best medicine. No kidding; who knew? It’s the most damnable thing, but true.

These things (forms of love) require no explanation. It is wonderful to be cared for, and it is equally wonderful to sincerely give care. People who love you do this little thing called “showing up” when you’re in need, and sometimes you can’t help but do the same thing for somebody else.

That’s the part that got me, on the far end of my fall; afterwards, I would keep showing up for somebody I had discovered I loved. Because hey, the sensation made me feel good. More than good, actually: great! I mean, my chronic back pain went away. Disappeared: gone. Which obviously, was huge for me. Life-changing.

We two were inseparable: it was the best feeling, to be truly seen and heard; to deeply understand one another with bilateral trust that ran through each day and hour; this subconscious rhythm we had developed in tandem. It was the greatest expansion of my understanding of what it means to be truly alive during our limited time here.

A few months later, while moving out of New York, this individual left me with the words: “I just liked playing with your heart.”

Now, in classic egghead fashion, Marcus Aurelius, that Stoic of yore, advises us that an individual’s most critical mission is not to fall into a state of such alienation from one’s fellow humans that connecting with others feels impossible.

Through loving another, I had overcome the most terrible aspect of my chronic pain, which was the inhuman condition of isolation I felt it imposed upon me. And though ultimately love in this instance wasn’t enduring (or, actually, bilateral), it was enough to expand my horizon beyond the myopic worldview that chronic pain can create over time, hemming one in and blinding one to all that is good and attainable beyond just getting through this unpleasant moment.

Because there is physical pain that persists; then there is the emotional pain of knowing the missed opportunities this creates; and finally there is the mental anguish of projecting both of these states into the future indefinitely, seeing only these barriers again and again across every possible fork in the road.

So I will take your time, here at the end, to invoke the age-old, hackneyed answer of love. Though one can’t wake up in the morning and decide “today, I’m going to walk out that door, perhaps get stuck on the morning train, but definitely, certainly, find love in the afternoon, or the evening, at latest.”

Still, if you can find it...

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Stephen Campbell holds a degree in History from the University of Mary Washington. He enjoys car culture, advertising, and the MTA. His favorite pastimes are magical thinking and shower singing, particularly “Jesus Take the Wheel”.

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