Rousseau's Last Tour

This was a strange comfort to me these last few weeks. Actually, more than a few weeks. I began this book at the beginning of the year, and put it aside as I realized that I was reading not a fictional account of a life, but the very true thoughts of a writer who has put his fingerprints over much of what I know of French thought in that era.

Take your pick: 'The Social Contract'; 'The Confessions'; 'The Dialogues'. I myself have only dipped into the above works without a serious reading of the ideas and arguments behind them. But his 'Reveries of the Solitary Walker' is a book that came to me at the perfect time in life.

Rousseau lived a life of controversies, friendships, enemies, and exile. This particular book - a collection of ten 'walks' - came to him at the end of his life, so you feel just how wistful and remorseful the author feels as you see his inner world laid bare. He had spent much of his life in exile over his beliefs and writings critiquing the behaviour of authorities both in government and in the church, moving from various regions until finally settling in a small apartment and copywriting music for a living until he was invited to live on an palatial estate where he died in 1778. It must have been difficult for someone who had become famous and respected in many quarters of Europe to accept the patronage of another man – the Marquis of Girardin – in order to finish his final book. I would not be too happy to be chased around my country and various cities because of my thoughts and arguments just to settle in under the protection of someone with money and a curiosity in my scribbling that was only based on my reputation. Instead, I would prefer to face the slings and arrows out there and take my chances with my own strengths and weaknesses. And this is one of many reasons why Rousseau’s thoughts struck me as he finished this last book.

This struck me very hard (From the Fourth Walk):

“When I am obliged to talk and interesting truths do not spring to mind readily enough, I invent stories rather than keep quiet, but in making up these stories I am careful as far as possible to avoid lies which would go against justice and the truth we owe to others, and to keep to fictions which are a matter of equal indifference to myself and others.”

Have I ever read a better description of my own process when it comes to creating stories on the page, or when sharing them with friends, students and colleagues (they lend me their ears)? I often wonder why I bother with all this work, and then I become aware that there is only the Vocal world staring down at this particular screen, not the wider world where there are too many distractions to keep anyone from truly caring about my thoughts. The stories will come, and I will have no fear.

And it gets better (From the First Walk):

“Actual misfortunes have little effect on me; it is easy for me to accept those which I suffer in reality, but not those which I fear. My fevered imagination builds them up, works on them, magnifies them and inspects them from every angle. They are far more of a torment to me imminent than present; the threat is far worse than the blow. As soon as they happen, they lose all the terrors lent to them by imagination and appear in their true size. I find them far less formidable than I had feared, and even in the midst of my suffering I feel a sort of relief. In this state, freed from all further fear and from the anxieties of hope, I shall learn from mere habit to accept every more easily a situation which can grow no worse; and as my awareness of it is dulled by time they can find no further way of reviving it.”

A long quote that is full of a wisdom that you can only gain after a long series of bad experiences and difficult encounters.

Rousseau was at a very difficult moment in his life when he compiled these thoughts, and it would have been easy for him to look back on his life as one of failure, despite any literary success (he was forced to leave different cities and countries due to his thoughts and opinions, at one point having one of his homes stoned by a mob that was egged on by a government minister).

And then, near the end (From the Ninth Walk):

“[I]f my pleasures are brief and few in number, it is also true that when they come they give me an intenser enjoyment than if I were more used to them. I ruminate on them so to speak, turning them over frequently in my memory, and few as they are, if they were pure and unmixed, they would perhaps make me happier than in my days of prosperity. In extreme poverty a little is enough to make one rich; a beggar is gladder to find one gold coin than a rich man to find a purse full of money. People would laugh if they could see how my soul is affected by the slightest pleasures of this kind, when I can conceal them from the vigilance of my persecutors.”

And that is the great lesson here that we all need to know in our darkest moments: enjoy what you have and expect the world to not be on your side as you experience this epiphany. These are the thoughts of a wise man with wisdom that had to be hard won. I would consider this to be required reading for all of us as we age, grow, and realize that life has its unfairness, but also its fleeting joys and wondrous moments.

Read Rousseau from any particular starting point, and I am sure that you will appreciate and love the arguments and beliefs as he struggled and lived a true life.

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You can find more poems, stories, and articles by Kendall Defoe on my Vocal profile. I complain, argue, provoke and create...just like everybody else.

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