A post today on Ricochet references one of my favorite authors, and one of his comments on Hell. The author is C.S. Lewis, and the quote (from The Screwtape Letters) is
We must picture Hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment–C.S. Lewis
Many years ago, I wrote a post on Ricochet, and reposted it here, on my favorite Lewis quote concerning Hell. It’s from The Problem of Pain, and is
The doors of Hell are locked on the inside.
I don’t know if I’d have understood it so well, had I not just encountered a person in my life who–in the words of Lewis’s other quote–lives in a world of “grievance” and the “deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment.”
But I had just encountered such a clarifying moment.
So I did. I understood exactly how my friend had locked himself inside such a world, and how, and why, he couldn’t escape.
It takes real bravery to escape. Bravery that stems from intestinal fortitude, a type of bravery my friend doesn’t seem to have. And so he swirls around from day to day, alternating between eternal “grievance,” destructive “envy,” an overweening sense of “self-importance,” and, above all, crushing “resentment” for a world of people he doesn’t even know, but who he thinks are unworthy of his sacrifices and who don’t appreciate what he believes are his unique talents.
Hey. I have unique talents too. (I don’t speak to sacrifices and trauma, although I’ve had my share of those also.) You have no idea. My dogs, my cats, my chickens, and my sheep appreciate them. My family and my friends love me. And–really–I don’t require the adulation of Twitterworld or the Blogosphere (you guys and gals who read my posts and occasionally like or comment here–I’m crazy about you, thank you!), and I’m happy in my small ecosystem.
Perhaps one day, my friend will get over his savior complex and reengage with what’s important–his family, his true friends, and a bit of sanity. I pray that for him. Wouldn’t you? For a friend of yours?
Nobody deserves to lock himself in that sort of Hell. No matter how little he thinks of himself.
Here’s the original post:
Eight days after I began work there, as the organization’s first staff member dedicated to supporting its personal computer users, the unionized employees at my local community hospital went on strike. It was February 1, 1990.
Early that morning, as instructed, I drove across a picket line for the first time in my life, showing up for work in blue jeans, a T-shirt, and sneakers. I was handed a mop and bucket, and along with several dozen others, I suffered through a fifteen-minute in-service on the “right way” to clean a patient’s room. Then I was put in charge of a housekeeper’s cart and I spent the next 57 days scrubbing up the Labor and Delivery Unit. This was in the days before the hotel-like “birthing rooms,” where family members gather and watch Mom in extremis, surrounded by flowers, floofy bedding, snack trays, and piped-in music. This was in the days when Mom was wheeled off to the “delivery room” to have the baby, into a forbidding and sterile environment with four gurneys in each room (the hospital had two of these rooms), klieg lights overhead, lots of sharp-edged stainless steel, with no rounded corners on anything, and not a bit of floofery in sight. The floor of each of these delivery rooms was, I can testify, having mopped each of them twice a day (and more, in the case of messy emergencies) for almost two months, about the same square footage as that of an NFL football field.
I enjoyed my time in housekeeping, actually (perhaps mostly because I knew it would not be my life’s work). I got plenty of exercise, and I got to know a side of hospital operations that folks who work in non-patient care areas rarely see. Because I was new to the organization, and because it was a welcoming place, I made lots of friends very quickly. Meals and breaks in the cafeteria (which was also affected by the strike, and where the cooking and serving were also done–during the strike–by non-unionized staff) were social occasions and the source of much dark humor and enjoyment of our mutual plight. On about my third day into my housekeeping ordeal, I was on my break and eating one of the cafeteria specialties–it might have been the “mile-high hot dog,” or perhaps it was the “frizzled jumbo” sandwich–when a group of men passed by. “Who is she?” asked the one who seemed to be in a position of authority and who’d obviously spotted a newcomer. One of the other men explained, and the group came over and sat down with me and introduced themselves. That’s how I met Gene Strosser, the hospital’s CEO. It was that sort of place.
One of the first real friends I made at my new workplace was Marion, the Director of Instructional Media. I expect she and I bonded so quickly because she, like me, worked in a technology-dependent field, and because there were not, at that time, many “power users” of such, at this little hospital I came to love.
Marion, considerably older than me, and in less robust health, had been spared the more physically demanding jobs (housekeeping, maintenance, garbage collection, etc.) and had been assigned during the strike as a clerk in the Medical Records department. (I always figured this was down to the fact that Marion had, in a previous life, managed to pick up a PhD in mathematics, and that the powers-that-were who placed salaried staff in union positions during the strike assumed from this that she could reliably file things in alphabetical order, and that she knew how to count beyond ten without taking her shoes and socks off.) She was, in all aspects of her work and life, a very good egg, and she and I remained firm friends for the twenty years we worked together.
Once I got to know her, I realized that Marion, who could be a bit prickly and off-putting around strangers, had a quiet and rather mordant wit. A month or two after the strike ended, she and I were struggling through a PageMaker upgrade together, and she remarked to me that more than anything else, her experiences during the strike had caused her to lose her fear of death. “Oh, and why is that?” I asked.
“Well,” she said. “I’ve always figured that after I died, I’d be sent straight to Hell, and that was pretty frightening. But the thought of being in Hell doesn’t scare me anymore. Not after I’ve been in Medical Records.”
C.S. Lewis devotes an entire chapter in The Problem of Pain to the nature and meaning of Hell, and why the Christian doctrine of Hell is just and moral. His concept of how Hell works is quite different from that so flippantly expressed by my friend Marion. (Although Marion’s view of the matter is not uncommon–that Hell is a place, similar in lots of ways to other human places–just more horrible, rather like Medical Records in fact–into which one is consigned by an all-powerful Deity, after having lived a unChristian and unrepentant life. Consignment to Hell, many believe, is something that God does to one, after one has shown oneself unworthy of Heaven.)
Lewis believes (I think) that consignment to Hell is something one does to oneself through one’s choices in life, a result of one’s free will, and of what he calls “successful rebellion” against God. In his spare, elegant prose, he makes the case that Hell is nothing like a hellish and perverse mirror of human life on earth, full of screaming and tortured people, because there is nothing remotely human about it at all. People who end up in Hell are there, he believes, because they have turned away from both their own humanity and that of others. (I think Lewis is defying any notion that “Hell is other people,” and explicitly saying that Hell is the absence of other people and humanity in one’s life. Because by rejecting humanity, one rejects God.) Such people have made themselves inhuman outcasts, and they have chosen Hell for themselves. God’s part in this process and its outcome, Lewis believes, ends when He gives us the freedom to reject Him, and to condemn ourselves to everlasting Hell. (Lewis also has a fascinating bit of discourse on the time-space continuum and the physical world, at this point in his story).
This is a portion of what he says:
I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of Hell are locked on the inside . . . they enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved: just as the blessed, forever submitting to obedience, become through all eternity more and more free.
In the long run the answer to all those who object to the doctrine of Hell, is itself a question: ‘What are you asking God to do?’ To wipe out their past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? But He has done so, on Calvary. To forgive them? They will not be forgiven. To leave them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is what he does.
God is comfortable enough with his own omniscience that He empowers us to make our choice, without His interference. And we do. And the chips, as they say, fall where they may.
I first read parts of The Problem of Pain when I was in college, and, more than anything else, the phrase “the doors of Hell are locked on the inside,” has stuck with me. I find it to be such a powerful metaphor, not only for those of us (and Lewis makes it clear it might apply to any of us) who intransigently reject God and our own humanity, and who are determinedly condemning ourselves to eternal damnation, but also as an object lesson for some of the lesser trials and tribulations of my own daily life. There have been times (more than I can count; probably not more than Marion could count), that I’ve made myself thoroughly miserable trying to solve the unsolvable or fix the unfixable, or when I’ve found myself alone with destructive and hellish thoughts whirling around inside my head, as if in a maze with no exit. That’s when it’s helpful to remind myself that I do have a choice. That no useful purpose is served by making myself miserable. That I might be making things worse for myself by trying to handle everything on my own. That there are other people in the world. That perhaps I should, metaphorically, open a door inside my head and let some light in. That I might, if I’m feeling especially brave, try sticking my head through it (a clever trick that would be), and having a look round outside to see if there is anyone close by, made in the image of God, who might offer me a hand. Amazingly, there almost always is someone. Equally amazingly, when I do that, when I grab hold of that hand, when I reconnect with humanity, mine and someone else’s, I almost always feel better, and my problems very often become much more bearable. And I exit the temporary Hell I made for myself.
In every instance, small or large, it starts with a choice. And if I make what I think is the right choice, the human choice, it gets easier from there. At least, I think so. What do you think? Do you agree with Lewis? Or do you believe in, or approach the matter, differently?
Earlier today, I commented on the Ricochet post I referenced above (which is still behind the paywall, I’ll post a link if it makes it to the main feed so it’s available on the public Internet) as follows:
One of Lewis’s memorable quotes on the matter of Hell. I think my all-time favorite (thematically consistent with the one in the OP, but this one is from The Problem of Pain) is “the doors of Hell are locked on the inside.”
All those I’ve known (and I’ve known a few) who have allowed themselves to be consumed by “grievance” and by the “deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment” have locked themselves inside a Hell of their own making, one from which they can escape only by daring to take the key that they discover within themselves, fitting it into the lock, turning it, opening the door, and stepping outside.
There is no other exit.
I believe that. And I hope that one day, before it’s too late, my stalking friend–who keeps signing up for Ricochet under different names (he’s shown up there under at least five different names in the last two months, although he was banned more than five years ago now, so perhaps you get the idea), and who keeps posting idiotic shit about me** there and on a few other sites–will take such a dare and will begin, quietly, to sort himself out without continually referencing some fatuous and imagined ongoing grievance against yours truly.
I expect his family would love that. They’d probably love to have their father, husband, brother and son back without “grievance, ” “envy,” “self-importance,” and “resentment.”
I can’t help him.
Time for him to help himself. (Perhaps one or two of his small company of remaining soi-disant “friends” could give him a kick in the pants and suggest that he stop signing up for Ricochet and beclowning himself, time after time in front of people who’ve already got his number? I’m not optimistic, because I know those loons, J_C, N_P, and H. Anyone else? Not really. Everyone else who knows him at all has abandoned him as well. Life’s just too goddamn short.)
Otherwise, I don’t expect he’d be regularly complaining on Twitter that no-one is viewing or responding to his posts. LOL. What did he expect?
Still. For his benefit, as a person I once considered a friend, I can hope.
As I do.
PS: I’m fully aware that–when it comes to the view of a narcissist–recognition of his existence is the equivalent of endorsement and validation.
What does it say about me that I don’t care, when it comes to someone I once considered a friend.
I do not care what he thinks of me. Or if he, or his half-baked, moronic, “friends” want to make something of it.
He’s a human being. He’s deeply flawed. He has a wife, children, siblings, and a parent still living. He’s ignored, abandoned, and disgraced them all. What he’s done to his loyal, truth-telling friends along the way beggars belief.
I hope, one day, he fully re-engages with all of them. Whether or not I am a part of his life at that point doesn’t matter. It’s about him, and about them. Not about me.
My life–absent my former friend and the china shop he brings with him wherever he goes–is just fine, thanks very much. I don’t need the drama. Or the lies. Did I mention, life is just too goddamn short?
That is the difference between me, and the rest of nitwits on the Internet–all two or three of them–who are still trying to resolve their own misery and make themselves feel better in their own lives by owning his soul.
It’s pretty simple: For someone to pretend to knowledge of another’s soul, first–one has to have a soul of one’s own.
Good luck with that, you few.
**And now, FTR:
The whole “She tried to castrate me” shit:
From sometime this past April:
First off. I’m a farm girl. I have all the equipment, and I have the knowledge. If I’d ever tried to castrate this bastard, I’d not have failed. And certainly not twice, as he has repeatedly claimed. What a twit. He’s claiming this–as recently as today, July 23, 2024–on Twitter. I don’t resent his idiotic claim, which–I suppose–results from mental incapacity–honestly, when it comes to his denutting, he’s mostly done it to himself, and perhaps he’s insecure as a result. I do, however, resent his implication of my incompetence. LOL. Trust me. I’d not have failed.
Then there is his other ridiculous attempt to gain credence, shown here without attribution, but from only eleven days ago (July 12, 2024) during one of his recent attempt to curry favor on Ricochet:
I do remember being in Thailand in early July of 2018. I do remember one of the girls you paid for sex (what was the deal? something like $1K USD a month you offered her to “keep house” for you and service your needs) phoning you up and saying that her father was in the hospital and in desperate need of blood.
I remember agreeing to go to the hospital with you, and my being willing to donate blood for a stranger in a foreign country, merely on the basis of your vouching for the girl.
As it turned out, they decided not to take my blood donation (which–in the US–is highly regarded as “clean” and O-negative, and is regularly sent to neonatal units for babies) because I was a foreigner and marginally over the age limit for walk-ins and they didn’t have my records on tap. You–who were also too “old” slid by because you had a Thai person (your prostitute, and the daughter of a patient)–to vouch for you.
LOL.
What I suspect most people reading your comment on Ricochet took from it was something on the order of:
WTF: This woman (me, myself) was willing to get on the back of a motorcycle, travel to a hospital, and donate blood, in a foreign country, to a stranger, simply on the basis of your say so, and now, you are pretending that she was some sort devil??? WTF???? You asshole!! LOL!!!
Yeah. Actually a few of my fellow Ricochet members told me that’s exactly the message they took from your abortive attempt to shame and disgrace me. Jesus. I can’t tell you how many folks have expressed amazement to me that a person such as yourself must have, at some point in the past, been charged with making extraordinarily meaningful and responsible decisions, sometimes for hundreds of men and in the face of the enemy during a time of war. I used to defend and try to explain. I don’t bother, so much, anymore.
As for the rest of it: When we met your girlfriend’s dad, he was considerably recovered, quite chatty, and not at death’s door at all. You expressed an intention to shout a holy roller prayer over a Buddhist family (not commenting on the inappropriateness of that at all), and she (who–never forget–was dependent on you at the time for her livelihood) agreed. Thereupon, you threw me out of the room, and I had to wait in the hallway. So I never actually “saw” or “heard” your prayer over a “dying man” in that hospital at all. So maybe you could just lay off your shit in that regard? Or, perhaps you could decide to tell the truth? (As if.)
What an utter “Captain Shithead” (as the late Mr. Right might have put it) you are.
I do know that the gentleman in question continued in his already well-under-way recovery, because your girlfriend and I had a bit of a subsequent chat about it. She was a nice lady. Much too good for you, methinks.
I suspect you thought so too. Because you forbade her to talk to me any more. She told me. Yeah. I have that on record as well. Good job! Free Speech! Constitution! God Bless America!
Why on earth you should think that what you do matters to me, five, six, seven years on, beggars belief. My only interest these days is to clarify the record when you insist on involving my friends or my family in your lies. Thank God they don’t much care about what you think anymore either, because they’ve got your number as well.
If the day ever comes when you decide to open the door and exit the Hell you’ve made for yourself, give me a call. I might be happy–with proper documentation and as a matter of public record–to accept your apology.
Otherwise, no, thanks.
