The One Thing Me and Sartre Have in Common
Existentialism, MLK, and the keys I can't stop losing
NOTE: Immediately after recording the audio for this essay, I discovered I was pronouncing Sartre’s name incorrectly. I ultimately decided not to re-record it for a very important reason, and that is that I didn’t want to, and also he’s dead, and also I bet he doesn’t know how to pronounce my name. So that’s that.
Despite my best efforts, I don’t make a very good existentialist.
Sure, I think a lot about the nature of existence and the purpose of life. I love a little human absurdity now and then. I even experience my share of anxiety, though it’s usually less of the “what if all of this is meaningless” variety and more of the “what if that random stranger at the cafe thought I was being rude when I wasn’t and they spend the rest of their life thinking the tall American in the baseball cap was a jerk” variety.
But no, the reason I don’t make a very good existentialist is that I’m a bit too utilitarian. As soon as a branch of philosophy starts feeling like it’s getting in the way of, you know, actually going out and enjoying life while helping other people enjoy theirs, it tends to lose me.
After reading a fair deal of writing by and about the existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, I find myself respecting his work quite a lot while relating to him very little. He was also, by some metrics, not an awesome dude — funny how someone can spend their whole life thinking about the meaning of life and miss the whole “treating people well” part of it.
But there’s one thing about Sartre that connects with me on a profound, deeply personal level.
The dude did not take care of his stuff.
Here’s Sartre in 1939, writing about money and possessions:
I feel money as an abstract and fugitive power; I like to see it vanish into smoke, and feel out of my element faced with the objects it procures… For ten years, all that I’ve had of my own has been my pipe and my fountain-pen. And I’m profligate even with these objects: I lose pens and pipes; I don’t grow attached to them; they’re exiles in my hands.
There is perhaps no better way of describing my relation to the things I own than that last phrase: “they’re exiles in my hands.”
I lose and misplace things constantly. My keys, my phone, my wallet, my earbuds. I never leave the house just once — I always have to return seconds later, having realized that I forgot something essential.
When it comes to the things that are more difficult to lose, I’m “profligate even with these objects.” I know that I should care about our family car. I know that if I rinse off after visiting the beach (which happens daily), I won’t fill it with sand that will get in every crack and crevice. I know my commuter bike will last longer if I regularly oil the chain. I know that using my laptop on a windswept beach dune is a surefire way to get sand and salt into every last opening and port and key. I know jumping off a cliff into a lake with my watch on is a bad idea.
I just can never quite get myself to feel any of those things. I break sunglasses constantly, to the point that I never spend more than $15 on a pair because I know I’m basically renting them until they’re claimed by my backpack squishing them, or my 9-month-old chewing on them, or any number of other tragic fates.
And what does all of this say about me, or Sartre, on an individual level? Well… not a lot. I don’t tend to psychoanalyze what can often be explained by simple genetic quirks or background experiences. The part of my brain for remembering and caring for my stuff is a little underdeveloped. Who knows why. It doesn’t tell me much about myself.
But when it comes to how we as a human race value our stuff, and how often we remember where we put that stuff in the arrangement of our lives and societies — well, that might matter a whole lot more.
So let’s talk about another famous figure, one who — when it comes to actual doing things — blows Sartre out of the water.
Let’s talk about MLK.
One of the most fascinating things about Martin Luther King, Jr., one of history’s great figures in the fight for justice and against human suffering, was the way that he connected racism and materialism in much of his writing and speaking.
King referred to the “triple prong sickness…of racism, excessive materialism, and militarism.” Referring to all three as a collective “it,” he said:
Not only is this our nation’s dilemma, it is the plague of western civilization.
To our very capitalist sensibilities, this seems a little odd, doesn’t it? Arguably the greatest civil rights advocate in American history, an icon indivisible from the history of society’s battle with racism, equating racial hatred with materialism?
Is loving our stuff really as bad as hating a person? Surely not.
Right?
But King understood something that I would bet even Sartre didn’t. Sartre’s quote was just him being pithy, maybe even self-aggrandizing. “I’m so existentialist and philosophical that I don’t even care about where I put my pen.”
King wasn’t being clever. And I don’t think he was exaggerating. Racism and materialism really do go hand in hand.
All of those evils are about what we value. Racism is about a failure to value our fellow human beings. The other two, materialism and militarism, are about overvaluing things that we shouldn’t.
This is not me saying that by virtue of the fact that I don’t take care of my computer or my car, I’m an incredible person on the level of Martin Luther King, Jr. (That would be a hilarious leap to make, though.) I’m more of a Sartre, and a poor one at that. I write a lot about what’s important while often failing to actually do it.
And I guess, on an individual level, we should take care of our stuff. From a utilitarian perspective, it simply means our stuff will last longer.
But what if we, on a societal level, felt a little less attached to our things? If we tied up less of our value in property ownership, in conspicuous consumption, in the brand of water bottle we bring to the gym with us or the logo on our shorts?
When you love one thing less, you have room to love something else more. It’s just mathematics. What is that thing which you might be empowered to love? Maybe it’s the people around you. Maybe it’s the planet, that same planet which our materialism is slowly choking to death. Maybe it’s the very life you lead. Because I can tell you this — the more I’m thinking about what I have and what I don’t, the less I’m appreciating this beautiful, miraculous life I get to lead.
It’s simple. Love things less, there’s more love leftover for people and planet.
MLK was onto something. Sartre and me? We just lose our pens a lot.
Questions for the Comments
Are you a fellow person for whom your things are “exiles in [your] hands”? What’s your best story of losing/forgetting something important?
How do you strike the balance between living in a world where we have to make money and buy stuff and not overvaluing that money or that stuff?
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My wife slipstreams on your articles with a mixture of pleasure and awe at your insights. She too is an American living in Australia - well maybe only fifty-five years. And she is also a musician, a composer. On the subject of misplacing things, she added, ‘Well of course - he’s a musician! Our dominant sensory mode of perceiving the world is hearing, not seeing.’ She can look at the same scene I do and literally not see the keys (diary, glasses, whatever) sitting in plain sight. But is the landscape, its a completely different matter - she sees patterns, relationships and objects that seem hidden from mere mortals. It used to be a bone of contention with us in the household, as I am very visual, but eventually I realised it's not a deal breaker - it just is. So perhaps not all about materialism etc but also about sensory issues.
Just a thought. Thanks for your beautiful writing!