The Maltese Manuscript (LSD, #6)

2. Paranoid

Paranoid

"Primarily, before I tell you what's in the book, I'll tell you why I wrote it. I told you I'm a poet, didn't I?"

"You did." Just «yes» or «no» doesn't answer Malik's strange questions, but I hope I've found a way to bend the language into a communication tool.

"I knew a very intelligent man, an engineer. Enthusiastically, he worked at home, making drawings, plans, designs. He worked hard. He never went out. His work was the only thing he had time for. One day, I asked him what he was doing. Cryptically, he answered: «I'm designing tools.» I asked him about the purpose of those tools. He answered: «I need them to make machines.» I asked him what these machines produced. He answered: «They produce robots.» I asked him why he needed those robots. He answered: «These robots make the tools I need to build the machines that produce more and better robots, of course.» I'm not an engineer, but I tried to imagine what the world would look like if this man finished his job: we would have shiploads of tools, machines, and robots that only would produce more tools, more machines, and more robots. Eventually, the result of this process would be an iron deficiency, and a surplus of useless tools, machines, and robots. The engineer found that reason enough to work hard, every day, even on the weekends. I, on the other hand, had a reason to doubt my own existence.

» Artistically, I asked myself the same questions I asked the engineer. His work was to design machines. My work was to write poems. Why? Because I'm a poet. What do I achieve by writing poetry? I strive to create beauty, with words. Why do I want to create beauty? Because I'm a poet. It made little sense. Literally, I spent my whole life filling pieces of paper with letters. At the end of my time, all those letters are used to make useless words. Nobody's doing anything with those tools, those machines and those robots the engineer invented, just looking at them and wasting time. Nobody's doing anything with all those poems I wrote, just looking at them and wasting time. What's our goal in life? We want to do great things. I was doing useless things. I wanted to give meaning to my life. Purposefully, I wanted to do great things, but... what?

» And then, Socratically, I saw the bigger picture: humanity. We are born, we kill animals and plants because we have to eat, we kill nature and natural resources because we need a house to live in, we kill each other because we're short on everything. After all, there are too many of us already, and what for? To produce even more children, like useless robots, only designed to produce more useless robots until there's no more iron left?

» If the poet is useless, if the engineer is useless, then humanity is useless. That's an alarming thought. Perhaps you need to be a poet to think like that. Or perhaps I made a mistake."

Malik's story reminds me of my metaphor of the jogger, running around in circles, wasting his time and energy with the only goal of wasting more of his time and energy in the future. Indeed, it's an alarming thought, but I don't dare to interrupt Malik. He's a writer. Writing starts with having something to say. Malik has more to say.

"Obviously, there was a flaw in my thoughts. The engineer was useless because he was not making money. He was doing useless work that led to useless products because nobody paid him for what he was doing. I was writing useless poetry because nobody paid me for it. The rest of humanity gets paid for what they do. The ones who make more money are also more successful and, therefore, useful. Making money is the reason we live. We sacrifice our time, our energy, everything, to get money. If the engineer had designed an electric toothbrush or a Kalashnikov instead of a robot, he would have been both useful and a millionaire. If I wrote about violence and murder, I would sell millions of books. My work would win a Pulitzer and a Nobel Prize. My photo would be on the cover of Time for Crime Magazine, the elected Man of the Year. I would be rich, successful, and useful.