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A review by sidharthvardhan
Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre
5.0
Loners
“A man rarely feels like laughing alone."
Today we shall talk about a special kind of loners. They are the ones that are lonely due to consciousness. As Dostoevsky's Underground guy, the first loner among our list, said: "I swear to you gentleman, that to be overly conscious is a disease , a real, thorough sickness."
Each of our loners gets Adeline rush when he is around people due to this increased consciousness:
"I am alone in the midst of these happy, reasonable voices. All these creatures spend their time explaining, realizing happily that they agree with each other. In Heaven's name, why is it so important to think the same things all together? ”
Loneliness does these weird things to people. They turn philosophers:
“Thoughts are the dullest things."
Too much of consciousness of even one’s own self can disgust a person:
“When I was little, Aunt Uigeois told me “If you look at yourself too long in the mirror, you will see a monkey.”
And with all these weird thoughts, you can’t help being a little weird yourself which means people won’t like you:
“We (children) had a horrible fear of him because we sensed he was alone.
Now, while Mr. Underground seems to be struggling trying (and failing) to comprehend this very loneliness of his; Roquentin is struck into existential issues:
“Every living thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance.
An accidental discovery of the fact that ‘existence precedes essence’ sits on his mind making him search something meaningful – and on failing to do that, he gets a nausea. It disgusts him how much of the existence has got destroyed without leaving any footprints behind.
One way to go from the point of loneliness onward – would be to tell yourself you are right in being aloof and thus be a nihilist like Camus’ outsider. The other way would be to try and create that little meaning yourself – as in case of Elison’s Invisible man and Roqentin.
Mary probably had a role in helping Roquentin to see this through her philosophy of perfect moments. I won’t go into the theory, although I will share a quote:
“It's quite an undertaking to start loving somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment right at the start where you have to jump across an abyss: if you think about it you don't do it.”
In the end,Roquentin decides to do so by trying to create an immortal art piece that will make people remember him after his death.
“A man rarely feels like laughing alone."
Today we shall talk about a special kind of loners. They are the ones that are lonely due to consciousness. As Dostoevsky's Underground guy, the first loner among our list, said: "I swear to you gentleman, that to be overly conscious is a disease , a real, thorough sickness."
Each of our loners gets Adeline rush when he is around people due to this increased consciousness:
"I am alone in the midst of these happy, reasonable voices. All these creatures spend their time explaining, realizing happily that they agree with each other. In Heaven's name, why is it so important to think the same things all together? ”
Loneliness does these weird things to people. They turn philosophers:
“Thoughts are the dullest things."
Too much of consciousness of even one’s own self can disgust a person:
“When I was little, Aunt Uigeois told me “If you look at yourself too long in the mirror, you will see a monkey.”
And with all these weird thoughts, you can’t help being a little weird yourself which means people won’t like you:
“We (children) had a horrible fear of him because we sensed he was alone.
Now, while Mr. Underground seems to be struggling trying (and failing) to comprehend this very loneliness of his; Roquentin is struck into existential issues:
“Every living thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance.
An accidental discovery of the fact that ‘existence precedes essence’ sits on his mind making him search something meaningful – and on failing to do that, he gets a nausea. It disgusts him how much of the existence has got destroyed without leaving any footprints behind.
One way to go from the point of loneliness onward – would be to tell yourself you are right in being aloof and thus be a nihilist like Camus’ outsider. The other way would be to try and create that little meaning yourself – as in case of Elison’s Invisible man and Roqentin.
Mary probably had a role in helping Roquentin to see this through her philosophy of perfect moments. I won’t go into the theory, although I will share a quote:
“It's quite an undertaking to start loving somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment right at the start where you have to jump across an abyss: if you think about it you don't do it.”
In the end,Roquentin decides to do so by trying to create an immortal art piece that will make people remember him after his death.