For Whom the Bell Tolls

The Deep End #28

“Alright, Robert Jordan said to himself. Only I am not having any. I’ve known a lot of gypsies and they are strange enough. But so are we. The difference is we have to make an honest living. Nobody knows what tribes we came from nor what our tribal inheritance is nor what the mysteries were in the woods where the people lived that we came from. All we know is that we do not know. We know nothing about what happens to us in the nights…”

The above quote is from For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. It’s a book I’m halfway through reading. No matter! In typical Thinking Man fashion (I’m talking about you, Melissa), I’m here to post my thoughts.

Anyway. So far, Hemingway’s book has been excellent. For anyone that hasn’t read it, the book is about an American volunteer named Robert Jordan, who is a dynamiter working with a Republican guerilla group during the Spanish Civil War. For anyone that has read it, no spoilers please! I’m on page 261/470 at the time of this writing. The piece you’re reading now (mine) really doesn’t have much to do with the titular novel, but the quote I started with did provide the inspiration for it.

It’s quite interesting. My entire life has been spent in the New York City boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn. I’ve known nothing else. Rewind two generations and all four of my grandparents were born in remote towns on an island called Sicily. Rewind further and further and the drastic differences between then and now are so far removed, it’s as if we have no relation at all to any of the people whose sperms and eggs contributed to the life we’re all living.

I’m not saying what I’m writing right now is a novel idea. It’s not. The differences between the generations is something I’ve written about before and has always been rather fascinating to me. I’m always drawn to this example: My grandfather was one of the most influential people in my life, yet with a gun pressed to my head, I wouldn’t be able to pick his mom in a three-woman lineup. Then consider his mom’s mom. I could literally care less who she was—not in a mean or nasty way, but it’s just the truth. I’m getting somewhere here, I promise.

Have you ever heard of morphic resonance? It’s a theory proposed by Rupert Sheldrake in his 1981 book, A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Morphic Resonance. According to Sheldrake’s website, morphic resonance is “the idea that memory is inherent in nature.” This could suggest that memories may be passed down through DNA, which could mean that if my great-great-great-great grandfather was a huge asshole who made fun of little Sicilian donkeys and the like, it could make me more likely to mock poor unsuspecting donkeys at petting zoos.

I’m not saying I believe this. However, I’ve noticed that I tend to have the same reactions to certain things that my dad and grandfather do. Is it morphic resonance? Or do we have similar traits because I’ve observed the way they act and act accordingly?

Morphic resonance is a fun and fascinating theory. Therefore, like all fun things, it must be destroyed. Sheldrake’s theory has been shat on by the scientific community since it first came out, even though it shares some similarities to Carl Jung’s theory of a collective unconscious. That’s an easy one to explain: Carl Jung is cool. Rupert Sheldrake is, evidently, not cool. Sorry, Big Rup.

Let’s get back on track here. Remember the quote from the beginning? After reading it, the first thing that came to mind was a woman that a friend of mine met. In his conversation with this woman, she explained to him that she was a witch, having gotten her magic passed down to her from her family for thousands of years. There were several examples she gave him which seemed believable, but I’m not getting into them here. I’m sure she’s a very nice woman, and if her ancestors have been practicing magic for thousands of years, some of that practice must be embedded into her.

“Nobody knows what tribes we came from nor what our tribal inheritance is nor what the mysteries were in the woods where the people lived that we came from. All we know is that we do not know. We know nothing about what happens to us in the nights…”

This woman knows where her tribe came from. Most of us don’t. What if my tribespeople also dabbled with magic, which explains why I’m prone to picking up on strange coincidences or feelings or energy sometimes, like that time Cormac McCarthy died. What if your ancestors were constantly running from Banshees in the countryside of Ireland, or hiding from the shit-stain inducing scary things in the ranches in the American Southwest?

Like I said earlier, I’m a resident of NYC. In this city, most of us live in a cut-and-dry world where we wake up, work, stuff food and drink into our gullets, and sleep. This cycle is to be repeated ad infinitum until the washing machine that is our lives finally ends its spin cycle and shuts off. Here in the city there are no woods, no forests, no magic. But what if there was magic in our blood at one point? What if the blood of your Scottish ancestors attracted of the bean-nighe who came for them in the moors of Scotland six thousand years ago, and that same bean-nighe still wanted that sweet Scot blood coursing through your veins?

What if something like this happened, and you didn’t even notice. You’re on the train late at night and you think you see a face look back at you through the smudged glass. But there’s nothing there. A shadow spooks you in the corner of your eye, but you turn and see a mom and child where the shadow had been. A bony hand touches your own as you grab the railing when the train screeches to a halt. Your hand reels away, but there was nothing there. On your walk home you duck and dodge through the crowds, swearing you’re being followed. You see something in the shadows. You finally run into your apartment and slam the door shut just as the ghostly hand reaches to get you. Inside your apartment is a cross. You do the sign of the cross. By the time you’re sitting on the couch watching TV with dinner and a drink, you’ve all but forgotten it. But whatever evil spirit that wanted you is still out there, and it will wait as long as it needs to before it gets you.

Crazy stuff. Maybe it’s real, and maybe it isn’t. Somehow, For Whom the Bell Tolls brought me here. I wonder if that’s what Hemingway would have wanted. Thanks for reading!

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