What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether? To answer
this question at all implies a religion. Is there any sense then, you ask, in
putting it? I answer, the man who regards his own life and that of his
fellow-creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost
disqualified for life.
The World as I see it
What an extraordinary situation is that of us mortals! Each of us is here for a
brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he
feels it. But from the point of view of daily life, without going deeper, we exist
for our fellow-men--in the first place for those on whose smiles and welfare all
our happiness depends, and next for all those unknown to us personally with
whose destinies we are bound up by the tie of sympathy. A hundred times
every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labours
of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in
the same measure as I have received and am still receiving. I am strongly
drawn to the simple life and am often oppressed by the feeling that I am
engrossing an unnecessary amount of the labour of my fellow-men. I regard
class differences as contrary to justice and, in the last resort, based on force. I
also consider that plain living is good for everybody, physically and mentally.
In human freedom in the philosophical sense I am definitely a disbeliever.
Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance
with inner necessity. Schopenhauer's saying, that "a man can do as he will, but
not will as he will," has been an inspiration to me since my youth up, and a
continual consolation and unfailing well-spring of patience in the face of the
hardships of life, my own and others'. This feeling mercifully mitigates the
sense of responsibility which so easily becomes paralysing, and it prevents us
from taking ourselves and other people too seriously; it conduces to a view of
life in which humour, above all, has its due place.
To inquire after the meaning or object of one's own existence or of creation
generally has always seemed to me absurd from an objective point of view. And yet everybody has certain ideals which determine the direction of his
endeavours and his judgments. In this sense I have never looked upon ease
and happiness as ends in themselves--such an ethical basis I call more proper
for a herd of swine. The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time
after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth,
Goodness, and Beauty. Without the sense of fellowship with men of like mind,
of preoccupation with the objective, the eternally unattainable in the field of art
and scientific research, life would have seemed to me empty. The ordinary
objects of human endeavour--property, outward success, luxury--have
always seemed to me contemptible.
My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always
contrasted oddly with my pronounced freedom from the need for direct
contact with other human beings and human communities. I gang my own gait
and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my
immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties I have never
lost an obstinate sense of detachment, of the need for solitude--a feeling
which increases with the years. One is sharply conscious, yet without regret,
of the limits to the possibility of mutual understanding and sympathy with one's
fellow-creatures. Such a person no doubt loses something in the way of
geniality and light-heartedness ; on the other hand, he is largely independent of
the opinions, habits, and judgments of his fellows and avoids the temptation to
take his stand on such insecure foundations.
My political ideal is that of democracy. Let every man be respected as an
individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the
recipient of excessive admiration and respect from my fellows through no
fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire,
unattainable for many, to understand the one or two ideas to which I have
with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware
that it is necessary for the success of any complex undertaking that one man
should do the thinking and directing and in general bear the responsibility. But
the led must not be compelled, they must be able to choose their leader. An
autocratic system of coercion, in my opinion, soon degenerates. For force
always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule
that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels. For this reason I have
always been passionately opposed to systems such as we see in Italy and
Russia to-day. The thing that has brought discredit upon the prevailing form of
democracy in Europe to-day is not to be laid to the door of the democratic
idea as such, but to lack of stability on the part of the heads of governments
and to the impersonal character of the electoral system. I believe that in this
respect the United States of America have found the right way. They have a
responsible President who is elected for a sufficiently long period and has sufficient powers to be really responsible. On the other hand, what I value in
our political system is the more extensive provision that it makes for the
individual in case of illness or need. The really valuable thing in the pageant of
human life seems to me not the State but the creative, sentient individual, the
personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such
remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.
This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of the herd nature, the military
system, which I abhor. That a man can take pleasure in marching in formation
to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only been
given his big brain by mistake; a backbone was all he needed. This
plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed.
Heroism by order, senseless violence, and all the pestilent nonsense that does
by the name of patriotism--how I hate them! War seems to me a mean,
contemptible thing: I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such
an abominable business. And yet so high, in spite of everything, is my opinion
of the human race that I believe this bogey would have disappeared long ago,
had the sound sense of the nations not been systematically corrupted by
commercial and political interests acting through the schools and the Press.
The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental
emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who
knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good
as dead, a snuffed-out candle. It was the experience of mystery--even if
mixed with fear--that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of
something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest
reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in
their most elementary forms--it is this knowledge and this emotion that
constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a
deeply religious man. I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes
his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves.
An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my
comprehension, nor do I wish it otherwise; such notions are for the fears or
absurd egoism of feeble souls. Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of
life, and the inkling of the marvellous structure of reality, together with the
single-hearted endeavour to comprehend a portion, be it never so tiny, of the
reason that manifests itself in nature
Ana at age 5, on her first day of kindergarten. Courtesy of Jacqueline Dooley
When my daughter Ana was 11, she was diagnosed with a rare cancer called inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor (IMT). Five years later, on March 22, 2017, Ana died from her disease.
In those first months after Ana died, grief manifested as an ache in my chest and an inability to do much more than sit in my yard and watch the birds at my feeders. I stopped working for about six months, outsourcing my freelance marketing projects to subcontractors while I moved through life in a daze.
As each year passes, my grief shifts and changes. It never fades. It’s just... different. For me, surviving grief requires adaptation. It’s taken me a long time, but I’m finally OK with not hanging on to every single memory, ritual and symbol that reminds me of Ana.
As I approach the seventh anniversary of losing Ana, I don’t need or want to keep retelling the story of her death. I want to remember her life and the unique things that made Ana, well... Ana. There’s one memory, in particular, that is still sharp and clear in my mind — Ana’s imaginary world. She called it Arkomo.
Ana loved tiny things. She collected them like treasure : Minuscule stuffed animals. Shells that fit into the palm of her hand. The world’s smallest plastic frog.
When she was a toddler, Ana would gather her collection of toys into a huge pile in the center of the living room and throw a major tantrum if I tried to clean it up. She would sit and play beside the pile until, inevitably, she got tired. Then she’d curl up on some stuffed animals and take a nap. She was like a little dragon fiercely guarding her gold.
Ana eventually moved on from those piles of toys to more structured worlds. She built cities out of wooden blocks, Legos or cardboard. She placed her tiniest toys inside them. She played with them for hours, drawing her younger sister, Emily, into these magical places. Ana was always the boss. Her animals always had starring roles in every adventure.
Ana at age 8, during a day of apple picking. Courtesy of Jacqueline Dooley
For a very brief period of time, Ana’s worlds dominated my home. They appeared on the dining room table and the floor of the den. They appeared in Ana’s bedroom and in Emily’s. They appeared on my coffee table, taking over until I made the girls pack it up and put it away. These initial worlds would inform what was to become Arkomo — Ana’s most beloved world.
***
Ana built Arkomo from clay, Legos, bits and pieces of Playmobil sets and more than a few Polly Pocket dolls — the kind that were about an inch tall. It was a world that unfolded on Ana’s dresser incrementally with trees, houses, roads made from bricks of red and brown vinyl (secured from a local store that sold model train supplies).
She made a sign that read “Welcome to Arkomo” — a name she came up with on her own — and populated the little world with ridiculously small toys called Squinkies. They were rubber people and animals that stood about half an inch high.
The foundation of Arkomo was shaky. It was made from wood blocks secured by blobs of clay with some baked polymer components. The whole thing was wobbly and precarious.
Every time I put Ana’s clothes away, a half dozen Arkomoians would topple from the dresser like vinyl raindrops. I always diligently put them back, trying to restore them to wherever they’d been when they fell. I would find Squinkies on Ana’s floor for years after that dresser — and Ana — were long gone.
Arkomo took up valuable real estate in Ana’s cluttered bedroom. I’d once complained about this to a friend who advised me, with a raised eyebrow, that I should clean it up while Ana was in school. There was no way I could do that. Ana had spent hours building and expanding Arkomo. Destroying it would’ve broken her heart.
In the way of parents who don’t want to create little sociopaths, I worried. I thought that maybe I was spoiling Ana and that she wouldn’t learn how to clean up her messes if I didn’t crack down on the toys. I worried that maybe Ana was getting too old for imaginary worlds.
Ana at 11, about a month after her liver transplant. Courtesy of Jacqueline Dooley
Ana eventually reclaimed the space on top of her dresser. She turned 10, then 11, and she wanted a stereo and some speakers. She became obsessed with My Little Pony and Funko Pop vinyl toys. She began collecting gemstones, incense and candles. She needed a place to display this stuff. She removed Arkomo, dumping the contents of the little world into a box for easy retrieval.
***
By the time Ana was diagnosed with cancer, Arkomo rarely resurfaced. When she pulled out the box, it was to scavenge a plastic tree or a tiny house for a school project. About a month ago, as I was cleaning the den, I found that box. I knew what was in it. I opened it anyway.
Arkomo was still there: the plastic animals, the vinyl roads, the Playmobil trees. The bits of clay that had held it all together are now crumbled and dry.
I don’t remember the last time Ana played with this stuff. It was likely a decade ago, at least, probably longer. I’ve learned, after seven years of grief, that last times aren’t something that always announce themselves.
Sometimes they’re quiet and subversive. For every last day of school, there are a dozen less grandiose lasts: the last time she watched SpongeBob, the last time she had a sleepover and the very last origami crane she ever folded. I don’t remember the last time Ana played with Arkomo.
I don’t remember the last time, before this year, that I’d opened the box that contained these things that Ana had loved. I don’t remember the last time I sat down on the floor and played beside the child whose face I haven’t seen in so many damn years.
I wish I had taken a picture of Arkomo when it was still on Ana’s dresser. I wish I had paid more attention when she brought her world to life. I wish I had written it all down.
That’s what I would say to you, if you asked me for parenting advice — My God. Write it down. Write it all down.
Ana at 14. "Her hair is turning white from chemotherapy," the author writes. Courtesy of Jacqueline Dooley
On March 22, Ana will be gone seven years. It’s a magical number — seven. A child who is 7 can invent entire worlds. If you break a mirror, you get seven years of bad luck. There are seven colors in the rainbow. Seven Chakras. Seven musical notes.
Seven years is almost exactly half the length of Ana’s life. She died at age 15, just seven weeks shy of her 16th birthday. I don’t know what any of this means or if it means anything at all. Time is a construct, especially when your child dies before you. These expectations we have of ourselves and our children are meaningless.
As our kids grow up (or even if they don’t ), the details we recall of their childhood — of the children they were that only we got to see — fade. This loss is typically softened by the promise of their lives and of their futures. Growing up is always traumatic. We lose some kind of special magic as we get older. But not growing up — that’s even more traumatic.
The dusty, broken remnants of Ana’s imaginary world reminded me that the child she was — the child only I really knew — is gone. The woman she was supposed to become is also gone. There are no more firsts or lasts for Ana.
For the seventh anniversary of her death, I wanted to share something about Ana that only a few of us still remember. I wanted to invite you into Arkomo, a place ruled by the tiniest of keepsakes and the imagination of a girl who is deeply missed. Ana was here. She was amazing. She invented entire worlds. Now you know something private and wonderful about her. Take it with you. Make your own worlds. Remember Ana when you behold tiny treasures.
