‘Okay,’ he said. ‘So . . .’
‘I just kissed you,’ she shrugged, ‘Because I wanted to.’ Ellie went to push open the door.
‘Hang on!’ He reached for her hand. ‘Don’t run away. I’m not – I’m just catching up.’
‘It’s fine if you don’t—’
‘Ellie, of—’
‘I’m not trying to—’
‘Ellie, of course I do—’
‘And I know you’ve taken your vows of—’
‘Look,’ said Charlie. ‘Please just wait a second so I can kiss you.’
21
A Philosophy of Confidence
‘It sounds like you’re in love,’ said Ellie, as she tied the top of a bin bag.
Rose was upside down on the sofa, legs sprawled up the wall, head dangling awkwardly. She groaned.
It was now four years since Rose had collapsed. Glancing at her, Ellie thought she could legitimately be described as ‘of slim to medium build’. It changed her completely. Rose no longer seemed to be half out of herself, a loud voice loosely tethered to a pale, brittle frame. This Rose was in every way weightier.
‘People talk about love as if it’ll feel pleasant,’ Ellie went on. ‘But when you’re falling in love you actually feel, like, total panic. You’re freaking out. The thought that you might care about the person makes you hyperventilate. You suspect you might die.’ She dragged the bin bag through the kitchen, pausing to study the floor. ‘That’s definitely mouse droppings. We need to clean more.’
‘How can I be in love with Len?’ demanded Rose. ‘He’s called Len, for fuck’s sake. He comes from Birmingham. He’s a physicist and likes trains.’
Ellie pulled the bag along the corridor and out of the front door. She heaved it into the wheelie bin and dusted down her hands. ‘I don’t think you get a choice!’ she shouted.
‘I suppose . . .’ called Rose, as Ellie thudded back into the kitchen. ‘You fell in love with a posh, arrogant twat.’
‘By then he’d stopped being a twat. Or as arrogant.’ Ellie shifted Rose’s leg to sit next to her. ‘But he was still a bit posh. I found that quite weird for a while. I kept thinking, “I never suspected it would be you. Of all the people I’ve ever known, it’s you! How weird.”’
‘Arrogance will probably get beaten out of you. But liking trains? That’s for life.’ Rose closed her eyes and moaned. ‘I’m dying. I’m waiting to hear from him for no reason and I don’t even know what I want to hear. If he said, “I’m flying to Tanzania for ever,” I’d be like, “Thank God. Just leave immediately before I do something stupid.”’
‘Yeah,’ nodded Ellie. ‘The first night I slept with Charlie I thought, “Oh no. This isn’t some joker person. It’s someone I might marry.” It was terrifying.’
‘Did you tell him that?’
‘No! Not at the time. But I felt better about it because the second time we slept together he accidentally drunkenly proposed. Then he said’ – she hung her head in shame – ‘“Sorry, sorry.”’
‘Ha ha! Did you kiss Charlie or did Charlie kiss you?’
‘I kissed him.’
‘Harlot.’ Rose pushed her hands into the floor, arching her back.
‘Good for me, that’s what I say.’
‘Len kissed me, although by that stage if he didn’t do it, I was going to come straight out and tell him to.’
‘That wasn’t really the important bit though. We didn’t get together for quite a while after that.’
‘What was important then?’ Rose heaved herself up, red-faced.
‘Mmm,’ Ellie cocked her head to one side, ‘It was probably when Charlie told me not to get together with him.’
‘Romantic.’
‘It actually was. He was like, “I want to be with you. I’m waiting. I’m not going to see anyone else. Tell me when you’re ready.”’
‘Big move.’
‘Course, that’s the other thing you’ve got to get your head around,’ said Ellie. ‘Len might love you.’
‘Like a fool. I’m a nightmare. He hasn’t the first idea what a loon I actually am.’
‘You’re great. Len’s probably thinking about how great you are right now.’
‘He’s probably thinking, “I can’t be in love with someone who studies philosophy and likes the Backstreet Boys. That’s absurd. And I always thought I’d end up with a Brum.”’ Rose clambered up. ‘I’m gonna make tea.’
‘What you are doing today?’
‘I am attempting to write my dissertation,’ said Rose. ‘On your old friend, bloody Nietzsche.’
‘Bloody Nietzsche,’ echoed Ellie. ‘I don’t know how you can hack it. I swore off him after mine.’
‘I probably never would have picked him if you hadn’t. He’s like some tortured shit we’ve both been out with, isn’t he?’ Rose smiled, filling the kettle.
‘I feel like I shagged him when I was about fifteen and you’re gonna end up with him for life.’
‘I definitely lost then – he’s got some serious commitment problems.’
‘What did you decide to focus on in the end?’
Rose considered, brushing her long hair across one shoulder. ‘I’m going to write about Nietzsche’s philosophy of confidence,’ she said, frowning at the wall above the sofa. ‘A critique.’
‘Sounds a lot better than mine.’
‘Don’t jinx it. I haven’t even started yet.’ She threw her head back. ‘When can I resume normal activity? I mean, this is a fucking piss-take. I hope Len knows how much time I’ve lost with this full-time mooning schedule.’
‘It does pass. You will be able to do stuff again.’
‘Maybe I’ll be better as an “in love” person,’ mused Rose. ‘Maybe they’re loads more productive.’
‘Nah.’ Ellie shook her head. ‘If anything they’re less productive.’
Rose sighed. ‘Oh well. Luckily we’re not in Maoist China. Nobody’s checking – it’s just my own life I’m frittering away.’
‘Charlie’s coming over tonight by the way. He’s just had his last day.’
‘Oh yeah. Does he know what he’s doing next?’
‘He’s not sure yet. Rose . . .’ Ellie tiptoed towards the question. ‘Is there any chance Charlie could move in here for a little bit? He’d contribute to the rent.’
Rose looked around and shrugged. ‘Have you told him we have mice?’
‘No. But he learned to clean a few months ago and he’s really taken it to heart.’
‘Okay then, great. He’s in.’ Rose poured tea. ‘I actually like Charlie, you know.’
‘Good,’ Ellie brightened. ‘That’s cheering.’
‘Now he loves himself a bit less there’s more room for other people to like him.’
‘Yeah.’ Yesterday Charlie had spent his last day at work making a short animated film about Ellie’s latest trip to Sussex using his desk stationery. ‘He’s really nice.’
‘Oh God, is that what my face looks like? How your face looks now?’
‘Probably.’
‘Ugh.’ Rose dumped an enormous mug of tea on the table they’d constructed from their landlady’s discarded belongings, found piled in the garage. ‘Right! I’ve had it with this idiotic blabbering about Len. If that’s even his real name.’ She rolled her eyes, failing to mask her excitement. ‘I’m starting my dissertation.’
‘All right. Good luck.’
‘I’ll need it.’ Rose hugged herself. ‘To be honest, I’m actually losing my shit. It’s all kicking off in here.’
‘You’re hiding it very well.’
‘Piss off.’
By the time Nietzsche died, on 25th August 1900, aged only fifty-five, he was famous. He had been insane for eleven years, largely comatose for the last five – yet already his legend had taken on a life of its own. As if playing its part in a horribly well-structured tragedy, the world awoke to his brilliance at the very moment of his collapse. The first serious treatment of his philosophy appe
ared barely a month after his breakdown in Turin, to be followed by a flood of attacks and appreciations, which continues unabated to this day. With his sister energetically campaigning on his behalf (she would invite journalists and dignitaries up to see the ‘mad philosopher’ babble helplessly in bed), Nietzsche the man was already on his way to becoming Nietzsche the genius.
For someone who was so determined to become a higher man, it is a strangely fitting end. But, for me, Nietzsche’s achievements as a philosopher cannot be separated from his life. (To write about confidence with no consideration of people as feeling, experiencing beings is to ignore what confidence is, the means by which it exists.) It’s not that Nietzsche’s life was completely sad or pathetic, as some people like to suggest – Nietzsche made his own choices, and for the most part, seemed happy with them. It was, however, a lonely life, based on a lonely philosophy, and in any assessment, that loneliness must be taken into account.
Nietzsche’s life and works reveal the internal logic of confidence: the way it guides us, whether we are aware of it or not. We tell ourselves that confidence is good for everyone, and that more of it is always a good thing. We want our children to be confident – which is just another way of saying we want them to thrive and be happy. But confidence is very particular, and when we devote ourselves to confidence, we also agree to a certain logic. That logic might not fit with the lives we want – indeed, it might actually work against them.
That is why we need a philosophy of confidence, which both draws on Nietzsche and learns from his lesson. Because whether we like it or not, confidence has a philosophy of us.
Acknowledgements
This book has been years in the making and we’ve relied on the help of a lot of people. Huge thanks to the whole team at Bloomsbury, particularly our editors Helen Garnons-Williams, Richard Atkinson, Alexa von Hirschberg and Oliver Holden-Rea; our patient agent, Charlie Viney; our readers, Ben Schiffer and Robert Rowland Smith; and all those who gave us inspiration, advice and encouragement along the way: Jonathan Yiangou, Jennifer Foy, Lucy, Sapphire and Bonnie Manthorpe, Richard Mann, Benji Stanley, Olivia Stewart, Laura Bunt, Alex Beard, Daisy Leitch and Liz Epstein. Special thanks, too, to The Society of Authors, for their advice in times of need, and for their generous assistance via The Authors’ Foundation
A Note on the Authors
Rowland Manthorpe is an editor at Wired magazine. His writing has been published in the Guardian, Observer, Sunday Telegraph, Atlantic and Spectator. Rowland studied History at Cambridge and Political Theory at the London School of Economics, and has been awarded the Ben Pimlott Prize for Political Writing by the Guardian and The Fabian Society.
Kirstin Smith was born in Edinburgh and studied English at Cambridge. Having worked extensively as an actor in film, television and theatre, Kirstin completed a PhD in Theatre and Performance at Queen Mary, University of London. Her prize-winning research on the history of stunts has appeared in The Drama Review.
Rowland and Kirstin first met at university. They live and write together in south London.
@rowlsmanthorpe / @KirstinMSm
First published in Great Britain 2016
This electronic edition published in 2016 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
© Rowland Manthorpe and Kirstin Smith, 2016
Rowland Manthorpe and Kirstin Smith have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Authors of this work.
Extract appearing here from Nietzsche: A Critical Life by Ronald Hayman (1980) 29w p.340. Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press.
Extract appearing here from Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography by Rüdiger Safranski. Copyright © Rüdiger Safranski 2002. Published by Granta Books, 2003.
Extract appearing here from Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography by Julian Young. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010.
This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the authors’ imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The moral right of the author has been asserted
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