Advent 10
Tuesday, Second Week of Advent
6 December 2022
In a violation of what seems like the common sentiment of the Holiday season, I will say that I think that Sartre was right with the whole “Hell is other people,” thing.
I have a semester left of college and in six days I’ll turn 21 years old. A few days after that I will return home where undoubtedly every single person in my life will inquire about how I feel about that pairing of facts. They will ask it with sincere interest, or care, and perhaps a tinge of empathetic fear, but above all else with the soft twang of “That-went-by-quickly” surprise. Truthfully, I share that surprise. I have never been a terribly forward minded person and at no point in my less than successful High School career did I imagine making it to my age and place in life.
What I have come to understand is that we get through life by a series of small and stupid kindnesses. When I was at a friend’s house this summer, I got myself a seltzer from his fridge and asked if he wanted one too. He informed me that he couldn’t stand the stuff and it was thus that I came to understand he always kept a few in his fridge because, to quote, “It’s the only way I’ve ever seen you remember to drink water.”
Since that moment, I have come to think much less of my life with regards to what I’ve achieved in it. Getting into a good college wasn’t some boulder I pushed alone, it was a domino in a long chain of unearned kindness from other people. It was the few teachers I had in school who spent extra time grading my overwrought assignments that very loosely interpreted the rubric because they thought there was a chance that I wasn’t actually stupid but just needed to get somewhere where I could do the deeply weird stuff I cared about. It was the people who didn’t rob me when I fell asleep on them on the subway. It was the family I was born with and the one that I found, who allowed me to make a mess of myself and take more second chances than anyone could ever hope for.
So sure, Hell is other people. But the ever-important footnote/fine-print that everyone leaves off that statement is this: so is everything else. Heaven, Purgatory, Valhalla, reincarnation, the texture of a heavy wool sweater, and the seventh coffee that a punch card gets you for free at your local coffee shop, it’s all just other people. They’re all we’ve got. Another truth? You can’t save them all and they all need saving. At best, every single one of us is walking wounded and a can of soda water and an encouraging word won’t fix that.
But it’s a start, it’s a thread. And, if enough people cast their threads about, eventually they might just weave together into a makeshift net that’s strong enough to catch each other. In his commencement speech at Kenyon College David Foster Wallace said, “Being able to truly care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.”
There’s the last kicker. The final unfortunate and wonderful truth. You need saving too, and it’s something that can only be outsourced. As much as possible you must learn to trust and love the brimstone and sulfur in your loved ones’ hearts and hope that they do the same for you because, whether we like it or not, the care we can give and receive from each other is the only salvation there is. It’s getting cold out and sure, Hell isn’t perfect, but it’s certainly warm. So be good to each other and do your best.
Merry Christmas.
RJ Steele ’23
