Joubert

Look at you, with your pens lined up on your desk and a space cleared on your desk. Look at you, with a moleskine on your desk and the pens and the keyboard on your desk. Look at you, all ready, ready to begin, with your keyboard and your monitor and a fresh page open on the word processor. Ready to begin, the flat is quiet, your room is quiet, a pool of light falls on the desk, and there are your pens and your moleskine with your pencilled notes and your keyboard and the monitor, all ready.

Look at you, in your flat, living alone as you always dreamed of living, living in peace as you wanted to live. Look at you, living, tonight, in quietness, because the students above you are quiet. Your whole life led up to this, didn’t it? This is where you wanted to be your whole life, isn’t it? In a room that’s quiet and with a computer of your own and an internet connection of your own, isn’t it? This is what you always wanted, isn’t it, a room, and some time to write? And where’s it going? In what direction is it heading? What are you up to in your room, with your pens and your moleskine and your computer? Where’s it all going, tonight, the night to which all other nights were point? Where it’s heading, what have you prepared yourself for, what are you ready for, tonight, this night of nights?

Because you could be out, couldn’t you? Your friends just rang you from the pub, didn’t they? You could be out, couldn’t you, but instead where are you? I’ll tell you where you are: inside, that’s where you are. Inside, inside your room, with your pens and your moleksine and an open page on the monitor. What are you doing, all alone? What are you doing in peace, and in the warmth of your flat? Where’s it all going? Before, you only had a room, isn’t that right? Before it was one room or another, a room in a succession of rooms, isn’t that right? Before, you lived with others, and you had to put up with others, all the while dreaming of a quiet room in a quiet flat in which, finally, you could set to work.

So here you are alone, at last, in peace, at last, and ready to begin, with your pens and your moleskine, with your monitor and your keyboard. Once you had to borrow your housemate’s internet connection, didn’t you? You didn’t have a connection of your own, did you? You had to wait for him to finish his own work and then ask his permission to use his computer and then endure him watching over you, didn’t you? And now you have one, what are you going to do? Now you’ve got a connection, what are you going to do with it, what are you going to send out into the world? Because that’s what you were waiting for, wasn’t it? You spent your whole life waiting for it, didn’t you? And now you’ve got it, haven’t you, a computer of your own and an internet connection of your own, haven’t you?

Once you had the oldest and most unreliable of computers, didn’t you? Once it was the most unreliable of computers that was yours, wasn’t it? And now? Now you’ve a reliable computer and a flatscreen monitor, haven’t you? So what are you going to do with it, your computer? What are you going to write, now you’ve got time and peace in which to write? For a long time you had no money, did you? For a long time, it was a struggle passing from day to day, wasn’t it?

The council owed you Housing Benefit and the university owed you backpay, didn’t it? You went daily to the council and daily to the university, back and forth on the bus, didn’t you? You were eaten up with frustration, weren’t you? And now? You work; you pay for your flat, don’t you? You have a decent flat in a decent area, don’t you? So what are you going to do in it, your flat, now you have it? What great work are you going to write in your flat, on your computer? What is it you’re going to achieve in your flat, after years of struggle?

I’ll tell you: the same thing you’ll achieve when one day you get Wi-Fi and a laptop and you have a car outside: nothing. The same as you will achieve when you’ve been promoted and you can move to a bigger flat which isn’t damp and has a garden: nothing. The same as you’ll achieve when you can go on holiday and take city breaks: nothing. You’ll achieve nothing, just as you always achieved nothing. You won’t achieve anything just as you have never achieved anything.

Shall I tell you where it’s going? Nowhere. Shall I tell you where it’s heading? Nowhere. You’ll never write anything, do you know that? It’s going nowhere, do you know that? You’re getting older, aren’t you? The years are passing, aren’t they? How old are you now? How old will you be next year? The years are passing. You’re doing nothing, writing nothing, achieving nothing. And you’re getting older, aren’t you? Another year’s nearly up, isn’t it? Another year, and what have you done? I’ll tell you what you’ve done: nothing. I’ll tell you: not a thing.

With everything that’s happening in the world, you’ve done nothing. With all the horrors of the world, you’ve not a done a thing, have you? Have you helped anyone? Have you contributed to the greater good of mankind? You’ve not even helped yourself, have you? You’ve not even made anything of yourself, have you? Look at you, with your clean desk and your moleskine. What’s in its pages, tell me that? What’s in them, what have you written? What did you write on the train today? I know: a few lines from Joubert. You copied a few lines from Joubert.

Joubert, of all people! You, reading Joubert, of all people! In truth, you only read Joubert, you only picked his book off the shelves to give you the last hope, the last possible hope. You read Joubert, who published nothing during his life, after you read Kafka, who wanted his novels burnt; and you read Kafka, didn’t you, after you read Lawrence, who wrote a whole oeuvre, didn’t he – and you read Lawrence after you read Rimbaud, didn’t you, who was a prodigy. And each time you failed, didn’t you? failed to be a Rimbaud, failed to be a Lawrence, failed to be a Kafka and now – you’re reading Joubert.

Do you think someone will publish your jottings after you die? Do you think your friends will get together and publish a volume of your meditations a few years after you die? Because it’s not going to happen, you know that, don’t you? You’ve read Joubert – now read back over what you’ve written. You’ve read Joubert – but what have you written? Do you think, with a few lines from Joubert in your moleskine that you’ll be inspired to write like Joubert? Because I can tell you now, the last person you resemble is Joubert.

Look at you, at your desk, typing. Look at you, with quotes from Joubert written down in your moleskine beside you. Look at you, ready to write, ready to begin. But you won’t begin anything, will you. Nothing is brewing, is it? Nothing’s readying itself, is it? It’s night outside, isn’t it? In the window, you can see yourself reflected, can’t you? What do you see? Tell me what you see? I’ll tell you what I see: a failure. That’s what I see: a failure.

Do you know you’re a failure? You don’t quite know it yet, do you? You haven’t quite come to terms with it, your failure, have you? Still, there’s always Joubert, isn’t there? Perhaps your work will be gathered by your friends after your death and published, mightn’t it? Is that what you’re waiting for? It is, isn’t it? Hope springs eternal, doesn’t it? There’s always hope, isn’t there?

But unlike you, Joubert, it says in the introduction, was a man immensely admired by others. Unlike you, who have lived in one room after another, ready, waiting, but devoid of achievement, Joubert was known for his sharp critical intelligence; he was celebrated for the lucidity of his ideas and his gift for friendship.

In short, he had a life outside writing, whereas your life is an attempt to write. In short, his writing was part of a life, whereas yours is written in lieu of a life. Do you see the difference? It is not difficult? Do you see it? For all that you have prepared yourself, you’ll never be a Joubert just as you’ll never be a Kafka, will you? And you’ll never be a Lawrence nor a Rimbaud, will you? The game’s nearly up, isn’t it? But how old will you have to be before you see it? How old?

You are already fairly old, aren’t you? You’re surprised at how old you are, aren’t you? And it’s not as if it crept up on, age, is it? It’s not as if you were too busy to notice how the years were passing, is it? The years pass; you’re getting older. You lived in a succession of rooms and now you have a flat, don’t you? Years passed; nothing happened; you tried to write and you failed to write, didn’t you, but you wrote nothing, did you? Nothing happened, did it? You failed, didn’t you? But still the sliver of hope, still something in you that is undefeated, isn’t there? How does it survive, in the face of everything?

Joubert welcomed the Revolution, did you know that? He was a Justice of the Peace in the years after the Revolution, did you know that? He was admired for his fairness and his vigilance, did you know that? And he was a man of principle, resigning as a Justice when he felt the Revolution had become too violent, did you know that?

Are you a man of principle? Are you known for the clarity of your ideas? Are you beloved by the best minds in your country? Do your friends urge you to publish a book of your meditations? Will they bring out a volume of pensees compiled from your writings after you die? Can you write in a calm and measured prose? Will your musings be published and then translated into other languages?

You know the answer, don’t you? You know where it’s heading, don’t know? Look at you, staying in and not going out. Look at you tonight, staying in with your moleskine and your computer, staying in having cleared you desk. Look at you, still hoping, still dreaming of the prize. Is that why you’re here, tonight as every other night, ready to begin? And is that why you’ll leave your desk, tonight like every other night, without having written a line? In a child it would be charming, in a young man, romantic, but in a middle aged man? Laughable, and perhaps not even that, not even laughable. Pathetic – is that the word? Contemptible – is that the word?