Coming to Terms with Impending Oblivion

“Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident. The only earthly certainty, is oblivion.” – Mark Twain

            I was once so certain I would be famous one day. That I would join the ranks of the great writers of history. But the very slim and unlikely odds of not only impressing a literary agent who receives hundreds of queries a week and only takes on two or three projects a year, but also being widely published, and then becoming wealthy and successful as a writer, are in modern times so astronomically minute, it has forced me to reassess my situation, and lower my expectations. Graduating with a Master’s in Creative Writing and then realizing just how useless this degree is in today’s society and how difficult it is to have your novels published has completely demolished my ego, along with any delusions of grandeur I once had during my innocent youth. I suppose I’ll still write my novels, and still try to get them published, even though it seems insurmountable. What else can I do? I’ve spent my whole life learning to do just that. No one told me how difficult it was going to be. But I have no other skills really, beyond writing, and I suppose drawing. I’m just not made for this world. Perhaps someone will enjoy my work. But will I become the next Stephen King, J.R.R. Tolkien or J.K. Rowling? The very idea seems laughable. A childish fantasy. No. I would probably stand a higher chance of being struck by lightning a hundred times. I’m not even being pessimistic. I am being realistic. There’s still a chance it could happen, of course, but it is a ridiculously small chance.

            So, in all likelihood, my fate is obscurity. Oblivion. For very few people to read my words. To be forgotten after I am dead. Not that I would be around to enjoy being remembered by then anyway. So perhaps it doesn’t matter. As you may have noticed, obscurity has been a recurring theme in my writing as of late. All of these “songs of the year” mixes, which have been a welcome distraction for me to write so I’m not thinking too hard about the topic this blog entry is covering, are showcases of the obscure. I have been considering the implications of obscurity a lot since I realized my entire education was nothing more than a scam designed to keep me in debt for the rest of my life. I try to give more attention to the obscure. Or to those who I presume are obscure. I tend to like something more if I think it is obscure, whether its music or literature or film. Is it due to a deep-rooted fear of being obscure myself? Do I feel that, if I enjoy and try to spread awareness of these obscure things I enjoy, I will also lift myself out of obscurity? I recently called the Oz books, for example, obscure. Not the first book, obviously, but the sequels. But, someone disagreed with me over on Facebook. After all, they’re in most libraries. The Marvel Comics adaptation of the first six books sold quite well and earned accolades. They’re a lot more famous than anything I’ve ever written, even the later books by other authors are. I however haven’t met very many people who have read or heard of them. And hadn’t read them myself until recently. Who was correct? Both of us? Neither of us?

Obscurity is a matter of perspective. Things can be famous in certain circles and obscure in others. Regardless, L. Frank Baum’s words are still remembered over a hundred years after his death. He had something to say about fame before he ever achieved fame through his books.

“When I was young I longed to write a great novel that should win me fame. Now that I am getting old my first book is written to amuse children. For aside from my evident inability to do anything "great," I have learned to regard fame as a will-o-the-wisp which, when caught, is not worth the possession; but to please a child is a sweet and lovely thing that warms one's heart and brings its own reward.”

 Personal inscription on a copy of Mother Goose in Prose (1897) which he gave to his sister, Mary Louise Baum Brewster, as quoted in The Making of the Wizard of Oz (1998) by Aljean Harmetz, p. 317
Source: https://quotepark.com/quotes/979167-l-frank-baum-i-have-learned-to-regard-fame-as-a-will-o-the-wisp/

He by that time had given up the pursuit of fame and had settled for the joy of having his works be adored by the children. But shortly thereafter, he did win fame through his books. Lightning struck a hundred times, and he became a success. Will my books be adored by anyone? I think it is a lot harder to become famous through your writing today than it was at the start of the 20^th century. There is too much competition now. Everyone’s self-publishing their books, and the traditional publishers are now extremely selective, only choosing stories to publish which they believe will make them the most money. Perhaps, unless I get extraordinarily lucky, only my descendants will remember my words. That seems to be the fate of my grandfather after all, the original Suren Oganessian, who I am named after. He lived an incredible life; he escaped a Siberian gulag camp during Stalin’s reign over the Soviet Union, and wrote a memoir about the experience. But, he is only remembered by descendants and those who knew him, by and large. My being named after him is in effect an effort to keep his memory alive, and to avoid his falling into total oblivion. It isn’t a task I asked for, but it is a task I’ve been given. He’s probably still less obscure than I am. His potential to become less obscure rests on his descendants. Quite possibly on me more than anyone else.

 Does it matter? Is it a futile effort to escape oblivion? Is fame not a vapor, as Mark Twain once said? People still know who Mark Twain was over a century after his death. Will they still know who he was in one more century? They might. In a thousand years? It may be possible, after all we still know about Greek and Roman mythology and the works of Homer, and it is reasonable to think Shakespeare will still be known a thousand years after his death if our civilization is still around, but the likelihood is diminished. In ten thousand years? Probably not. One day we will all be forgotten. It won’t matter who was famous and who wasn’t. It won’t matter who had more of these imaginary numbers we call “money”, it won’t matter who was the leader of a fictitious abstract territory called a “country”. Nothing will matter. Much less the abstract social constructs put together by this species. People who are prideful and boastful are fascinating. They are in denial over how little they matter; how irrelevant and insignificant they are. They’re deluded. It doesn’t matter how grandiose you make your tomb, you’re still going to be dead, gone, and forgotten. In ten thousand years, all the same stars will be in the sky (except maybe Betelgeuse), but we will all be gone. Except for some fossilized beer cans and other plastic and styrofoam trash, no trace of humanity’s existence. Some of the light coming from the stars in the sky right now will not reach this planet before our civilization is completely forgotten. Not even the stars themselves will last forever. Oblivion is the only certainty. Maybe our species will colonize other planets and still exist in ten thousand years, but I have my doubts that our species can survive beyond Earth. Sooner or later, humanity will go extinct. Maybe sooner. We may even live to see it. But, people have been saying “the end is near” since the beginning of history, so maybe not.

            This is a painting I did about a couple years ago, titled “Obscurity”. Charlie Chaplin against the background of fading, degrading film. I was going to sell it once, but no one bought it, so it still hangs in my bedroom. People still remember Charlie Chaplin, even if they haven’t necessarily watched his films. I’ve seen pretty much all of them myself. They are freely available to watch if anyone is interested in such old films. He’s famous, and iconic. But for how much longer will he be famous? A finite time. There will come a day where no one remembers Charlie Chaplin. It has already happened to numerous stars of the silent movie era. Most of the films from that age were discarded, destroyed or lost. No one remembers them. Oblivion will happen to some sooner than others, but it will eventually happen to everyone. Nearly every human being ever born has been forgotten by history. There are over seven billion people on this planet. Ever stop to think about how big of a number that is? And how many of those people have achieved fame?

Look at the pyramids of Egypt. The pharaohs who they were built for are remembered by name, and perhaps by some surviving artwork. The people who actually built the pyramids stone by stone have been long forgotten. One day the pharaohs will be forgotten too. One day the pyramids will be destroyed, even if it takes until the sun expands into a Red Giant and absorbs Earth, but probably much earlier than that. I may join the ranks of the anonymous builders of the pyramids. I am just a miniscule speck. Here and gone in an instant. One of over seven billion of my species, spinning endlessly on a speck of a planet, one of untold trillions in the galaxy, orbiting one of an unimaginable number of stars in the galaxy, within an untold number of galaxies in the universe. Am I significant, or insignificant? What even is significance? A manmade concept. Just like ego, and pride. Meaningless in the face of the vastness of the cosmos. Not even significance itself is significant. When I write, my consciousness screams into the black void and hope my thoughts reach another consciousness. Like NASA’s and SETI’s attempts to beam signals into space in hopes that another civilization will pick them up. Like the Voyager space probe, carrying a golden record with information on it that, even if by some astronomical chance it was recovered by an alien civilization, is unlikely to be understood and decoded.  Humanity’s scream into the void.

But there are counter-arguments to existential nihilism, which is the philosophy I have been most heavily leaning toward in recent years. Nietzsche, the most famous nihilist, even posited that nihilism is something to be overcome on a societal level; that it is only after it is overcome that a culture can have a true foundation upon which to thrive. It is rather a stumbling block, a hurdle to overcome on your way to higher thinking. The only counterargument that I have heard against existential nihlism which I consider to carry any weight though is that, we, as humans who have a unique ability to observe and comprehend the universe, are among the most significant beings in the universe, as we have a unique ability to give the universe meaning. We may not be, and probably aren’t, the only lifeforms in the cosmos with the ability to comprehend reality, but as lifeforms who have reached this plateau, we represent the universe becoming self-aware. We are the universe observing itself. We are not separate from the universe. We are a part of the universe. We are the universe. The universe has developed a brain, and we are that brain. If the stars themselves have consciousness, which is a theory that I like to believe is true, then it must completely dwarf our own, but, we still have something amazing in our consciousness and ability to observe. 

Life itself is amazing. We are not the same as the rocks. Even a single-celled organism is a higher being than a rock; if of course, the idea of something being “higher” than something else has any objective merit at all, which it may not. But most lifeforms go about their daily business without giving much of a thought about the world around them. Their main concern is eating, sleeping, and reproducing. If they do have thoughts beyond that, perhaps they have no way of communicating them with us. Perhaps somewhere at some time a dog has looked up to the stars and wondered what they were, but we have no way of knowing that it ever happened. Perhaps some extinct species on Earth which we have no idea about reached the same level of consciousness that we have. What we do know is that human beings are moving beyond being motivated by mere instincts. They are thinking beyond the planet on which they live, and comprehending reality, or at least they are beginning to comprehend it. We haven’t overcome our instincts yet, and still have a ways to go before we can completely divorce ourselves from it. This is what philosophies and religions such as Buddhism strive to achieve. To separate ones self from possessions and attachments in order to minimalize suffering and reach a higher consciousness without distractions. The fictional Jedi order from the Star Wars series strives for this in their philosophy. I don’t think I’m quite ready to be a Buddhist or a Jedi, at least not yet. I still enjoy my possessions. I can’t quite disconnect myself from everyday life in that way yet. But I think I am starting to see the reasoning and rationale behind their beliefs. It is an open question whether humanity will destroy themselves before getting much further and achieving some sort of nirvana, but if they can avoid self-destruction, humans may evolve into an even higher level of consciousness. And the chances are something like this has already happened somewhere in the universe.

I suppose that’s all I really have to say about the subject of oblivion. The conflict of whether or not life has meaning hasn’t been resolved in my mind, and likely won’t be for some time, if ever. I do not relish returning to the everyday trivialities of our society when I finish writing this, with its obsessions with that which is insignificant and fabricated. It is an unpleasant fantasy. But what else can I do? Such a strange thing, to be alive. People so rarely stop to think about it.