Dept. of Speculation

by Jenny Offill

The Buddhists say there are 121 states of consciousness. Of these, only three involve misery or suffering. Most of us spend our time moving back and forth between these three.

When I was in college, I took an introductory Buddhism class and I heard this idea. I never forgot it because it suggested that there were so many possibilities of how to think and feel, and I glimpsed that I was one of those people that always lingered in the miserable three.

The reason to have a home is to keep certain people in and everyone else out. A home has a perimeter. But sometimes our perimeter was breached by neighbors, by Girl Scouts, by Jehovah’s Witnesses. I never liked to hear the doorbell ring. None of the people I liked ever turned up that way.

I love to get together with friends but I hate drop ins. Probably because such visits generally come in the middle of the day when I am trying and failing to write. The pandemic means this is not a problem anymore. Now I am desperate to talk to anyone about anything.

This is another way in which he is an admirable person. If he notices something is broken, he will try to fix it. He won’t just think about how unbearable it is that things keep breaking, that you can never fucking outrun entropy.

I am extremely unhandy. If something breaks that is in my possession, it will remain broken unless someone else steps in. Even if just the battery runs out, I might blame entropy and not replace it. For example, I have a fancy electric toothbrush that I now use like a regular toothbrush. I am not proud of being this way, but I have never succeeded in changing my bad habits. Everyone else in my house is very clever and mechanically minded so this often saves the day.

There is still such crookedness in my heart. I had thought loving two people so much would straighten it.

When I was younger, I had several serious bouts of depression and part of me hoped that I was so dark-minded because I lived alone; that loneliness itself was making me feel that way. It was a shock to discover years later when I was married and a mother that that “crooked” feeling never completely disappeared.

The Buddhists say that wisdom may be attained by reaching the three marks. The first is an understanding of the absence of self. The second is an understanding of the impermanence of all things. The third is an understanding of the unsatisfactory nature of ordinary experience.

I like to read Buddhist philosophy because it always seems simultaneously daunting and exhilarating. Oh, ok, I just need to remember that there is no self and everything dies, and nothing will ever seem good enough. Off I go! I grew up Christian and the part where you could just speak to Jesus about what was in your heart felt undeniably easier.

A thought experiment courtesy of the Stoics. If you are tired of everything you possess, imagine that you have lost all these things.

I recommend this experiment. It really works. I have made use of it at many points in my life when I felt bored or trapped.

Some women make it look so easy, the way they cast ambition off like an expensive coat that no longer fits.

To think I wrote this before there was Instagram! Now there are even more of these people out there claiming they are regret nothing and are living their #bestlife. (Though I have noticed that sometimes those accounts of perfect families go dark and then you later hear about how it all fell apart.)

But my agent has a theory. She says every marriage is jerry-rigged. Even the ones that look reasonable from the outside are held together inside with chewing gum and wire and string.

I have an excellent agent and this is indeed her theory. She said it very cheerfully one day at lunch and I kept thinking about how true it was so finally I put it in a novel which is where I put bits of advice I don’t want to forget.

But now it seems possible that the truth about getting older is that there are fewer and fewer things to make fun of until finally there is nothing you are sure you will never be.

Oh man, I am now officially all the things I used to make fun of including the woman rummaging through her purse at the movies looking for some candy she snuck in.

What Rilke said: Surely all art is the result of one’s having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, to where no one can go any further.

Rilke is one of my favorite writers and this passage highlights what I love about his work. He writes so clearly about the emotionally devastating moments in life like having your heart broken or losing a loved one. What I like is that he presents a way forward that is not about easy reassurances or platitudes. To me, it means this: If your house goes up in flames, make something beautiful out of the ashes. My new book, WEATHER, is out 1/19. Make sure to check it out! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37506228-weather