Continuing the themes of Cormac McCarthy

Two more writers share their thoughts

Exploring Life and Literature

Dear friends,

This week you are getting a bonus as several writers shared their thoughts on the complex themes present in Cormac McCarthy's work and I didn’t have enough space in one newsletter. These personal essays continue to show us how the themes of literature resonate in our lives.

Photo by Mick Haupt

This first essay is from Amanda Saint who writes

The Mindful Writer

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The themes of identity and belonging are at the heart of many of the novels and short stories I read. When Matthew put out a call for a guest post on these themes, I volunteered immediately. Since then, I have been wondering why I am drawn to them so strongly. 

So, I started my investigations by looking up what these words actually mean, which is how I start many of my investigations into the topics I write about. 

Two definitions of Identity according to the Cambridge Dictionary are:

• a person's name and other facts about who they are

• the fact of being, or feeling that you are, a particular type of person

Belonging:

• a feeling of being happy or comfortable as part of a particular group and having a good relationship with the other members of the group because they welcome you and accept you

When I sat with these for a while, I realised that I read about these themes so often as, for a long while, I didn’t really know what kind of person I am. My name has changed three times. The facts about who I am vary, they’re nebulous. Nothing stays the same. 

I always felt like an outsider in my family and I don’t fit in very well with much of modern life and popular culture. Essentially, I have always been a misfit. So the stories that have resonated with me most are of my fellow misfits searching for a way to feel at home, in themselves and in the world.

For a long time, I thought being a misfit myself was a bad thing. That there was something fundamentally wrong with me as I couldn’t commit to being a definitive version of ‘me’ and couldn’t just join in and be part of the crowd. But then as I reached my forties, I started to learn about Buddhism and Taoism and understood that letting go of labels and concrete ideas about myself, others, the world and the universe, was a big part of the path I was following. That’s when I first started to feel more at home in ‘me’ and when I began to let go of this need to feel like I fit in.

Then very recently I read a new translation of the Tao Te Ching: Power for the Peaceful by Marc S. Mullinax and it really spoke to me more than any versions I’ve read previously. For the first time, it made me feel like I am in fact a part of something. Like I belonged. By letting go of the desire for that, it appeared.

In the introduction, he says:

“Practicing oneness with Tao will make one a misfit in the chaotic world, to the extent that it actually becomes painful to live chaotically. To live in accord with Tao is peace. Let the reader understand, however, that being so misfitted for the chaotic world means one travels by another rhythm, speaks another fluency, and hears another drum cadence for living. This, for sure, is a lonely, or lone, path. One will find comrades along the Way, but not crowds (Verse 20 attests to this). For living with Tao is a countercultural practice in a world that has forgotten its original ties with the Way, a practice set by an older, wiser, and more generous standard.”

This made me realise that all along, even before I had discovered Taoism, I was just living by the beat that made sense to me. Since I started to align my writing and teaching with these ancient wisdoms, I have also been attracting like-minded souls to come my way. I have been discovering my comrades. Many of them are here on Substack sharing beautiful words and ideas.

But even though I have now found them, and a feeling of being more at home in me, I think I will still be reading lots of stories that deal with the themes of identity and belonging. As at their heart, they are about trying to make sense of this human experience we’re having, to find a purpose in it, and that’s what I’ve realised all my writing is about too.

It’s unfathomable and amazing that we are all here on this planet. It’s no wonder so many of the stories we tell are focused on trying to figure out who we are, how we got here, and whether we really belong here.

Our second essay is from Kaitlyn Ramsay who writes

Loving the Dark Parts

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As a teenager, I knew I would be leaving my hometown as soon as I could in search of something bigger than myself. It was a choice I made early on, and one that felt as though I was called towards. I didn’t know where I would be going, but I knew I had to get out. It was around this time that I bought my first Lonely Planet Australia book, which would end up sitting on my bookshelf, unopened, for at least a decade.

When I was 18, right after graduating high school, I attended University in hopes of becoming a Pharmacist. My parents' expectations lived deep inside of me, even though I didn’t know it at the time. Go to school, get a good paying job, get married, have kids, work hard, retire, and then do the things you’ve always dreamed of—if you make it that far. The thought of stability wasn’t alluring to me, but it was the right thing to do. 

Why should I wait to do the things my heart longed for in hopes that I’d still have time after putting ‘real life’ first? What if I never got the chance? What if I worked so hard for decades, only to die before retirement comes? What if I’m no longer able-bodied someday and those desires stay locked up in a permanent state of regret? 

I finished a year and a half of University before dropping out. My fire and zest for life slowly started dwindling as I pushed myself deeper into the box I was never meant to fit into. My initial goal of becoming a Pharmacist was to help people and to make a lot of money—two ways of making my family proud. I could’ve stayed in school and gone further into debt to travel down a road I didn’t want to be on, but instead I got honest with myself and stripped away the needs of everyone else around me. At some point I realized it was never my dream in the first place—it was the dream of society, my parents, and my peers. This was the moment I first realised I had free will.

Your calling is sometimes a whisper, not a scream; it’s quiet, and if you aren’t paying attention, you just might miss it. 

For half a decade after dropping out of University, I followed my gut. Clearly I had no idea who I was if I was ready to lock myself into a career (and mountains of debt) that I didn’t even want. My twenties were spent exploring. I became a flight attendant, an insurance agent, a flight dispatcher. I waited tables at a local café on my off time, learning new skills and chatting with locals and tourists alike. I scored a high paying corporate job and was convinced I had made it—falling into the trap of other people's expectations once again, calling it fate. It must be fate if I’m this successful as a University drop out, right?

I had all the things we tend to strive for in the West—a good man, a high paying job, a car, and a place to live—but I was still unhappy.

Time passed and my fire started dwindling once again. Not only was I trying to fit myself into society’s box, but I was continuing down the road of alcoholism that was guiding me further from my senses, and my soul. By this time I had my second Lonely Planet Australia book collecting dust on my bookshelf.

It wasn’t until the man I loved told me he needed time alone that I felt it was time to follow my dream. I quit my corporate job and booked a one-way ticket to Australia. The whisper from my teenage years was finally becoming reality. 

Life was happening to me—my dreams were coming true, but at the same time it felt as though my life had been pulled out from underneath my own feet. I had settled so deeply into a fantasy that wasn’t mine, and then I was upset when it didn’t work out. 

I boarded the plane and left my home country on a trip that would be the beginning of a new life. 

Fate is what happens when we don’t listen to our inner voice. I had suppressed my own desires of travelling the world because I had tried to settle into a life that was never mine to begin with, more than once. 

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate — Carl Jung

We grow up in a society that convinces us it knows best. We look for guidance from external sources while simultaneously ignoring the nudges from within. There’s something to be said about conditioning and living a life untrue to us—a life serving the broken system that brings us further from ourselves to begin with. 

The trip that was initially meant to last one year and stop in Australia, is still ongoing almost a decade and multiple countries later. Throughout those years I’ve found myself in many situations that have changed the trajectory of my life. Bad relationships, accidents, police interventions, and ultimately my hospitalization that led me to sobriety. 

I was living out my fate, unconsciously, and it was a challenging one. Only when I got sober almost five years ago did I start to work towards making the unconscious conscious. When I peeled back the layers once hidden behind the need to please others, and the bottle, I was able to see myself more clearly. 

Looking back, the cards that were dealt to me were a byproduct of my own fear of listening to my inner voice. I was scared to go completely against the grain (something I now know I was built for) and I kept trying to fit inside the expectations of those around me. I ignored the initial nudge of travel and tried to find a partner to spend my life with, to find a job that would make me rich, and to blend in with the others who squashed their own dreams in fear of it not working out. 

Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if he didn’t give me the permission to leave. Would I have reached a point where I would make that decision for myself? I will never know. Maybe fate is what happens when we’re ignoring our heart.

I did make the decision to get sober, eventually. Now my life feels a lot less fated, and much more in my own control. We make decisions everyday—sometimes they bring us closer to our truest expression of self, and sometimes they take us on a little detour around the block first. The key is that we get to choose which route we take by exercising our free will. Through knowing ourselves more deeply, we can take the easier route to align with our desires.

In that time, I’ve learned more about myself and clients through the lens of astrology. We’ve all heard stories of astrologers telling the future, but the more I’ve learned about astrology, the more I’ve come to understand that our fate is not set in stone. We have the ability to work with the energies at play. If we’re asleep at the wheel (like I was), things may feel more difficult, but if we’re willing to work with the energies and dive into making the unconscious conscious like Jung suggests, we realise we’re much more in control than might’ve been taught to believe.

Thanks to Amanda and Kaitlyn for their contributions to the ongoing exploration beyond the bookshelf.

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Until next time…