The old man and the sea: between the now and the past and the future

 

The old man and the sea

It is not about a fish.

For some weird reason I felt an urge to reread this book. I read it many years ago in Arabic, I think I was 18 at the time, and I was fascinated by how Hemingway depicted that old man’s struggle with the sea, with old age, and with people’s perceptions and prejudice. I could not remember much details about the book other than a vivid image in my head (maybe from the movie not sure) of the fish skeleton hanging by the boat side.

Last month I became 45, which in my teens and early twenties I imagined that by that age I would have achieved all my dreams. Of course then my dreams- at least in my head- were plans with a lot of details, sometimes very specific details. Now I find that 18 year old boy is so strange to me, and most of his said plans are nothing but fantasies. This feeling leaves some bitterness inside me, which is what people call midlife crisis.

Santiago (by the way, spoiler alert) went on a desperate hunt, searching for a catch that will regain him the respect that he deserves, and ironically against all the odds he catches an 18 ft fish, no one ever caught something this big in his town, and everyone is astonished by his achievement and his success, except two people, him and his young assistant. I may add a third person who is not impressed by the catch, me, the reader. The fish reached the port nothing but a skeleton, not a pound of flesh on it, and therefore it will not bring him the money he dreamt about, it also cost him his health and most of his hands, so probably he will never be able to fish again. Even if it made him rich, powerful and respected as he wished, he was too old to enjoy it. As for the young boy, he loved him regardless, he believed in him and his wisdom and ability whether he caught an 18 ft fish or returned empty handed, he did not need such an achievement to change how he felt towards him.

As for me, the reader, I felt pity more than anything else. Santiago, alone in the ocean, dragged around by a dream- or a catch, not able to let go and enjoy his days, and not able to bring to the surface to celebrate, instead, the dream is deep down still dragging him away from what he has, from what he is, and in all of this, his only commiseration is his memories of the “good old days”. At some point, after a lot of struggle, he captured his prize, but life is not that simple, along came the sharks and started eating his catch, bit by bit. He stood helpless, defeated, and most importantly alone, even his memories abandoned him.

Many years ago, I felt defeated, I was chasing my dreams and one by one seeing them falling apart in front of my eyes, I saw- or imagined my soul being shattered by the realities that I could not change. The 18 ft fish that I was chasing, or I thought I was, in reality it was dragging me as far from my boat as ever, and I am lost in the ocean of life divided between memories and dreams. At that very point I decided that I will focus on the moment, live every moment as it is, enjoy the present, forget the past and what nostalgias it carries, forget the future and what hopes it promises, just live the present.

The present, as astrophysicist like to point out, does not exist, time travels through us and everything else and the “NOW” is something that happened between the past and the future, everything either in the past, or still in the future, there is no such thing as now. This is a troubling concept, but like many other scientific concepts, they are troubling because life does not confirm to what we want it to be, science is not the problem, our understanding of life is, because we often rely on our senses and how our brains interpret these senses, which is often very deceiving.

The old man, Santiago, was chasing his dreams, burdened by his past, and he was escaping the present, which does not exist. So what now? Ernest Hemingway’s answer to this was: suicide. He published The Old Man and The Sea in 1952, did not write any books afterwards till he committed suicide in 1961.

Albert Camus talked in his philosophy about the absurd; which describes the discrepancy between desire and reality. In his essay about the myth of Sisyphus he asked: does the realization of the meaningless and the absurdity of life necessarily require suicide? He argued that suicide- whether physical or spiritual- is not the answer. Cioran ridiculed the notion of suicide stating that it is often done too late, the worst has already passed.

What is the point? Seriously, you might be asking, as I am asking myself: what is the point? To this post, nothing, there is no point, I do not have an answer to offer, there is no moral of the story. The old man and the sea presented Hemingway with a dilemma, whether to live in the past, or the present, science tells us there is no present, philosophers argue that life is meaningless and absurd, so probably the only thing I can recommend is to read the book, and do not kill yourself.

 

Ahmad Baker