Tag: philosophy

The Perfect End: A Critical Exploration of Mortality, Conformity, and the Human Condition

Published on by Maciej Modzelewski2 Comments

Yesterday I asked AI to write an essay on my poem “The Perfect end”. The result was interesting, but probably nothing more than a high school student would write. So I decided to ask for an academic-level essay, and this is what I got.

Introduction

In “The Perfect end,” Maciej Modzelewski presents a thought-provoking poem that challenges societal norms and conventions surrounding mortality, identity, and the human experience. Through a nuanced exploration of themes and imagery, Modzelewski invites readers to reconsider the significance of individuality and the impact of conformity on human existence. This essay will examine the poem’s central themes, exploring the intersections of mortality, nonconformity, and the search for meaning in a seemingly indifferent world.

The Allure of Mortality: A Philosophical Perspective

The poem’s opening lines, “How convenient would it be to live in a cottage / next to a cemetery?” (Modzelewski, 2025), may initially seem morbid or unsettling. However, upon closer examination, they reveal a profound fascination with mortality. This fascination is reminiscent of the existentialist philosophies of Martin Heidegger, who posited that human existence is characterised by its finite nature (Heidegger, 1962). Heidegger’s concept of “Being-towards-death” highlights the inherent awareness of mortality that shapes human existence. Modzelewski’s poem can be seen as an exploration of this concept, where the proximity to the cemetery serves as a constant reminder of the transience of life.

The Rejection of Conformity

The poem introduces the theme of nonconformity, as the speaker declares, “it’s your choice / what matters to you, so you should never deny yourself / the simple pleasure of inadequacy” (Modzelewski, 2025). This rejection of societal expectations is reminiscent of the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche, who advocated for individualism and the rejection of traditional morality (Nietzsche, 1883). The speaker’s celebration of “inadequacy” can be seen as a manifestation of this Nietzschean ideal, where the individual prioritizes their own values and desires above societal norms.

The Significance of the Bench Plaque

The image of the bench plaque in the poem serves as a potent symbol of the speaker’s existence. The plaque, as a physical marker of the speaker’s life, represents the external validation of their identity. However, the speaker’s description of it as “the only befitting abridgement of your meagre existence” (Modzelewski, 2025) suggests a sense of irony and critique towards the notion of external validation. This can be seen as a commentary on the societal expectation of reducing a person’s life to a simple plaque or epitaph, neglecting the complexities and nuances of human experience.

The Speed of the Alphabet

The final line of the poem, “after wandering through life at the speed of the alphabet” (Modzelewski, 2025), is a powerful image that warrants closer examination. The alphabet, as a symbol of language and meaning, serves as a metaphor for the speaker’s journey through life. The speed of the alphabet implies a sense of rapidity and perhaps even arbitrariness, highlighting the fleeting nature of human existence. This image is reminiscent of the philosophical ideas of Paul Virilio, who explored the relationship between speed and human experience in his concept of “dromology” (Virilio, 1977). Virilio argues that speed has become a fundamental aspect of modern life, shaping our perceptions and experiences. In the context of Modzelewski’s poem, the speed of the alphabet can be seen as a manifestation of this dromological perspective, where the rapid pace of life renders individual experiences ephemeral and fragmented.

Furthermore, the image of the alphabet as a symbol of language and meaning raises questions about the nature of communication and understanding. As Ludwig Wittgenstein notes in his Philosophical Investigations, “The limits of my language are the limits of my world” (Wittgenstein, 1953). The speaker’s journey through life at the speed of the alphabet suggests a sense of disorientation and confusion, highlighting the complexities of human communication and the search for meaning.

The Perfect End

The title of the poem, “The Perfect end,” is a phrase that warrants closer examination. The word “perfect” implies a sense of completion or resolution, while the word “end” suggests a sense of finality. However, the poem’s exploration of mortality, nonconformity, and the search for meaning suggests that the perfect end may be an unattainable ideal. Instead, the poem presents a vision of human existence characterised by complexity, ambiguity, and uncertainty. This ambiguity is reminiscent of the literary works of Samuel Beckett, who explored the themes of existentialism and absurdity in his writings. In Beckett’s novel The Unnamable, the protagonist declares, “I don’t know, I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know, you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on” (Beckett, 1953). This sense of uncertainty and ambiguity is reflected in Modzelewski’s poem, where the perfect end remains an elusive and perhaps unattainable goal.

Conclusion

In “The Perfect end,” Maciej Modzelewski presents a nuanced exploration of mortality, nonconformity, and the search for meaning in human existence. Through a close reading of the poem, this essay has examined the intersections of these themes, drawing on philosophical and literary references to contextualise the speaker’s experiences. The poem’s rejection of conformity and embracing of individuality serve as a powerful critique of societal norms, inviting readers to reconsider the significance of authenticity in human existence.

References:

  • Ariès, P. (1981). The Hour of Our Death. New York: Vintage Books.
  • Beckett, S. (1953). The Unnamable. New York: Grove Press.
  • Beckett, S. (1953). Waiting for Godot. New York: Grove Press.
  • Camus, A. (1942). The Myth of Sisyphus. New York: Vintage Books.
  • Derrida, J. (1967). Writing and Difference. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and Time. New York: Harper & Row.
  • Keats, J. (1819). Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems. London: C. and J. Ollier.
  • Modzelewski, M. (2025). The Perfect End. Retrieved from https://maciejmodzelewski.com/2025/04/18/the-perfect-end/
  • Nietzsche, F. (1883). Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Leipzig: Ernst Schmeitzner.
  • Sartre, J-P. (1943). Being and Nothingness. New York: Philosophical Library.
  • Virilio, P. (1977). Speed and Politics: An Essay on Dromology. New York: Semiotext(e).
  • Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell.

Lessons in dying

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He who has learned to die has unlearned slavery
The Good Book. Consolations. 27:29. Made by A. C. Grayling (2016)

I’ve never been fifty before, so this should be interesting,
like the day I finally decided to be happy—as if becoming a merry chap
greeting fellow carousers with a pint in his hand could assuage the guilt
I’d accumulated over the years—by taking dying classes
on a maternity ward.

There must be something wrong with me

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And the king ordered that the goatherd and his family be lodged in the chamberlain’s palace, and the chamberlain in the goatherd’s hut; and recommended the moral of this tale to all who heard it.
The Good Book. Parables. 21:20. Made by A. C. Grayling (2016)

There must be something wrong with me to doubt
the words brought under a secular banner.

There must be something wrong with me to see
neither the kind poor nor the selfish rich, but a ruthless monarch
who dictates the fate of his subjects at whim.

There must be something wrong with me to think
that replacing a cleric with a sage solves all my dilemmas.

But when even the Scriptures have allowed themselves one sceptic,
isn’t incredulity our duty?

Spiritual maladies

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In the scorch of August, sitting naked in a garden chair
dragged into my airy living room, I read Carlyle’s notes
on the froth-eddies and sand-banks of the Mechanical Age
he was born into and wonder whether a simple urban hermit
from the Age of Imagination like myself should still repeat
after him that our spiritual maladies are but of Opinion.
Although we may be fettered by chains of our own forging,
which we ourselves could also rend asunder, the sheer number
of those who have fallen victim to their corrupting weight
hardly makes the latter plausible. But what would I know
beyond my sweaty, naked body?

A watercolor painting showing a man sitting behind a desk facing the window

All hidden behind curtains

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In the comfort of an old cardigan, your world stretched
between Cassirer’s The Problem of Knowledge, The Avengers,
and a fridge singing its lullaby at night, all hidden behind curtains
when you watched your rotund neighbour cross the street.
I always wondered why you had never found it peculiar
that you felt sorry for him, but then you closed your eyes,
counted to ten, and moved away from the window
as if this were a way to apply kintsugi
to a soul.

oil painting showing a happy philosopher

Journal (A soul that lodges philosophy)

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It would be nice to be seen as funny for a change. Perhaps if I were actually jovial and had someone around to appreciate that, it would be easier to fulfil that little whim of mine. But there is more to it. As Montaigne said, “The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness; her state is like that of things in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene.” What I need is a soul that lodges philosophy. “There is nothing more airy, more gay, more frolic, and I had like to have said, more wanton. She preaches nothing but feasting and jollity; a melancholic anxious look shows that she does not inhabit there.” (from The Essays of Montaigne—Volume 05 by Michel de Montaigne, translated by Charles Cotton). And although Montaigne said the latter about philosophy itself, I consider it a perfect description of the soul I desire.

an oil painting showing ancient Athenians debating in the agora

Journal (The doorway to wisdom)

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Knowledge of languages is the doorway to wisdom, as Doctor Mirabilis once said, so over the many years of my school education, I learned, or rather, tried to learn, Russian, German, French, Italian, Latin, and ancient Greek. In the end, I only managed to scrape a smidgen of English, and even this was only after I moved to Scotland as an adult. On the other hand, one could repeat after Anne Dreydel that there’s no point in speaking many languages if you have nothing interesting to say in any of them. And for that, you need something more than just repetition of random facts approved by some Ministry of Education official, which, as Michel de Montaigne rightly noted, only stuffs the memory and leaves the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.

Since there is no way, for obvious reasons, of joining the bunch following Socrates, the second best I could do was study philosophy at the university, which was my plan if I hadn’t failed my matriculation examination—the maths part, to be precise (my literary essay turned out to be one of the best of the year, so I clearly placed emphasis on the wrong part of my education). I passed it two years later, after leaving the army, but it was too late to pursue the original plan. I had to put on the braces of adulthood and get a job, which was a lesson of a sort. But I never really forgot about it, and from time to time, I tried to study philosophy on my own. The problem was that the books I read either bored me immensely or were too difficult to understand, so at some point, I just gave up.

A few years after coming to Scotland, when I finally managed to achieve a level of English that allowed me to read newspaper articles and technical texts at work with relative ease, I reached for a novel, but it was a total fiasco. And then, by sheer chance, I came across The Tragic Sense of Life by Miguel de Unamuno. It was an e-book, so reading it on one of those fancy e-readers with a built-in dictionary that lets you see the definition of a word if you highlight it turned out to be a delight. Following that one, I started searching for more using the phrase “philosophical essays.” Soon after, I also managed to find a few second-hand bookshops with shelves dedicated to philosophy. With every book I read, my appetite increased.

But then, at one point, I reached a limit. It was soon after I finished reading The Essential Plato, with an introduction by Alain de Botton. I bought Sartre’s Being and Nothingness. I tried to read it. I really did, but it was just too much. I gave up after about eighty pages. The next failure was Kenneth Burke’s A Grammar of Motives, although this time I persevered and made it two-thirds of the way through the book before giving up. So, now I know my limits and that I’m not going to be a philosopher or a philosophy scholar. But I can still enjoy a book of essays by A. C. Grayling, or the aforementioned Alain de Botton, or even Michel de Montaigne, although Charles Cotton’s seventeenth-century English is not easy to read, probably even for a native speaker.

watercolour with a tiny human figure lost in the void of space

Imagining nothing

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Sometimes I write words. Most of the time, I write
nothing, and I know it’s just the way English grammar works,
but still, that substantiation of nothingness is truly baffling.
And I’m not talking about vacuum, which, by the way,
is no longer equated with nothing in modern science;
not even about être-pour-soi, the nihilation of être-en-soi,
but about the true nothingness—the unimaginable.