V for Vanity

It seems like it has been forever since I’ve written something. But not in a bad way. Rather, I feel that the last couple of weeks in Chiang Mai have been the best, as I have been able to let go of all of my unaccomplished goals and future plans and simply focus on now, and the people around me. T. S. Eliot speaks of the dangers of spending too much time in the future and past in Four Quartets (Burnt Norton), and I heartily agree. I do it far too often. Nonetheless, some amount of planning and hoping for the future as well as reflecting on the past is good, as long as we do not fall too much into fantasy. In the coming weeks, I think I will be able to provide a balanced perspective of my time here in Thailand, but now is not really the time for that. I have something else in mind.

OFFICIAL SPOILER ALERT (if you haven’t yet read Crime & Punishment and still wish to, I wouldn’t read any more)

Crime and Punishment is a book I started enroute to Chiang mai, and finished a couple of hours ago. The scope of the book is far-reaching. I don’t think I have ever been so emotionally invested in the characters of this story then anything else I have read. And so often the emotions were quite unpleasant. The horror and disgust of the murder and the delirium and oblivion afterwards affected me greatly. I think much of it was due to similarities that I saw between myself and Raskolnikov.

While he was comtemplating the murder, isolated from everyone, alone in his tattered clothing and mockery of a room, half-crazed by the Petersburg summer, I was also alone, in Laos, in a hot, humid, windowless room, without access to phone or internet, crazed by the sun, and there I contemplated when I would have the courage to read the murder. The thought horrified me – am I capable of it? And it stretched me literally (that is, in terms of literature), as I began to question whether I was great – capable of describing such a murder and such a plot in excruciating detail. If I was a Napoleon, or simply an average man, as Raskolnikov thought of it. I crushed myself with philosophy.

The vacillations demonstrated clearly that I was not Napoleon; as Raskolnikov was unable to move beyond the initial step, it made him unworthy to have made that step. But I am not such an observer of the dialectic as he was. Nonetheless, it had a profound impact on me. Giving rise to a number of questions about faith and reason, the motivations behind what we do and why we do it, and whether it is justified. While I was horrified by the tragedy of the murder, it still served to implicate me. Am I really any better? I am not a monster, perhaps, but then neither was he. He was just following the logical conclusion of his reasoning. Though perhaps I am at times more akin to Marmeladov (the drunk), as I do things that I despise, knowing they are wrong. Yet I still willingly do them. Perhaps I am powerless to change such actions, but I do not see how that would pardon such behavior. I don’t think I got to the point of despising those around me, as Raskolnikov did, though I can definitely see a certain amount of arrogance and vanity in my behavior. Though it was not arrogance that dubbed me ‘Captain’.

Fate is a dramatic element of the story. There are simply too many ‘coincidences’ and too many moments where Raskolnikov is incredibly drawn to do certain things, not as if he knows he must do something. Rather, that he knows he will do it. It made me look at everything I ran into with a curious eye. Is this a coincidence, or is it fate? The most poingant example of this is when I finished the sixth act. I started reading in the airport terminal in Chiang Mai, boarded the plane to Bangkok, and sat in my seat. I finished that act – when he says to Ilya Petrovich “It was I who killed the official’s old widow…” – concurrently with the moment of weighlessness at takeoff. I set down the book, could certainly not think of reading the epilogue, but could only think to myself “and now I’m off to Siberia.” And so I fell deep into thought and then sleep.

The heroine of the story, Sofya (dear Sonechka), was brought to Raskolnikov by the artwork of fate. They simply knew they were going to be together for the rest of their lives. But Raskolnikov was still deep in his cyncism and despair. But then I read the epilogue. A few moments ago, in fact. And this day of rest for me was the same as that one, where Sofya’s love brings Raskolnikov to life. And I feel renewed, refreshed.

This is not to say that I didn’t enjoy Chiang Mai. Indeed I did. but I was also at times extremely apathetic and cyncial – those were many of my crimes there. But it was not what it could have been, due to my preconceptions. When I have time to reflect in Japan, I’m going to give some of my highlights there. But here I want to describe what I’ve really learned.

I told Sayre, before leaving, that I wanted to learn what it meant to be dependent. And I did. I learned what dependency was like, as I was dependent on others for language and transport. But more than that, I learned that I was already dependent, though dependent on someone I had not yet met. And that is a wearying thing. I don’t like travelling alone, though I love travelling. I need someone to travel with, to think with, and to banter with. If I really am going to spend my life (or part of it) overseas, I need to find a companion. Be it a hero (Razumikhin) or a heroine (Sofya), or both.

A paladin needs a party.