Sahara

I have not eaten today. Not on purpose. I will eat later. I simply have not thought of it yet.

Other than that, today is a day like any other. In the morning, I worked. For the most part, work has become a routine, like brushing my teeth. A series of motions that seldom calls upon the genius we so readily claim distinguishes us from other animals. I suppose most work is like that, and people rarely mind.

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I had just disposed of another one of these nauseatingly enthusiastic—yet entirely pointless—emails that in an ideal world would never have been written. Then a friend called. It was a welcome distraction. When one stares at a screen for too long, the letters become pale. Eventually, they die, and one is left staring at a graveyard of symbols that have lost all meaning. It is draining, and it has become worse since the arrival of that probabilistic parrot offensively named Artificial “Intelligence.” I suspect that those pointless emails are now composed by this parrot, which must make it increasingly difficult for the workers who prompt it to convince themselves that what they are doing is important.

I close my laptop, hoping the faint glow of death which has filled the room will sink back into the machine, and I listen to my friend telling me about his day. I am thinking of nothing in particular and respond only when necessary. His voice is alive and it requires no effort to follow his stories. But as time goes by and the conversation continues, his voice starts moving away. What began as an intimate human encounter becomes a distant murmur of sound. Think of sitting in a room with closed doors and windows and hearing conversation drift past outside. Like that!

I notice the shift and feel a pang of profound loneliness. I am not sure how much time has passed since the phone started ringing and I am paying little attention at this point. Instead, I find myself thinking of Camus. He asked whether or not life is worth living. According to him, this is the fundamental question of philosophy. Life is worth living if there is more to live for than there is suffering. Hence, trying to understand suffering should be a good place to start looking for an answer to his question.

Suffering takes many forms, ranging from hunger and illness to simple boredom. Typically—yet tragically not always—these are temporary. In contrast, loneliness is permanent. I am not talking about the loneliness one feels from time to time, when one is home alone and would rather be out with friends. I am talking about the loneliness that remains even when other people are around.

In an important sense, we are born alone, live alone, and die alone. This fact of human existence is a consequence of the metaphysical separation of our minds. My friend at the other end of the line is telling me about his thoughts and his feelings, but I cannot think his thoughts, or feel his feelings. Maybe one day it will be possible to link our brains with wires and actually think another’s thoughts and feel their feelings. But until then, your thoughts and feelings are yours, and my thoughts and feelings are mine.

Only some of us explicitly think about it in these terms, but we all have an intuitive understanding of our existential loneliness, and it is part of what makes suffering an unavoidable aspect of being alive as a human being. It is also (again, in part) why so many of us love being in love. Love creates a fleeting illusion of not being alone. We spend our lives imprisoned within our own skulls, forever separated from one another. Yet when lovers draw close, they feel the warmth of a connection that seems to bridge the gap. For just a moment, they forget that the distance remains.

“What did he say?”

“It was nice catching up. Let’s do this more often.”

He always says that. We will not.

“Yes, let’s.”

I put down the phone and turn my head toward the windows. The sun is pouring through the blinds and I can feel the heat seeping in. I should eat, and had I eaten, I might not feel so dazed and light-headed. I decide to go for a run. Outside, the heat is immediate. It is blindingly bright, and the concrete is covered by a layer of shimmery air. The city feels slightly out of focus. I have been running for about half an hour. My thoughts dissolve into a haze; then a new one occurs: Sahara. That faraway, almost mystical place. Harsh but honest. Simple. I smile.

I keep running, but not for long. The dizziness, which at first was manageable, becomes too much. I lie down on the hot concrete, letting the unbearable yet strangely comforting sun press against my face. Is this how Meursault felt on that beach in Algeria?

…or is this how it feels to be alive?

Dr Rainer Ebert holds a PhD in philosophy from Rice University in Texas and is a research fellow in the Department of Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology at the University of South Africa. He has been visiting Bangladesh regularly for years. Reach him at rainerebert.com and on X @rainer_ebert.