#31. Men’s Courses Will Foreshadow Certain Ends
Okay, so listen: one of my favorite stories is A Christmas Carol. My favorite version is the 1970 Albert Finney Scrooge, but I enjoy virtually all of them: A Muppet Christmas Carol, the Patrick Stewart version, the George C. Scott version, the Mickey's Christmas Carol, the Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. I like, mostly, all of them. (I don't like the stupid Jim Carrey one.)
But here's the thing: I love A Christmas Carol so much not because it's a great Christmas story, but because it was a formative story in my youth--it really made me what I am, in some part. I view it as a life-changing story, and I love it for that.
Because of that, whenever I watch it, I always think "This is amazing! Why aren't we talking about how amazing A Christmas Carol is?!" As though I have found some unknown hidden gem in the back archives of a musty library, rather than a story that has, well, been made into all those many versions I mentioned above.
So am I going to talk about it here? YES. But which part? Well, several:
Part 1. Scrooge, I Have Brought You Home
Here's the exchange Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Present have (taken from the Albert Finney version):
Ghost of Christmas Present: Here, Scrooge. I have brought you home.
Ebenezer Scrooge: You're not going.
Ghost of Christmas Present: My time upon this little planet is very brief. I must leave you now.
Ebenezer Scrooge: But we still have so much to talk about, haven't we?
Ghost of Christmas Present: There is never enough time to do or say all the things that we would wish. The thing is to try to do as much as you can in the time that you have.
Ebenezer Scrooge: Yes, but...
Ghost of Christmas Present: Remember, Scrooge, time is short, and suddenly, you're not there anymore.
I have struggled a lot with depression over the last four years, ever since having a traumatic brain injury in 2021. And it has manifest in, yes, some sadness, but mainly in lack of motivation. I hit a wall every afternoon at 3:00pm and take to bed. And it has been miserable for a long time. (This last year has improved markedly, however.)
But the thing I always think of is this exchange with the Ghost of Christmas Present: "Life is short, and suddenly you're not there anymore!"
There's a follow-up line in the book that doesn't make it into the movie, which says:
“No space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused”
NOW: I know--I REALLY REALLY KNOW--that you can't just force yourself out of depression. And I don't want anyone to think I'm laying on a guilt trip, because, trust me, I KNOW. But, what my strategy has been to make good use of the times when my brain IS good: for the last year, I've gotten up at 4:00am, because my brain is always better in the morning. These days, my brain is getting better, and I'm winning back some of my afternoon time, so I don't wake up early anymore.
But: The whole reason I started this Substack was because I wanted to do something meaningful--meaningful for ME, if not for anyone else. I wanted something that was not, and will not ever be, monetized. Just something I enjoy for the sake of doing something I enjoy.
And, novel writing has come back! In the last eighteen months I've written three manuscripts, and I've been proud of all of them, even though the first appears to have officially died. But I don't care, because I'm doing it because I want to enjoy it. If it sells, great. If not, I still had fun.
Anyway, this section should probably be about me being a better dad or something, but this is what I've got.
Part 2. Mankind Should Be My Business
When Marley first appears to Scrooge, Scrooge tries to foster a little kindness from his old business partner with a little flattery.
“But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,' faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.
Business!' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The deals of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
Listen, we've got a lot of problems in this family of mine, and we're doing a lot to hold it together, let alone help mankind. That said, my wife and I are currently in a little bit of a good position financially (temporarily, because we're going to move in the spring and everything will change) but it has been incredibly pleasant to be able to donate to GoFundMes and the Utah Food Bank.
In my life, especially since my schizophrenia diagnosis, my family has been the target of charity MANY times, and even though we can't come close to repaying all that we've received, doing what we can is satisfying.
I had a friend who, when speaking of making sacrificing personal gain for charity, said that he always would give just enough so that it hurt. He felt that if he didn't feel it--if the donation didn't mean anything to him--then he wasn't really doing enough. Now, in that lens, I could definitely do more than I am doing, but there have been times when $20 to a friend's GoFundMe or $10 to someone's Patreon have stung. And I think the good (for me) comes in the sting.
(Don't take financial advice from me.)
Part 3. Beware the Boy Most of All
One part of A Christmas Carol that seldom makes it into the movies is the two children huddles under The Ghost of Christmas Present's robe.
From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.
“Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!” exclaimed the Ghost.
They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.
Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.
“Spirit! are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more.
“They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!”
Here's the thing, and I don't mean to get too preachy: I (an American) live in a country where Want should not be a thing at all, because we're the richest country in the world. But also: I live in a country where Ignorance--the worse of the two--is really making a comeback.
But I'll leave it at that.
Conclusion: The End
This is my favorite quote from the book, kind of the whole point of the thing:
“Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. "But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change.”
Anyway, my goal in this newsletter is not to lay any guilt trips on anyone. I actually find this final message of the book extremely uplifting! I'm not rich like Scrooge, and I have no employees I can raise their wages and bring them turkeys-as-big-as-me. But I can do the best I can. And that's enough.
