On Sunday afternoon I was in good health and as far as I know had no severe problems and yet I suddenly felt very sad out of nowhere. It happens to everyone sometimes, but instead of sitting out the storm or doing something useful like cleaning, exercising, or doing my tax return, I started digging. Where did this feeling come from? Was there something going on that I didn’t realize yet but could already feel?
I got over what I went through last week, and let the moments pass through my fingers like Rolodex cards, but I couldn’t find a compelling reason for this slump. Then the phone rang, thank God.
“I have a new hearing aid with which I can now make phone calls using Bluetooth!” Uncle Karel growled (very old) in my ear. “How is it there?”
When I explained to him that I suffered from an inability to track emotions, he laughed at me.
“Seneca!” he won. He once wrote something interesting about the difference between the Romans and the Etruscans, based on how they viewed lightning. The Romans thought it was caused by two clouds accidentally colliding with each other, the Etruscans believed that the gods caused the clouds to collide so that subsequent lightning could teach mankind something In other words, the Romans believed that sometimes things happen that meant nothing, while the Etruscans saw everything as a sign of providence.You assume you feel frustrated that something is happening, but as for money itself, it’s just a mood that comes out of nowhere. And you’re done. I won’t look at the Etruscans either on your nerves. After all, the Etruscans are not the winners of history. “
This thought almost killed me for the day, until it dawned on me, as soon as I fell into bed, that Roman civilization, too, had finally fallen in a less than ceremonial way. Well, I thought, who cares. Finding an occasion that explains your feelings but doesn’t cancel them out, you still have to go through it.
I stared at the ceiling and remembered what my old biology teacher used to say, that evolution isn’t about making species happier, it’s about survival. And so I lay safely and a little furiously under the covers.
Watch me go, I thought, my lips trembling. Watch me alive.
Ellen Dikowitz Here he writes an exchange column with Marcel van Roosmalen.
A version of this article also appeared in the March 28, 2023 newspaper
