In the last two years of his life, embittered and paranoid, Jean-Jacques Rousseau embarked on a writing project for himself alone: ten essays that record the thoughts that occurred to him as he strolled through the outskirts of Paris, Reveries of the Solitary Walker. There is no evidence that he ever intended to publish the Reveries, and it would have been paradoxical to do so, given their explicit credo:
Everything outside of me is from this day on foreign to me. I no longer have any neighbours, fellow men or brothers in this world. Being on this earth is like being on another planet onto which I have fallen from the one on which I used to live.
Rousseau blames his estrangement on others:
The most sociable and loving of human beings has by common consent been banished by the rest of society. In the refinement of their hatred they have continued to seek out the cruellest forms of torture for my sensitive soul, and they have brutally severed all the ties which bound me to them.
But his ego is unbowed. “After perhaps the most ardent and sincere research that has ever been undertaken by any mortal,” he reflects with characteristic understatement, “I made up my mind for the rest of my life about all the opinions that it was important for me to have”—opinions to which Rousseau is determined to “hold fast” even as, “[sunk] in weariness and increasing heaviness of mind, I have forgotten even the arguments on which I based [them].”
Does Rousseau, the “most sociable and loving of human beings,” miss human company? Far from it! On his solitary walks, he finds his soul in a state “where time is nothing to it … happy, not with an imperfect, poor, and relative happiness, such as one finds in the pleasures of life, but with a sufficient, perfect, and full happiness, which leaves in the soul no void needing to be filled.”
“What does one enjoy in such a situation?” Rousseau asks.
Nothing external to the self, nothing but oneself and one’s own existence: as long as this state lasts, one is self-sufficient like God.
I hesitate, after that preamble, to admit that I identify with Rousseau. Not with the bit about divinity, which shows more of that trademark reserve; not even with his sense that “the present lasts for ever,” though I think there may be wisdom in it.
Where I am at one with Rousseau is in the aspiration to self-sufficiency as an author. I’ve wondered here, more than once, why I write these little essays every week or two. There is no denying that I want them to be read: I am writing for you, whomever you may be. But there are more navel-gazing reasons.
One is to try out thoughts, in the spirit of the essay’s etymology—first efforts saved for later revision. But the self-address of the journal entry need not solicit second thoughts. Like Rousseau, we may have forgotten the argument and need a quick reminder. We may see no need for revision, like A. J. Ayer, who began a mythical lecture, “Second Thoughts on Existentialism”—I can’t confirm its authenticity—with the disarming sentence, “My second thoughts on existentialism … are the same as my first.”
But self-address can play a different role, one Rousseau articulates when he insists that he is writing “entirely for myself”:
If, as I hope, I have the same cast of mind when I am very old and as the moment of my departure approaches, reading [these reveries] will remind me of the pleasure I have in writing them and, by thus reviving the past for me, will double my existence, so to speak. In spite of men I shall still be able to enjoy the delights of company, and, grown decrepit, I shall live with myself in another age, as if living with a younger friend.
Even if you do not live in exile, utterly alone, you may be drawn to this self-doubling: your relation to yourself when you peruse forgotten pages of a journal kept by a forgotten you, uncanny but not unpleasant, addressed by the inverse of a ghost—not a spiritual body that outlives you but a spirit you’ve outlived.
That’s part of the point of what I’m doing now. I hope the audience of these words is me, aged 65 or 85, reading them with surprise, or condescension, or delight, agreement or dissent, like the contents of a time capsule buried on a whim in a back yard.
If you are looking for a reason to keep a journal, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s is as good as any, and better than most.
This is a fantastic piece. I really enjoyed it. I especially appreciate the line about the inverse of a ghost…a spirit you’ve left behind. Gorgeous.
The Buddhist thinker Śāntideva begins his masterwork by saying "Nothing new is said here, nor do I have skill at putting to together. Therefore I don't think of it for the purpose of others; I have done it to perfume my own mind. It helps increase my inclination to be good. If another with the same humours as me sees it, it could be useful."
What he's expressing feels very familiar to me, and it sounds like it's familiar to you too. When people express surprise at how often I write on my blog, I tell them it's just the tip of the iceberg: there are many, many journals that I don't expect anyone to see. Most of my writing is for me and me alone. If I somehow happen to get famous enough that people care about my unpublished writing, I can share it and they'll have tens of thousands of pages to work with. But that's not the point.