by Dwayne Schulz

1. Things and Events

The River of Change

Heraclitus of Ephesus - You cannot step into the same river twice.

The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus once famously remarked

‘It is not possible to step twice in to the same river for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you’.

What he meant was that all things are in constant flux; just as a river consists of a flow-through of different waters, so everything else in the cosmos is in a state of perpetual change, of birth, growth, decay and death. This was summed up by a famous expression:

“panta rhei” attributed to Heraclitus meaning “everything flows”.

Zeno: There is No Such Thing as Change

But other ancient Greeks like Zeno argued that change was impossible and thought up some of the most devious logical paradoxes to prove it.  In one paradox Zeno asks us to imagine an arrow in flight.  He considers the fact that the period during which the arrow is in flight consists of an infinite series of instants and argues that:

(1) At any given instant the arrow occupies a single space and no other, and

(2) During that instant the arrow is stationary.

‘How then’, Zeno asks, ‘if the arrow is stationary at every instant during its trajectory can it be said to have moved?’  Zeno concluded that motion and change were illusions masking a deeper unchanging reality below.

The paradoxical nature of change which so troubled Zeno can be illustrated with a other thought experiments.

Who Are You?

Consider the fact that every single molecule in the human body, every atom in every cell, is replaced by different ones every few years or so.  How can you be the same person if, like Heraclitus’s river, the stuff of which you are made is constantly turning over and changing?

Plutarch’s Ship of Theseus

Plutarch looked at the same issue when he created a paradox we now call Plutarch’s mythical Ship of Theseus. In it he poses the following conundrum:

“If the old planks of the ship are replaced with new ones over the years but these old planks are then gradually re-assembled (as they come off the old ship) to ultimately form the original ship. Which is the true ship – the old new one or the new old one?”

A Loopy Puzzle

Finally, consider a simple loop in a piece of string. Let’s call the loop ‘A’ and the section of string it is made out of ‘B’.  A and B constitute the same thing and are thus identical, or A=B.  But move the loop down the string to another location.

Loop A has changing String parts, first B then C

Loop A is now composed of a different section of string, let’s call that ‘C’, now A=C.  But pieces B and C are patently different, i.e. B≠C, and this results in a logical contradiction because A is equal to B and C which are unequal, or (A=B≠C=A) à (A≠A).

I hope to give you some convincing solutions to these paradoxes later in this article.

Being and Not Being

As bizarre as Zeno’s ideas were that change is unreal, the bias against change runs deep in the culture of Western civilization.  Zeno in fact developed his paradoxes in support of his mentor Parmenides, the ‘father of logic’,’ who said in his poem The Way of Truth, that because change implied logical contradiction, being and not being, it was impossible.

“How could “what is” perish? How could it have come to be? For if it came into being, it is not; nor is it if ever it is going to be. Thus coming into being is extinguished, and destruction unknown. (B 8.20-22) “

2. Essence

Parmenides and Zeno’s notion that change was impossible was taken up by Plato in his theory of Forms.  He argued that the idea of change without “a real thing” simply led to confusion.  In his book Cratylus, Plato argues in support of Parmenides and Zeno that below the world of apparent change is a world of timeless unchanging essences which are templates for ordinary objects on earth, for example, that for each actual horse there exists somewhere a perfect ‘Horse Form’ of which real horses are but imperfect imitations.

Plato has Socrates say:

How can that be a real thing which is never in the same state?

…knowledge too cannot continue to be knowledge unless continuing always to abide and to exist, and if the transition is always going on there will always be no knowledge and according to this view there will be no one to know and nothing to be known.[1]

The Prima Mobile

Everyday thought and language seem to support Plato’s notion that somehow an unchanging essence must underpin or ground apparent change.  We tend to speak about ordinary objects being subjected to accidental variations or changes of form.  Objects have properties and events happen to them. For example, in declarative sentences like “John is sick” or “My car was in a smash” or “Venus is in orbit”, we tend to think of the predicates ‘being sick, ‘being in a smash’ and ‘being in orbit’ as incidental properties or states that the objects (John, My car and Venus) are subjected to.  This manner of thinking lends itself to a model of change in which the subject is static and change is inessential, occurring as an external force.

This object-property model was formalised by Aristotle who argued that all things were a combination of matter and form, a theory called hylomorphism.  In Aristotle’s theory matter was a passive substance or ‘patient’ which changed when acted upon by an external force or ‘agent’ which gave it form.  Ultimately all effects in Aristotle’s schema could be traced back to some original First Cause or God which he called the Prima Mobile or Prime Mover.

The idea of substance or matter deriving its form from some external agent of change was adopted by medieval theologians like Aquinas who used it in support of the Church doctrine that the body’s soul derived from God.  The substance-form distinction also informed modern mechanical theories espoused by people like Descartes and Newton who disagreed with Aristotle’s physics but retained the idea that “modes [properties] cannot be clearly conceived apart from the really distinct substances of which they are the modes”.[2] For Descartes, all the properties of nature could be reduced to the quantitative (mathematical and measurable) movements of matter whose fundamental property was extension in space or res extensa.  Scientists like Newton and Boyle agreed with Descartes’ principle interpreting it in atomistic terms (contra Descartes who subscribed to something like an ether theory), arguing that nature was nothing but arrangements of impenetrable ‘corpuscles’ within the void of space.

Is the Future Predictable?

The mechanistic idea left little or no place for real chance or novelty in the world.  Effects were totally determined by their causes and if you only had enough information and processing power, you could predict with total precision all future change in what they saw as a clockwork universe.  Newton’s contemporary the French mathematician and astronomer Laplace summed up the mechanistic attitude when he said,

[For] an intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, … nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.[3]

Newton and Laplace believed in a clockwork universe

Hegel’s World Spirit

Hegel: For him change as it manifested itself in nature and history revealed the story of an inner essence he called the ‘World Spirit’

The first philosopher of modern times to revive Heraclitus’s idea of panta rhei and to mount a systematic critique of the mechanists was the early 19^th Century German philosopher Hegel.  Hegel too argued that Becoming or change was fundamental.  However, for him change as it manifested itself in nature and history revealed the story of an inner essence he called the ‘World Spirit’ or the Absolute gradually unfolding itself through a process he called ‘the dialectic’ (i.e. the clash of binary opposites. in war, politics and science) culminating in a state of perfect freedom and unity with God.

In my opinion Hegel’s Absolute plays the same role as Substance in the philosophy of the mechanists, and his dialectic is just as deterministic, proceeding as it does along a singular narrow path towards a pre-determined end.

Hegel’s dialectic constricts the scope of change choking the multiple and diverse alternatives that history can take.  I will return to this idea soon but the same criticism can be applied to all theories of history and change which tell a story of uni-linear progress.

For example 19^th Century anthropologist Henry Morgan asserted that humankind progressed through a series of stages from “savagery” through “barbarism” to reach its apogee in “civilization”.   Marx also adopted this view arguing that history progressed from the primitive tribalism via class society and ultimately to communism.

Modern right-wing commentators like Francis Fukuyama also adopt this view when they say that free-market liberalism represents the “end of history”.   Such views pretend to be a philosophy of change but at the end of the day preach different versions of mechanism in which change proceeds towards some pre-figured image in an isomorphic ^*1 movement from same to same, where there really is nothing new under the sun.

(Isomorphic = having similar appearance but genetically different)

However, the idea that there is more to change than the expression of unchanging essences, principles or substances, the idea that that the cosmos is animated by a kind of change which is more unpredictable, diverse and creative has persisted through the ages.  To my mind the first modern thinker who really put this kind of change at the centre of their philosophy was the French intellectual Henri Bergson.

ooOOoo – End of Part 1- ooOOoo

In Part 2 Dwayne Schulz will look at the philosophies of change promoted by Henri Bergson,  A N Whitehead and Gilles Deleuze.

[2] Descartes, Principles of Philosophy LXI.

[3] Laplace, “A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities”.

The flame is not so bright to itself as to those on whom it shines

Chapter 3

Revised 15th September 2010

As he walked into town the Man passed the Aboriginal settlement. The houses, seemingly frozen in the process of being demolished had tell tale holes in the fibro and sacks soiled with the  muck of everyday life for curtains. The front yard of each house was littered with rubbish between obnoxious weeds and patches of dirty grass that stood out like dreary islands in a sea of mud.

He smelt the large metal drums of garbage and putrefied rain water in which were thrown the broken pieces of asbestos fibro and the discarded remains of plastic take out, the remnants of a diet of cheap calories. He noted the derelict cars half assembled or were they half stripped down, the owner had long ago forgotten which.

Young snotty nosed Aboriginal children ran amok, one waving a stick with a dead rat skewered to it chasing the others who were laughing and screaming.

Young girls were playing hop scotch but there were no chalk marks on the ground, they just knew where the invisible squares were. Another group were swinging a skipping rope singing a dimly recognisable ditty while the girl in the middle effortlessly danced with the rope.

Sitting with their backs against one of the skeleton cars a group of teenagers sat sniffing petrol from an old coke bottle, their dull eyes wide and unseeing.

A Life Without Hope

The Aboriginal woman from the chemist shop was sitting on a door step, a burnt out cigarette languidly hanging from her purple, puffy, unkissed sunburnt lips. Looking but long ago resigned to not seeing she had abandoned desire and with that began the inevitable decline that ended with the loss of all hope. For her there was no joy in existence, all she had now was her little Anna and she was losing her ounce by ounce.

It seemed she was cursed to always be the giver, to never know the joy of receiving. Just once she wanted to experience that.

Then she remembered the Man in the chemist shop. She had been so caught up in her panic and the stress of getting the drugs Anna needed that she had not noticed his helping hand. Indeed she had mistaken it for a threat. At that moment she noticed the white fella passing the house, wasn’t that him? She cried out “Hey whitey where you going? Come and have a smoke with me”

The children looked at him. One little girl raised a leg and rested it on the other just above the knee, standing on one leg like a black swan.

He didn’t know whether to stop or keep going but she called again plaintively “Come here white fella” He turned and looked at her.

Beckoning him with her left arm “Come and say hello to my Anna” she tried. He wasn’t sure if he should but his legs moved independently of his mind. He entered the yard and the girls took a step back to put some distance between them and him. It was very rare to see a white man in this place unless it was for no good.

He approached the woman as she struggled to stand up. She literally climbed up the door jam, wobbling and unsteady on her legs. She held on to the door jam as though the house was part of her support system. “Come in” she said in a horse voice. Her voice was rough and she spoke with a heavy Aboriginal accent.

Inside the house he was assaulted by the smell. It was dark and the smell permeated everything. It was a cocktail of dirt, stale cooking smells, shit from the unflushed black toilet and damp mould. It made him gag and shiver.

The Man Meets Anna

The girl was on what passed for a bed, sitting up.

“She ain’t slept for two days” said the woman as if she was talking to a doctor “she think she won’t wake up”.

He moved to the bed. “Hello Anna”

“’lo” she said in a quite voice “Who you?”

“I’m a friend of your mama’s”.

“No you ain’t! She ain’t got no white friends” There was no anger in her statement, it was a mere matter of fact.

Her straight forward no nonsense reply startled him. He made to sit on the bed.

“You can sit on that chair” she said pointing to a dilapidated arm chair. He pulled it closer to the bed and sat down. Her body was thin and weightless but her eyes shone like black pearls.

“You goin’ to hurt my mommy?” she asked in that matter of fact voice.

“No, not at all. I just came here to say hello to you. Your mummy told me all about you when I met her in town. How old are you?”

“I, thirteen” She looked as though she was nine or ten.

“Did you really come to see me?” she asked looking at him doubtfully but with a slither of hope.

“Yes, I did”

And so started the conversation between the man who had lost all reason to live and the girl who would not die.

They talked for hours as the mother watched. She had never been able to talk with her daughter like this. How could this man know so many words? Will he never run out of stories? She was happy for the first time in years. Anna slowly accepted him, welcomed him as the dad she had desired for so long. Although it had never crossed her mind that he would be white!

Anna asked questions and finished some of his sentences.

She called him a liar, she called him a clown and finally she called him over.

What Is Truth?

“I ain’t never had a dad” she confided as though it were a precious secret. “Can I sit on your lap?”

“Of course you can my darling”. He leaned over and kissed her forehead as he slid his arms under her; shocked by how light she was he imagined her as a human feather.

As he lifted her she wound her arms around his neck and said in a low sleepy voice “daddy”.

The Man sat in the chair and the woman covered them with a smelly blanket that offended his nose. But it was warm and she laid it on them with love and tenderness.

“Tell me more stories Daddy” she whispered. He thought of another little girl who once said the same thing. If only he had known then that while stories are infinite the time for telling them is limited.

As he spoke she hugged him so hard that he worried that she would hurt her fragile arms. She rested her head on his shoulder and said in a low urgent voice “keep talking” “Yes my darling” he said. The tears were streaming down his face but he could not free his hands to rub them away.

“If I go to sleep will you wake me up?”

“Yes my darling I will wake you up” he lied.

For the first time in days she felt confident enough to close her eyes. She felt so lucky to find her daddy just when she needed him. She loved him tenderly and without reservation.

As he sat holding her in his arms, his inactivity gave him no way to hide from the nagging thoughts he usually avoided by keeping busy. When he was young and even when he was a rising star in the business world, he was confident he knew who he was, what he needed to make him happy and satisfied.

Truth or Myth? A Future with No Future

But life has a way of whisking the ground out from under the feet of unwary travellers and laughing at them as they fall into chaos. When you lose all hope for tomorrow you realise how important and yet how difficult it is to believe in a tomorrow. Worse, you come to hate it. Every day is today. Like standing between two mirrors, you see the future but it is just a repetition of today, through to infinity. Is that it? Is the future inevitable and unchangeable? But you don’t ask because you are a coward and whatever the answer it will require you act one way or the other and you are not sure you have what it takes to implement either course.

He felt the girl nestle deeper into his arms and make her head comfortable on his chest. She had no doubt; her daddy had come to her as she knew he would. She revelled in the knowledge that her truth was indeed the truth. No matter what anyone said, it was her life and it was up to her to give it meaning for surely, if life is not given meaning, it has none.

Anna’s Last Dream

The rhythm of his strong heartbeat filled her head with music and her mother was the conductor. The composition rose and fell and like the waves of the ocean she had once seen. It surrounded her and engulfed her. She knew the melody for she was the composer and together, she and he and her mother,  they created a grand symphony.

Out of the mist she could see a great procession winding its way through the woods. She was seated in an open carriage preceded by kangaroos and wallabies; there were koala bears waving eucalypt branches and three proud emus marching in step and lots of other animals, hob goblins and children playing flutes and beating tin drums.

The trees waved at her and the birds sang a great chorus that was a fitting welcome for a princess. She was coming home. Strangely she felt very happy and slowly allowed herself to fall into a deep sleep.

The Man cried and the woman sat sobbing at his feet. Good night my darling. He reached out and held the woman’s hand and they cried together and knew that their life had been touched.

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The Chapters So Far:

The Man Chapter 1

The Man Chapter 2

The Man Chapter 3

Read an Analysis of Each Chapter – The Philosophy and Ideas behind the Story

Analysis of The Man Chapter 1

Analysis of The Man Chapter 2

A Readers Analysis of The Man Chapter 2

Pre Analysis Background Information for The Man Chapter 3

I value all our reader comments and I know that many of you read them as avidly as you do the articles. They are all great and contribute a tremendous amount towards making this blog the community it has become. But from time to time we get one that stands out because of the thought that has gone into it (for example the guest posts by Blue Ocean and Anthony Bell) or because of the feeling and insight that it gives us, like the one I received below.

Hi Ric,

I am not very busy this weekend, so read some articles on your few websites and blogs. That make me remember the time I worked as an editor and reporter for a University in Qingdao. I felt great and excited. Compare the work you do now, that is gram comparing with kilogram.

Human Nature Knows No Borders

I quite like “the man”, I like the story happened out of my expectation. I like the way you use it to discover the spark of human nature’s good part. My heart has been touched, I cried. People like to see human nature’s beautiful part, no matter, the skin color or the nationality, the emotional experience is so similar; love, hate, happy, sad…

I just finished a very short but very great love affair with a western gentleman few days ago. I could hear the sound when my heart was broken to thousands pieces, I felt ice full of my bone. But I was very calm, looked no love and no hate.

When I passed the street we walked before, the happiest time we were together, was just in front of my eyes. It seem happened one second ago. I want to cry.

I feel sad, the beautiful story just started but ended. The most painful part is misunderstanding between us. In some aspect, that is misunderstanding of western and eastern culture.

I have been in Australia for 8 years, but the first 28 year time, I was in China. The Chinese philosophy thought has deep stamp in my mind, no matter good or bad. In a country’s culture, we cannot say, because it is bad, then should not in culture, because it is good, then it should exist. Bad and good, they always have a balance system. So, the 1.6 billion Chinese still can live well.

Doctrine of the Mean

I know lot of western people think that modern Chinese have lost touch with their traditional Confucius philosophy. Maybe, like nature the world is changing but the system has a nature correct skill, and makes things balance.

I know Ric has quite many years study of Chinese philosophy, so I am happy to share the gold mean of Confucian philosophy. It is hard to translate to English, but in Chinese is “中庸是儒学一切的基础,中庸之道的核心,强调的是中和与平衡,对什么事都不偏执.中庸就是在矛盾两极间找到最佳途径.在诸多可选择的可能性中取得最佳的,最合情合理的选择.(调以静制).

This is the foundation to Chinese traditional culture. In some way, things are not just black and white, there is a field in between.

This three months experience make me think, and I will learn more, and I hope I will have chance to discuss with you in the future.

The Importance of Communication

I am very happy there is a lot of western people like Ric, who like Chinese traditional philosophy. But if they want practical knowledge of Chinese philosophy, or they want to discover Chinese and then can get more successful business with Chinese in China, they still need good communication with real modern Chinese.

All the best for you and your study.

Sorry, my English is limited, hope I express my self clear. Excuse me for the grammar mistake.

Susan 

Editor’s Comment:

Please note the headers were added by me not the writer.

A Translation of the Chinese quote in the article above:

” The doctrine of the mean is the foundation of Confucianism, the core of the Golden Mean, what it stresses is being neutral and balanced, i.e. unbiased in any matter. The doctrine of the mean teaches us to find the optimal path between two contradictory poles. It teaches us to choose the best possibility, the fairest choice. (emphasis by static brake)”

I’m afraid I didn’t understand the last bit in brackets but I included a literal translation in case you can.

You make a very valid point. I used to think that because I studied Chinese philosophy I could understand Chinese people better. Of course that is silly it is like saying if we study the ancient Greeks we will understand modern Greeks or even Western people better. The truth is they are not only different cultures but different people. In fact the ancient Greeks and the ancient Chinese are more different to their current descendants than, for example, English and Chinese are today.  So to understand anyone, we need more than a history book. We need, as you say, to communicate. Which unfortunately, is a skill that is not our best trait.

Susan, I know what it is like to break up with someone you love because of an inability to see the middle path between two opposing views. I really appreciate your comment, it makes all this philosophy stuff very personal. You live what I study and I feel very humble in her shadow.

I also had a bit of time this weekend and found this song on You Tube. I would like to dedicate it to you because you never know, he may be missing you as much as you miss him. I also dedicate this to all lovers who have a broken heart. Breaking up may not be philosophy but it sure does change your view of life .

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• Chinese dust off ideas of Confucius (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

I’m really sorry I have not posted the third story yet, I will do it as soon as possible.

I am reminded of a quote from Nietzsche that doesn’t really apply to me but I wish it did.

“Quiet fruitfulness. The born aristocrats of the spirit are not overeager; their creations blossom and fall from the trees on a quiet autumn evening, being neither rashly desired, not hastened on, nor supplanted by new things. The wish to create incessantly is vulgar, betraying jealousy, envy, and ambition. If one is something, one does not actually need to do anything – and nevertheless does a great deal. There is a type higher than the “productive” man.”

By the way this quote is only one of many that make me believe that Nietzsche had read Ancient Chinese philosophy and in this case Lao Tzu’s “Tao Te Ching”.

Lao Tzu’s doctrine of wei wu wei, literally “doing not-doing” has often been seen as promoting passivity but nothing could be further from the truth. A good example is an athlete who enters a state of body awareness where the right stroke or the right movement happens automatically, effortlessly, without any interference of the conscious will. This is a paradigm for non-action. You could say, “The game plays the game, the poem writes the poem, we can’t tell the dancer from the dance”.

Lao Tzu said:

“Less and less you need to force things,

until finally you arrive at non-action.

When nothing is done

nothing is left undone”

Nothing is done because the doer wholeheartedly vanished into the deed; the fuel is completely transformed into flame. This nothing is, for Lao Tzu, everything. It happens when we trust the intelligence of the universe in the same way that the athlete or the dancer trusts the superior intelligence of the body.

Lao Tzu’s goal is a life in perfect harmony with the way things are. He wants to master Nature; not in the sense of conquering it, but of becoming it.

However, my life is far from harmonious at the moment. I would say it is more like Nature 5 : Ric zero. Chaos Rules

So while Nietzsche’s phrase “if one is something, one does not actually need to do anything” is quite reminiscent of Lao Tzu’s doctrine, I’m afraid Lao Tzu’s phrase “when nothing is done, nothing is left undone” certainly doesn’t apply to me. I have a ton of things undone. So I better go and do nothing. Er, I mean do something. Well you know what I mean, I hope

]]> http://shadowintheflame.com/blog/2010/08/19/next-post-coming-soon/feed/ 51 http://shadowintheflame.com/blog/2010/07/28/a-readers-review-of-the-man/ http://shadowintheflame.com/blog/2010/07/28/a-readers-review-of-the-man/#comments Wed, 28 Jul 2010 04:05:24 +0000 Ric Vatner http://shadowintheflame.com/?p=231 G’day Ric,

I am really enjoying reading ‘The Man’. You are obviously a man of many talents.

I thought I would just make a few philosophical remarks about your analysis of chapter 1. Towards the end of the analysis you pose the following question in regards to the moral assessment of the narrators act of paying for the aboriginal woman’s medicine, “So does that count [ is his action morally praiseworthy] or do you only get kudos when you perform an act of kindness?”.

The Two Schools of Moral Philosophy

Before giving my own answer to that question i would like to give a little philosophical background for any readers not familiar with some of the technical terms used within moral philosophy. There are, broadly speaking, two main schools of thought within moral philosophy.

Utilitarianism which originates from the English philosophers Jeremy Bentham and James Mill. Utilitarianism is an ‘externalist’ moral theory which locates the moral worth of an action in its consequences. De-ontological theories developed by the German philosopher Kant are ‘internalist’ and focus on the Subjective intentions of an agent.

When is an Act of Kindness Not an Act of Kindness?

With that out the way let us return to the ‘Man’. An internalist would say his action [paying for the medicine] was praiseworthy if he acted from some genuine empathy or sympathy (although the latter can be seen as patronising) towards the aboriginal woman.

Kant on Moral Kindness

Kant would say that for praise to be attributed to the action the Man’s internal reasons should be aimed at the welfare of the woman and not for any personal aggrandisement. (i.e. to be seen as a good man by others in which it is his own and not the woman’s welfare that is the ultimate target of the action).

Kant even goes so far as to say that to be morally praiseworthy the action should be contrary to the agents well being. for instance if I give some money to a beggar because of a genuine heartfelt concern for his welfare and happen to receive a tax deduction on the ‘donation’, then it is not a truly moral action. This seems to me to be a step too far.

Internalism Vs Externalism

Why can’t it be that a good man is rewarded for his goodness? If he acts without concern for possible rewards then he still meets the internalist criterion of moral action.

Of course at this stage in the story we can not be sure of the man’s true motives for acting as he does. so from an internalist perspective the jury is still out.

Now to externalism. An externalist would say that the moral worth of the Man’s action is determined by its consequences. But this is ambiguous. Of course, the woman’s daughter needs the medicine and so, on one level the action is good irrespective of the Man’s actual intentions because it results in a greater balance on the whole, of pleasure over pain in the world.

But as with all forms of moral accountancy the credits and debits are never simple.

For example, why is it that the cancer drugs are not free from the national health service. Maybe they are but the women does not know it. Maybe, if she did not get help from the Man and the chemist that she would be forced to look into the matter and receive free medication.

If that was to happen then it would be a better world than the one in which she gets handouts because she would not have to rely on strangers for sympathy and the strangers would be left with more money.

So on balance the utilities are maximised by not giving her money. My view is that like all moral questions there is an eliminable complexity and that true evaluations are hard to come by and require careful reflection on and understanding of all relevant conditions relating to the action. That is why I dislike any simplistic fundamentalism with the one answer fits all attitude.

So in regards to the ‘Man’ and the moral evaluation of his action. I think the jury is still out due to a lack of evidence.

Anthony Bell

Editor’s Note:

Thanks Anthony, you have raised some interesting points.

I wonder if the world would be a better place if no one ever had to think about other people because the state took care of all our needs. Might we not become very selfish and self centered?

I think being able to put oneself in the position of another and being capable of being moved by that experience is a very important trait in a human being and a person not capable of doing that (and there are many people in that position) experiences a sense of lacking or loneliness or a “hole” in their life.

Thanks for bringing this up for discussion.

Ric

The Chapters So Far:

The Man Chapter 1

The Man Chapter 2

The Man Chapter 3

Read an Analysis of Each Chapter – The Philosophy and Ideas behind the Story

Analysis of The Man Chapter 1

Analysis of The Man Chapter 2

A Readers Analysis of The Man Chapter 2

Pre Analysis Background Information for The Man Chapter 3

In the mean time you may like to read a short story I added to my personal blog at Ric Vatner.com called How My Mum Beat the School Bully.

Have you ever had a problem with bullies or a bully? I always associate bullies with school but some people meet them in the army, at work, in a volunteer organisation or even at home. In fact you can meet them anywhere. Well my mum was fed up with one that was giving me a hard time at school and her solution taught me a lesson I never forgot.

If you would like to read about it please click this link http://bit.ly/9XurOO

If you have had an experience with a bully that you would like to share with us please add it to the comments either here or on my Ric Vatner blog.

Of course it is not only people that act like bullies, politicians do it often and some times a country can act like a bully.

When you think about it, the world would be a different place today if there were no bullies because often they were the ones responsible for piecing together the disparate groups of people we now call countries. But of course quite often the countries they created have inbuilt fractures that have led to years if not hundreds of years of discontent.

Mmm I am just beginning to realise how big a topic this could be, we might have to put this on the list of blogs to do. If you like reading history then you have read quite a lot on this topic already, one way or another. But looking at it from the philosophical prospective could be really interesting.

I can see the title now

“The Good, the Bad and the Ugly – How Bullies made the World”

What do you think, should we tackle it at some stage?

-: Read Full Story :-

“The Man”

Chapter 2

Revised 15th July 3:30pm

The Man – A Philosophical Story About the Search for The Meaning of Life

We live in a world that is overcrowded and yet most of the time we live alone. I don’t mean that we live on our own I mean we feel we are on our own. This is what troubles our minds and hurts our hearts. It has been called the human condition.

Have you ever felt real desperation? Some people feel desperate because their life is boring but to the person who has nothing, no job, no money, no home, no safety net and sometimes, little mouths to feed as well (or any combination of these); a boring life would be regarded as something to aspire to.

So far we have met at least three people in this philosophical story who are desperate, I would hazard a guess that the girl in the supermarket, the car salesman and the bush copper all struggle with their own fears as well, we are just not aware of them.

The Bogeyman in the Cupboard

In your life probably everyone you know has a pit of fear somewhere deep down that they don’t let you see. That is why they feel they are alone. They deal with it alone, just like you do.

That works in our day to day lives because it would be hard to function on a daily basis if you were so plugged in to every one that you felt and worse, experienced their deepest fears. Some people are that sensitive and they usually end up going crazy.

Secondly, it is important that we learn how to cope with our own demons. When you were a child in bed trying to sleep and you thought there was a bogey man in the cupboard, it was okay to get up and tell your mum or dad and get them to go and have a look; that is how you learn they love you. If they love you, you must be worth loving and so we learn to love ourselves.

The Aboriginal girl is loved by her mum. Her love for her daughter motivated her to set out to do the impossible, to get her daughters drugs with no money in her pocket, only a determination to succeed. When she did, she felt no need to be grateful to anyone else for her success because she knew she was responsible for making it happen.

Success or Failure – Either is Acceptable

How many times have you felt the same in your business? You don’t know how you will do it but you are determined to succeed. And somehow you do. How much harder it is when you don’t know how and you don’t believe you will succeed. I would say it is impossible. That is how the Man feels.

The message here is, when you have done everything you can do to bring about success you owe nothing to any one and if you fail there is no disgrace in that either. Doing nothing is not an option to the person who really wants to succeed.

Nietzsche had a strong view about this as Ruth Abbey, Associate Professor Department of Political Science, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, pointed out in a recent radio interview:

“Great people, according to Nietzsche, don’t seek power over other people, they might achieve power over people, but that’s never their goal. Their goal is always something outside. They’re not interested in insulating or putting other people down, they’re always aspiring for some form of greatness – cultural, political, artistic, literary, whatever. They’re not driven by the desire to be judged by the standards of others, and this is one of the things that distinguishes masters from slaves. So the ubermensch (Superman) is not motivated by control over other people, he might achieve that, but that would never be his primary motivation.”

She goes on to say:

“But it’s also important to acknowledge here that great people can fail, according to Nietzsche, without that

Friedrich Nietzsche - it is important to acknowledge that great people can fail

making them any less great. So their greatness shouldn’t be measured by objective standards, or external achievements or deeds. And there are many very poignant passages where Nietzsche talks about the fragility of the great human being, particularly in the modern world where all the forces of conformity, uniformity and mediocrity, are striving against the realisation of true individualism.”

Nietzsche is very worried about the fate of great individuals, he knows they are just as likely to fail as they are to succeed, so we can’t necessarily measure their greatness by their deeds or by their achievements, it’s more a psychological disposition to doing the things that are necessary for success.

So what can we learn from this? A lot, I hope

How to Get Close to Someone You love

First, if you want to get close to someone, you have to be able to walk a mile in their shoes, which means you have to be able to experience what they are experiencing, to genuinely share their happiness, their disappointments, their wins and the demons that scare them to death. We each have the power to lift the veil of loneliness from the ones we love. We can exorcise the bogey man from the cupboard by letting them know that as long as we are there they will never walk alone.

When you can do that; you too will never walk alone because you will always have a loved one by your side.

This is what Anna, the little Aboriginal girl teaches the Man, he learns that he can get close to her and more importantly, he learns that only by genuinely sharing himself with her is he able to get close enough to give her the courage she needs to go to sleep. That is a RELATIONSHIP, the kind we all want but are not always prepared to invest enough of “ourselves” in to get.

If I never wrote another word, I have already told you all there is know. But if it is so easy why aren’t we all happy?

Because you can live a whole lifetime without ever experiencing this vision of love for each other and if you can’t see it or feel it, you can’t share it with one who loves you. And if you can’t share it then the relationship is not as complete as it could be.

The greatest gift a parent can give a child is to let them share and participate in the vision which the parent’s have for the family. As they become a participating member of the family they feel respected and valued and truly experience the love the parents have for them and they learn how to return it and then how to give it. All else is secondary and believe me, I know.

Secondly, we can lose sight of the vision and when there is no vision the spirit will perish. The Man has lost his vision and with it his belief in himself. The Chemist still has his and it helps him live a fruitful life that gives him little pleasure other than that which he creates by giving to others.

That is one aspect.

How to Apply this Philosophy to Business

This philosophy also has great application to our business life as well. I’m running out of space in my self imposed limit but let me point you in the direction I believe leads to success.

Most of my readers have their own web site or blog and some have asked how to get more readers, more comments or how to be successful which I presume means how to make money.

I look at every web site that we link to in the comments as you know, and often I see web sites that try to deliver good quality information but more often I see a web site or blog that is designed as a platform to serve up Google Adwords. There are Ads at the top and in the middle and at the bottom and in the end it is hard to find the content for the ads.

If a reader is served that kind of page what is their immediate reaction? I believe they think, this web site is primarily designed to make money for the web master not to solve my problem.

When I was new in sales there was a guy who was a master salesman, he made huge sales and spoke at all the conferences and I was in awe of him (when I didn’t hate him to pieces out of jealousy). One day on my way to a client, I got in a lift and who did I find there, the master salesman.

He pressed level 5 and when the door closed (I wanted to be sure there was no escape) I said, very fast “Hello my name is Ric Vatner and we only have 30 seconds, I want to know what is the secret to success?”

He was startled but I indicated time was running out and I needed an answer. This is what he told me;

The Secret to Success – Really!

“When you go into a sale there are two problems to solve, One, you need to make the sale to make money. Two, the client has a problem that they want solved. If you concentrate on solving your problem the client will see you are not genuine about solving their problem and they won’t buy from you. If they don’t buy from you, you both still have a problem. And next time bring some toilet paper, you scared the shit out of me”

And that was the last time I ever met him.

I have found over the years that he was spot on and it works in all areas of our life, business and personal . For example, if you are in a relationship, put the other persons feelings before your own, if you both do that you will love each other for ever. It even applies to  writing an article or blog post, write it from the reader’s perspective. What do they need to know to make an informed decision? Do this and your readership will multiply even if you know nothing about SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

I know the SEO experts will disagree but I think the moment you look at a blog post that has been fully optimized to maximize CPC and CPA you know whose problem the writer is concentrating on and you are less likely to click through.

Recently I read an article on one of the web sites we link to in the comments forum and I noticed that throughout the latest article there are random links placed in the middle of sentences saying things like “buy steroids”. The article was not about steroids but there were at least 10 links in it to a web site that sells steroids.

Okay, imagine one in a thousand people click the link, do the maths, how many people have you irritated along the way. Will they ever come back? And I can tell you that the other posts on the blog were not like that and are all quite good. I saw this as a sign of desperation, a sign of trying to solve the wrong problem.

What they should have done is write an article that answers the reader’s questions and doubts and then offered a link.

However, and I hope you won’t think I am sermonizing here, I think it is important to believe in your product and if it can do harm or it is demeaning to some people maybe you should look for another product to sell, one that you can be proud to write about. I think you will find that a lot easier to do and ultimately you will be more successful.

I know, I can talk the hind legs off a donkey, that’s why I set a limit for each post and lucky for you, I have reached it.

Don’t forget to come back for Chapter 3 and then vote for whether we continue the story or not.

And to finish off  I hope you don’t mind if I take this opportunity to play one of my all time favourite songs. Please join me in singing as loud as you can (If I can’t hear you it is not loud enough ):

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

To Be Continued …………

The Chapters So Far:

The Man Chapter 1

The Man Chapter 2

The Man Chapter 3

Read an Analysis of Each Chapter – The Philosophy and Ideas behind the Story

Analysis of The Man Chapter 1

Analysis of The Man Chapter 2

A Readers Analysis of The Man Chapter 2

Pre Analysis Background Information for The Man Chapter 3

]]> http://shadowintheflame.com/blog/2010/07/14/behind-the-man-chapter-2-a-discussion-of-the-issues/feed/ 142 http://shadowintheflame.com/blog/2010/07/12/chapter-2-jail/ http://shadowintheflame.com/blog/2010/07/12/chapter-2-jail/#comments Mon, 12 Jul 2010 02:54:43 +0000 Ric Vatner http://shadowintheflame.com/?p=193 The Man

The flame is not so bright to itself as to those on whom it shines

Chapter 2

Panic Attack

The man sat in his car; he fought the rising wave of panic. He knew this feeling very well. It had accompanied him through the whole saga. It woke him at night. It gave him hot flushes when every one else was cold. It ambushed him before he went into a meeting and slowly screwed his stomach as he received bad news. It made him procrastinate but often, it was the only feeling he had. It was the only thing that reminded him that he was a human with real feelings.

When it passed, he felt weak but he knew he had to do something. He had no money and he needed food, a place to stay and cash for expenses.

Down and Out in a BMW

His only asset was the car. It was a BMW 3 series, 2 years old and covered in dirt from the trip but otherwise in good condition. He remembered he saw a car yard and tractor sales office at the bottom of the street. He would sell the car and buy a cheaper one. The difference would keep him going for months, maybe a year, if he was not extravagant.

He pulled into the yard and the salesman looked up from reading his newspaper in his warm office. He looked surprised; it had been a while since anyone had come into the yard mid week. He rose half annoyed he had to move at all and half excited in anticipation of making a sale. When he stood in front of the man he clapped his hands in front of his stomach and smiled that car salesman’s smile that says “have I got a deal for you” just before they sell you a wreck.

The man tries to smile back. “Hi, I want to sell you my car and buy a cheaper one and take the difference in cash. Can you do that?”  He asked half hoping, half matter of fact.

“Well sir, it’s a nice car. I’m rather partial to BMW’s myself too. But I don’t think we could sell that kind of car round here. Not these days. That would be a bit luxurious and” he paused not sure if what he was about to say would offend the man “it would be a bit useless around the farm don’t you think?”

“Oh”, the man said. “Do you know where I could sell it?”

“Well you would need to go to a bigger town” the salesman said.

“How far is that?” the man asked “200 ks give or take” the salesman replied, losing interest in the conversation. “I don’t have enough petrol to get that far” the man said to no one in particular.

The salesman looked at him suspiciously. He looked like a businessman albeit, he was unshaven and his hair was matted but the car was worth a bit, how could he not afford petrol?

The man said “Look, I don’t need to get top dollar for this, just make me a fair offer. I’ll swap it for a small car with a full tank and some cash how about that?”

How Time Stops When You Are Broke

The salesman felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. Something didn’t feel right and he was sure this man was either a con man or a thief or worse. He told him he would have to discuss it with his partner and asked the man to come back in a couple of hours. Maybe he could leave the car here so his partner could inspect it. The man agreed and walked back into town.

The last few days had flown past in a blur that felt like an instant. Now with no where to go and no money if he did,  two hours seemed like a very long time. It was going to be a long wait.

Exactly two hours later he headed back to the car yard. His car was still where he left it. He had expected to see it up on the hoist being checked out by a mechanic or maybe driven around town to get a feel for its power.

He stood at the car and could see the salesman talking to someone in his office. When the salesman saw the man he motioned to the other person who stood up and looked through the window at the man. It was the town cop.

He came outside and approached the man with that don’t do anything silly look on his face. When he got to the man he said “I hear you want to sell your car. Can you show me your driver’s license please?” The man took out his wallet under the watchful gaze of the cop who made a mental note that there was no money in the wallet. He looked at the man checking for any sign of nervousness.

The man gave the cop his driver’s license upon which he invited the stranger to accompany him to the police station. “Why?” asked the man.

“Well we just have to conduct a few inquiries” the cop said.

“What if I don’t want to” the man said.

“Well you do have a couple of outstanding parking tickets” replied the cop “would you like to pay them now” he said. “No” said the man, defeated.

“Ah, well I may have to detain you for a while then” said the policeman.

He took the man by the arm, it wasn’t a threatening hold but he held it firmly above the elbow and led him to his police car. “Okay if I leave the BMW here Alan” he called to the salesman who nodded obsequiously fast too many times.

The man was shown into the cell where he had to wait for another agonisingly slow few hours. All he could think of was that he was hungry and that he had never been in a cell before.

He was cold but the hot flushes kept him warm and filled his stomach with fear but at least it kept the hunger pains away.

When the policeman came back he collected the man from the cell and took him to his office.

“I don’t understand” he said. “I checked and you are the boss of a big company. You own the car outright. You paid for that Abo woman’s drugs at the chemist and your card was declined at the supermarket? There’s no warrant out for your arrest but you have accumulated a few parking tickets in the last few months”, he said reading from his notes. He looked up, “which you have not paid. What’s going on?”

The man just looked straight ahead. The policeman could see the red blush rise in his face, the man looked done in but he was not talking.

“Hungry?” asked the policeman. The man nodded, his eyes still fixed on some spot, a place far off that only he could see. The cop got up and left the room. The man felt the tightness across his chest ease when the policeman left.

The policeman returned about 25 minutes later with a meal and a cup of luke warm tea. He set it down on the table and sat back in his chair. The man looked at it then looked at the policeman who nodded indicating it was for him.

He ate in silence. He tried to eat slowly savouring each bite but old habits die hard and he scoffed it down. He was always in a hurry and food was fuel. It was something you had to take on board that interrupted your schedule so you ate as quickly as possible and got on with the important things in life.

But he was not in a hurry any more. He just hadn’t got used to that yet.

Maybe he was in a hurry to be gone from here. He was embarrassed. He had been arrested in public and the people and the shopkeepers had seen him being led to the car and driven through town to the police station.

He looked at the cop. His face was bright red under the stubble; his eyes were blue, bright and worried. He took a deep breath and assembled his thoughts. “ I’m okay.” he said as much to himself as to the cop “I have not robbed any one, well at least not in the eyes of the law. I’ve committed no offense, at least, that I can pay for by going to jail.” He stared into that distant place, saw the chaos and it disturbed him.

“I need to go now” he said to the cop.

It was not an order, there was no anger in it but it was not pleading either. It was a simple statement of fact. The policeman thought about it for a few minutes and then rose. He reached into his back pocket for his wallet and said “Can I lend you a few bucks to keep the wolves away?”  The man smiled, a few hours ago this same copper would have been happy to lock him up and throw away the key. He was the quintessential Australian bush copper tough as nails but fair and now he wanted to show that there was no hard feelings.

“Thanks”, he shook his head, “I’m okay”.

The cop put his wallet away quickly, embarrassed. This man could probably buy and sell him many times over so how much could he lend him that would be of value, $10, $20 maybe at a pinch $50 but that would hurt and Karen, his wife, would be angry. She could do a lot with $50. He asked the man if he wanted a lift back to his car. The man politely refused, he preferred to walk. He needed to clear his head.

It was only a short walk back to town; little did he know how much it would affect his life.

In a field of barley the tree stands out but it is lonely. In a forest it is anonymous but it is content.

To Be Continued……..

The Chapters So Far:

The Man Chapter 1

The Man Chapter 2

The Man Chapter 3

Read an Analysis of Each Chapter – The Philosophy and Ideas behind the Story

Analysis of The Man Chapter 1

Analysis of The Man Chapter 2

A Readers Analysis of The Man Chapter 2

Pre Analysis Background Information for The Man Chapter 3

I am a firm believer that the writer of a story is not necessarily the best interpreter of that story and certainly their view has no more credence than that of the reader. I think writers often enter a zone where the story pretty much writes itself. I know when I was writing this one, I was sometimes surprised to see where it went. For that reason I hope you will share your views about what you get out of the story because you may see things completely different to me.

I don’t mind telling you, when I was writing chapter three I cried like a baby which was quite embarrassing because I was at work. To make matters worse, I had a visitor who thought I had just received some devastating news.

But we will get to chapter three soon enough. I look forward to hearing your reaction to it. I know, you already think I am just a big sop. A baby. Well I admit it! Interestingly the visitor who caught me crying over a silly piece of fiction told me that as we get older we are more able to cry because we have experienced so much and we feel things more.

So there is our first piece of philosophy. Don’t put all the oldies out to pasture too quickly as the young turks may not have the emotional maturity to feel the situation. They may not be able to cry, for example over the injustice we see all around us, over the refugees who get thrown into detention camps sometimes for years or for the millions of indigenous people that live in squalor usually on the very edge of our rich cities.

Some of the people that have read all three chapters think that chapter one is the least interesting of the three, but I don’t agree with that. I have tried to make each chapter a stand alone story but also a part of the whole. It was not my intention to reveal everything about the man; I want him to unfold before us. I want to get to know him as you do a friend, slowly and I want us to discover what he learns as he learns it.

I say us because as I said above, I think the story is to some degree writing itself and I am just as interested to see where it goes as I hope, you are.

The Man is not a true story but of course there are elements in it that are based on true life experience and it includes incidents that will help us understand philosophy or the meaning of life. I think a good story can explain philosophy much better than an academic treatise (I am not claiming that this is a good story that is for you to decide). I have read some great novels that have had a major impact on me, for example;

• The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
• Sons and Lovers by D.H Lawrence
• The Great Women of China by Xinran (Not fiction but very powerful)
• Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder

In chapter 1, we find out that the man has driven for a long time almost in a dream because he doesn’t know himself, how long he has been driving.

Is he on the run? If so what from?

In the chemist shop he buys the woman’s drugs but I didn’t feel that he did it with passion or from any altruistic belief. It was almost mechanical. A sort of “Look, here is the money, can we get on to me now!”

I found the Pharmacist interesting (We call them a chemist in Australia). He is Mr Average. He is the archetypical man next door who is not a loser but he is not a winner either. The interesting thing was that he lives in a town where Aboriginals are most likely looked down on yet he has obviously been paying for the drugs the woman needed for her daughter. And I got the feeling she was not the only one.

But he is not the type to want a park named after him, he is not a public philanthropist like the ones that sit on the stage and pretend to be shy and retiring.  He is a good hearted quite man that does not think in terms of good deeds only in terms of what needs to be done. He probably doesn’t think of himself as a do gooder, in fact I think if you asked him to describe himself, he would say he was a soft touch, a fool who has his vices. We know he likes to smoke and to bet, I know many fundamentalist religious people that would scorn him for that and yet he is in many ways more honest, more genuine than they are.

It is through the chemist that we first see that the man has a redeeming side to him. I trust the chemist and he saw something in the man that I don’t think the man sees in himself.

I was shocked when he went to the supermarket and his card was declined. My first thought was, so how was he going to pay for the drugs? I felt he was going to let the chemist down and I was sorry for the chemist because I think it happens to him a lot.

But I also saw it as part of the chaos of the man’s life. I felt that he did not intend to let the chemist down on purpose. He genuinely meant to pay for them.

So does that count or do you only get kudos when you perform an act of kindness? Even if for example, you pay for them because you have the money but you don’t really care about the person or their situation. What I’m saying is, what is more important, that I feel your pain and want to help you or that I help you because it is easy for me to do so but I don’t care a damn for your situation?

How many times have you given money to a beggar just to get rid of them not because you want to make their life better? Who is the real philanthropist, the person who gives thousands of dollars because they have millions or the one who shares their last fifty cents with a beggar?

Well I hope these notes help you get more out of the story. I’ll be back on Monday with chapter two.

Ric Vatner

The Chapters So Far:

The Man Chapter 1

The Man Chapter 2

The Man Chapter 3

Read an Analysis of Each Chapter – The Philosophy and Ideas behind the Story

Analysis of The Man Chapter 1

Analysis of The Man Chapter 2

A Readers Analysis of The Man Chapter 2

Pre Analysis Background Information for The Man Chapter 3

working Title

The road into town was long, straight and dusty. The kind of road you knew would lead to no where special and the reward for arriving was less than his lowest expectations.

Good.

He spat the word out though there was no one to hear it.

First order of business he thought, get some headache tablets. He had been driving for a long time. How long? He had no idea.

He found a chemist shop, entered and stood behind an Aboriginal woman who was swearing at the chemist. She was wearing an old beanie, yellow with green strips interrupted with holes where a moth had carelessly eaten the line and part of the yellow. Her jacket was an equally old and shabby track suit top that had once been colourful but was now as faded as the jaded look on her face.

“I’ll get me money in a few days but she needs this shit now. Don’t be a bastard all your life. You know she needs it”

Being a shopkeeper in a country town is not as straight forward as it is in the city. When the countryside has been in drought for years and the bank and the post office closed down yonks ago, they are the de facto bank, credit agency, Para-psychologist, social worker and when all else fails; whipping boy.

His face was ……….. impassive. He looked like he wasn’t really there. Where was he right now?

On a beach? No, that’s not his style.

In the garden pulling weeds with a ferocity that he couldn’t bring to work? Maybe.

In the TAB (the ubiquitous betting shop) listening to his horse running a poor race as usual. It didn’t even have the grace to come last. Just one of the pack, like him, ordinary, average, never a winner but not a complete loser either.

“G’on you bastard, you couldn’t deliver milk on time” he would shout to no one in particular. In the betting shop he is one of the boys, he doesn’t lose too much and he always has a funny quip to make when his horse loses. Yes this was his favourite place, the place he goes to in his mind.

The argument went back and forth and the man’s headache was pounding. He stepped forward, “excuse me”

“Piss off” she spat at him.

“Look maybe I can help”

“Oh yea of course. Who the fuck are you. The cops?”

“No” he said hurt. What’s the problem?” He looked at the chemist

“She already owes me more than the money she gets on benefits and now she wants more. I don’t get this stuff for free to distribute to the bloody community” he said. “I have to buy it and pay for it” he said looking at the woman.

“What does she want?” the man said

“Oh, morphine for pain, sleeping tablets, and some heavy shit that costs a fortune”

“Is it for her?”

“No, for her kid”

“Look I’ll pay for it” the man said as the woman looked at him suspiciously. “What do you want?” she asked accusingly. “Like a bit of black do you?”

“No” he answered meekly.

“Oh, your a racist. Black not good enough for you your majesty” she made every word a dagger and threw them all at him with as much brutality as she could muster. She hated the world and right now she hated the two of them the most.

The woman snatched the medicine from the chemist’s outstretched hand. She showed no sign of gratitude. She needed it and they had it but they didn’t need it. Why shouldn’t he pay for it? He’s white and haven’t they caused us black fellas enough trouble. He’s got the money to buy the stuff but he doesn’t need it. She needs it but has no money. “It’s a shit world. If you don’t take what you can get, you don’t deserve it” that was her considered opinion.

She walked out of the shop, her head high. She had got the drugs her daughter needed. It was an unexpected win; you never get anything if you don’t try she thought. The woman, who could have been thirty but looked more like fifty headed home. Along the way she wondered, would her daughter miss just one vial of the morphine? She deserved some too, wasn’t she hurting as well? Why shouldn’t she have just one hit to help her cope.

The man turned to the chemist, “What’s wrong with her daughter?” he asked.

“Cancer” the chemist said. That one word tells the whole story, it is the one word in the English language that is guaranteed to send shivers down your back. It speaks of pain and terror, of sleepless nights and worry filled days. It recounts a tale of hopelessness, of going into battle with spears to fight an enemy that arrives in Planes and rides on tanks.

“How bad is it?” he asked. “Pretty bad. I’m surprised she is still alive. Sometimes I think she just hangs on so I go broke supplying her drugs” the chemist joked. “I don’t want you to think I’m heartless but if I give in too easy, I’ll have the whole lot of ‘em in here demanding free drugs. I’m not the national health system you know”. He said defensively.

The man asked how much the drugs cost. He pulled out his credit card and told the chemist to bill the drugs to his card. He asked him not to tell the woman. “And don’t go crazy with it, I’m not rich but whatever she really needs, just put it on this” he handed the chemist his card.

The chemist shrugged, took down the details while the man swallowed a couple of headache tablets the chemist gave him and washed them down with a plastic cup of water. They looked at each other, no words passed between them but there was a mutual understanding that from now on they shared the burden.

The man left without looking back.

He walked through the drab sun burnt town now descending into the cold dreary months of winter. It was quite empty other than the shopkeepers, two drivers in the garage getting petrol and some mothers pushing strollers aimlessly window shopping and talking to their children who had already learned not to listen.

He felt hungry and seeing a supermarket he decided to buy some supplies. He did a modest shopping and took it to the check out. “Do you take credit cards” he asked. “Sure” came the brief but not unfriendly reply. He handed his card over and waited.

“It’s declined” she said looking at him with a frown. “Do you have another one?”  “No” he replied almost dreamily. “Do you want to pay with cash?” she asked summing him up in her practiced way. “No not now, I’ll come back later”

He knew it wouldn’t take long but he had hoped the card would last a little longer.

He sighed. Looked for his car and when he saw it he walked towards it. For a few brief seconds he had a sense of purpose, he knew where he was going but as soon as he arrived it disappeared and he felt emotionally drained.

Read a review of the ideas behind this chapter

To Be Continued …………

The Chapters So Far:

The Man Chapter 1

The Man Chapter 2

The Man Chapter 3

Read an Analysis of Each Chapter – The Philosophy and Ideas behind the Story

Analysis of The Man Chapter 1

Analysis of The Man Chapter 2

A Readers Analysis of The Man Chapter 2

Pre Analysis Background Information for The Man Chapter 3