Email Theo		Um Mitternacht   Facing It Without God T. awoke in the middle of the night, as he had the last few nights, and then couldn't go back to sleep. How early was it? He couldn't say: there was no clock nearby. True, he was wearing a watch whose face lighted up when you press the stem. But to do that lighting up, he would've had to lift his left hand and then press the stem with his right hand -- a double impossibility, since he could no longer move either hand. He turned his head to look at the window: it was dark outside. So it had to be before dawn. But how much before? Was it really the beginning of the morning, or still a part of the night? But such quibbling was silly: it was 'the middle of the night', and that was that. It wasn't just that he couldn't go back to sleep -- in itself that wasn't the problem. The problem was that he couldn't engage his mind in a positive constructive way. This night his thinking was all negative, all destructive. Um Mitternacht   At midnight   Hab' ich gewacht I awoke Und aufgeblickt zum Himmel; and gazed up to heaven; Kein Stern vom Sterngewimmel No star in the entire mass Hat mir gelacht smiled down on me Um Mitternacht at midnight This had not happened before. A little more than a year ago he had been working on a mathematical treatise (ironically, on the Geometry of the Clock.) Once he awoke in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep. But then he proceeded to discover and prove in his head no less than two new theorems. Such things as that had left him feeling that he was charmed, blest; and thus he had entertained the hubristic assumption that such things would always happen for him. No more. Not only could he no longer think of new mathematical theorems, but he could not even think of any comic pieces (his specialty was also his favorite genre) to toil over. As a matter of fact, he could not conceive of any topic on which to write at all. So now he was getting his comeuppance. But why was that so frightening? Because as long as he could write, the act of writing made him feel productive as nothing else did. Take that away, and it opened up a hyper-awareness of the effects of his illness. Um Mitternacht   At midnight   Hab' ich gedacht I projected my thoughts Hinaus in dunkle Schranken. out past the dark barriers. Es hat kein Lichtgedanken No thought of light Mir Trost gebracht brought me comfort Um Mitternacht at midnight So T. was in despair over his deteriorating physical condition -- a despair which he could not shake off. Hitherto when he found himself losing a skill, he was always able to replace it with something else. When he was no longer able to use his legs to play the organ, he switched his instrument to the piano. When he could not any longer write his journal by hand, he began writing it using the computer. When he could no longer type on the computer using his hands, he began using a voice recognition program. In each instance he would eagerly embrace the new alternative and learn to function using it. In fact, just yesterday the wheelchair specialist had converted his manual control electric wheelchair into one in which the head is used to control everything. At the time he had the usual fascination with the new technology, as well as the thankfulness that went with it. (He was even able to joke about it: "My father used to exhort me, 'Jesus, will you use your head?' Now I'm finally doing it!") And so he was grateful that he could now engage his head to tilt himself, when the day before that he could not really do it anymore with his hand. But that was during the daylight hours. Now it was dark, and he was in despair. The present feeling had come about because it had suddenly hit him that he was effectively at the end of the line concerning the modifications for his physical losses. When/if his voice were gone, that would be the end of his writing (his main creative endeavor, a source of great pleasure; priceless) as well as his conversation (another source of great pleasure; priceless as well.) When/if he became unable to move his head, that would spell the end of his being able to move himself about (his physical independence: yet another great pleasure; and also priceless.)(Although he had heard the specialist casually mention the existence of something called a "sip-and-puff-switch", which would allow him to control everything with his mouth. "Finally," he exclaimed, "a legitimate reason to regress to the purely oral stage of development again!") Um Mitternacht   At midnight   Nahm ich in acht I paid close attention Die Schläge meines Herzens; to the beating of my heart; Ein einz'ger Puls des Schmerzes One single pulse of agony War angefacht flared up Um Mitternacht at midnight At moments like this, T. would once again go through his list of ways in which he was 'lucky' -- just as he imagined someone might handle a set of rosary beads ("My God," he thought not without humor, "The Church seeps in despite our best intentions!") He felt that he was lucky to be in this Institution where they were dedicated to actually making the lives of its residents as productive and rich as possible. He was lucky to have such a loving family and circle of friends. He was lucky that he was able to write and then publish those writings on his own website where friends and strangers alike could read them. And so on -- the list went on and on. But this time it didn't work; instead, he began to silently accuse those very people, those most excellent people, of not doing enough to stop the onslaught of his disease -- even while he knew that they loved him and were doing as much as they could for him. T.'s plight lead him to remember the poem "Um Mitternacht" by the German poet Friedrich Rückert (T. knew it because he himself was a musician and Gustav Mahler had set it to music.) There the poet speaks of being awake and in despair at midnight. The Mahler setting of the Rückert poem, as T. recalled it, was an interesting one. The composer had scored it for woodwinds (with harp and timpani -- as well as perhaps a few brass -- reserved for the dramatic climax.) The winds by themselves cast an appropriate coldness (strings would have been too warm) to the setting. The ones that stood out in T.'s mind -- that is, the ones that most suited the subject of the poem -- were the clarinet and the contrabassoon (or 'contra-fag' as a practitioner he knew had humorously called it): the former because of the hollowness of its sound (its overtones only had the odd-numbered harmonics), the latter because of its profoundly low register. The climactic last verse, in the hands of a lesser composer, would have come off bombastic; but with Mahler the scoring is so delicate and transparent that the punctuations of the text seem like piercing shafts of light. In that last verse, the poet posits the existence of a deity as the only thing to give him comfort in the middle of the night. T. also knew that Mahler, who grew up in the Jewish tradition, was wrestling at the time with the deeper question of the resurrection of the dead. As for T. himself, he realized that his own despair and uncertainty was placing him in some pretty august company. Recently, T. had become aware of the richness and complexity of life forms on Earth. Quite simply, he hadn't given it any real thought before. Now, he gazed upon it, and was overwhelmed by it. On the other hand, if someone posited a God as the Creator, T. felt that that only begged the question: how was the God created? Where did It come from? There was something else about the existence of a God who had dominion "over Death and Life": why was it more comforting to believers to posit what amounted to an Absolute Autocrat-Run-Amuck when it came to such matters -- as opposed to, say, a large-scale anonymous evolutionary process? T. knew that there were plenty of residents there at the Institution who not only believed in a God, but who carried on 'conversations' with 'Him' on a daily basis. T. believed that these interchanges were figments of their own imaginations and that they 'heard' what they wanted to hear. ("If a tree falls in the Universe and there is no God...") As for T. he knew that he yearned to have such dialogues himself (with the Creator of the Universe? How do you even begin such a conversation? It would be mind-blowing!), while at the same time he knew better: as with the Ouija Board, he'd be faking it. But on the other hand, what would be wrong with that? At the very least, it would be an inner mono- (or would it be a dia-?) logue with himself wherein, in the spirit of the late Canadian pianist Glenn Gould (who had spirited arguments with himself under the personas 'GG' and 'gg'), he would hash out some interesting philosophical questions for himself. (Example: debate existence/nonexistence of the Creator of the Universe while waiting for Him, a no-show as usual, to arrive for a chat [is He being merely coy, or are there deeper currents at work here?]) Um Mitternacht   At midnight   Kämpft' ich die Schlacht, I fought the battle, O Menschheit, deiner Leiden; oh Mankind, of your suffering; Nicht konnt' ich sie entscheiden I could not decide it Mit meiner Macht with my strength Um Mitternacht. at midnight. A thornier knot was the issue of transcendence. No -- not Life After Death. He saw that for what it was: a bold-faced invention by organized (Christian) religions to tap into a deep human need and thereby gain members. T. regarded 'the soul' -- or, as he called it, 'self-consciousness' -- as something that was the result of hyper-complex electro-chemical processes rather than a separate entity created by a Deity. So when you die, the electro-chemical processes cease. That may seem like a blunt sentence, but it stands up very well against the idea of a petulant God who only allows those to be admitted into His Heaven who Believe in His Existence and Pay Him Elaborate Homage (more church mumbo-jumbo.) Why not believe in the kind of god who takes pleasure in seeing the surprised -- and gratified -- looks on the 'faces' of the non-believers who find that there is life after death after all and that they are part of it? Then one still living could do an inversion of Pascal's Wager: bet that there is no God, and then be pleasantly surprised when one loses the bet. T. found that very interesting. Transcendence: T. thought of this as leaving something behind of oneself which has spiritual value. This could range from the effects of one's personality and good works on other people, to the creation of physical and/or mental constructs which resonate with people. Quite apart from his personality, T. believed that his legacy might be found in his humorous writings of the past four years. (He had said it well in the Introduction to his own Obituary [itself an ironically humorous document], wherein he spoke about "the effects of my personality bubbling up from the Obituary, thereby giving myself a bit of post-humorous [sic] existence -- a nimble bit of sorcery!") This was not the only kind of life after death that T. acknowledged -- but it was the sort that he found it fun to produce! But how long would all that last? The effects of his immediate personality would die with the people who knew him. As for his writings, he had a daughter who tended them on his website now; she might keep them up after he was gone. But after her? He was pessimistic that his writings, whatever their value, would survive even the second generation after him. And that depressed him tonight, knowing he would be denied even that little bit of immortality. Then there was the question of Death itself. T. had not given it much thought until, a few short years ago, one of his daughters asked him out of the blue: "Pop, are you afraid of dying?" At that time he felt himself to be quite remote from such final endings; but his reply, totally spontaneous and off-the-cuff, was honest and profound: "No, I'm not afraid. Life itself is such a gift! I mean, what are the chances that I should have this thing called 'self identity' at just this exact moment in the history of all the species on Earth? It is so miraculous, so incredible, that I am wont to be thankful (no, not to a deity, but just in itself) for any life I have!" And so here, in the middle of the darkest night of despair, T. recalled that answer to a basic question. He still liked it because 'it tends to put things in perspective'. (And even here, at the instant of a profound moment of truth, he could not help but joke: "What about pre-Renaissance people -- were they able to put their lives in perspective as well?") T. thought he had the answers he had been craving this night. He would write as long as he could -- and enjoy every moment of it. He would remain grateful to all those who helped him and loved him. And he would keep being thankful for the gift of life itself. Would those suffice for tonight? Most emphatically. As for all the rest of the nights to come, he would just have to wait and see what happened... Oh yes, one more thing: he made a mental note to ask the nurse the next day for a good strong sleeping pill to take each evening before he went to bed. Um Mitternacht   At midnight   Hab' ich die Macht I surrendered my strength In deine Hand gegeben! Into your hands! Herr! über Tod und Leben Lord! over death and life Du hältst die Wacht Thou keeps watch Um Mitternacht! at midnight! (24 January 2009) Back to top