Coffeehouse

This essay is being written in reverse. I had the title in mind long before I sat down to write it, before I even knew what the content would involve. I just love the word “coffeehouse,” and I love the idea of the coffeehouse, so I decided to name one of my essays “Coffeehouse.” I did this last week, and I felt pretty good about it. I just didn’t have the essay yet. So I brought my laptop to a coffeehouse, where I now am, at this very moment, sipping some coffee and examining the scene around me with eager, interested eyes. In a few moments, I intend to write the essay. But I still don’t know what it is going to be about.

(Well, not entirely. I have some ideas, now that I’m here.)

Then my mind speaks from a quiet place within. “Research the history of the coffeehouse,” it says, “and write a little something about that”.

“Ah!” I reply to my mind. “Excellent notion!” (You’ll note that my mind and I are two separate entities in this dialogue. That has to mean something, though I know not what. Whatever it is, it’s probably not good.)

It may surprise my readers, as it surprised me, to discover that the first coffeehouses showed up during the 15th century, in the late-medieval Arabic culture. These were called “qahveh khaneh,” which literally translates as “places where strength is to be obtained.” This makes sense, for what does caffeine do if not imbue you with energy? These were social forums where, aside from procuring coffee, patrons could engage in intellectual conversation, discuss politics, play the board games of the time (which included backgammon and chess), and enjoy live music, a model which really hasn’t changed too much over the centuries.

This model spread west, first to the Ottoman Empire, then to Europe, and finally to England, where the first coffeehouse was established at Oxford in 1651. More followed. These were wildly popular in the ensuing years, and by the 1680s, London was literally packed with them. Eventually, these coffeehouses became threatening to reigning monarchs and the “repressive establishment,” as they were seen as dens and hives of discord where revolutionists could conspire and foment insurrection. By the time coffeehouses were thriving in America, insurgents in cities like Boston, New York, and Philadelphia were flocking to them to discuss their hatred of England and their desire for independence.

The 1950s was a golden age for coffeehouses, particularly in New York and San Francisco. Here thinkers, writers, artists, poets, musicians, and any other slightly odd, counter-cultural reject would meet and discuss the imminent changes everyone was detecting in the air. This was the great age of the Beatniks, the immediate precursors of the Hippies. It was here, in these coffeehouses, with mugs of steaming Joe to hand, that certain people began questioning the story of reality as it was handed down to them by their parents, as well as the soundness of the moral boundaries their current society seemed so desperate to keep in place. It was here that the overdue cultural and sexual revolutions of the 1960s were born. It is fascinating to me that some variant of the roasted coffee bean always seems to be at the center of great changes in the modern world.

Anyway, these days, I’m not much of a coffee drinker. I used to be, but I grew tired of it. I don’t dislike the taste, as long as it is served black. Most of the time, if I’m in a coffeehouse, I will order hot tea or chai. But today, it’s just plain coffee, the clear choice for anyone wanting to get some writing done, as I’m hoping to do at some point.

The coffeehouse I’m visiting just now is mildly impressive, though I’ve been in better. It’s the “Kayak’s” location of Kaldi’s Coffee on Skinker, on a well-trafficked corner across the street from Washington University and Forest Park. It’s a snug little nook, an ideal place to get that coffeehouse experience, and its proximity to the college means there’s always a youthful energy buzzing around. Well, except for right now. At this moment it’s mysteriously sparse in here, though I expect that to change shortly.

There is a distinctly rustic feel to this place, as if it actually belongs in Colorado or something. The chairs are made out of thick tree branches. In fact, there’s exposed wood everywhere. The wall art has a decidedly Western flavor. And there’s a cozy quality to the atmosphere that, when mixed with the aroma of coffee, tempts one into believing he’s in a ski lodge somewhere up in the Rocky Mountains. The effect is not unpleasant. True, I’d rather be in a more urbanized type of spot, something a bit more indicative of, say, Greenwich Village or the Upper West Side, but this is nice, too.

As I write this in 2019, I am a man who struggles with the hell that is agoraphobia. Public places are difficult for me, and that’s why I don’t write in coffeehouses anymore. Even coming here today for an hour or two is beyond difficult, though some days are worse than others. For now, I’m doing fine. But there are some days when I might walk into this place and be caught in the clutches of a panic attack in a matter of seconds. It’s not a great way to spend life, dealing with agoraphobia. But when I woke up today, I felt a familiar yet semi-forgotten pull to get out and be among people for a change, perilous though that is. And the more I thought about it, the more I missed the simple joy of just “getting coffee” and rubbing elbows with the type of people who don’t mind spending their days in places like this.

The truth is, I chose this exact location for a reason. There was a time fourteen years ago when I often came to Kayak’s to work on what was, at that time, my first complete manuscript. I don’t mean to imply it was the first book I ever tried to write, I mean it was the first book I finished—well, okay, practically finished, and it was here that I lost it. Alas, this is a depressing story I need to tell.

I recall the day in question: October 19, 2005. I was sitting at this exact table… or at least this exact spot (since it is fair to assume these tables get moved around). I was still a believing Christian at that point, and the manuscript I was working on, which was going to be titled “The Way Back,” as I recall, told the story of my struggles to attain godliness in a carnal world that was tempting me into depravity at every turn. It was a deeply personal book—as if I can write anything else—and true to my form, I was pouring my heart into every word I typed. Here is the important part: it was basically finished. Almost finished. I had to add a few paragraphs to the end and tweak some things here and there, but it was essentially done. Never before in the history of my attempts had I ever made it this far; I always lost interest long before completing anything.

Now, at this point in the story, I need to provide a few vital details. First, though I knew full well that those who write with computer programs should always save and backup their files, I rarely did. The entire manuscript, which, if I recall correctly, was around 65,000 words in length, was saved in one location only: the hard drive of my laptop. Second, I have a sad history of clumsiness. My dad used to refer to me as “a bull in a China shop.” Many are the instances over the years when I shattered this or broke that or bumped into this and knocked over that. It’s just my way. I come by it naturally.

I wasn’t the emotional train wreck flirting with agoraphobia back then that I am now, so in 2005, it was still my custom to bring my laptop to public places—like a coffee shop—and do a fair amount of my writing amongst the commoners. Kayak’s was a preferred spot for this because I liked their coffee.

On the afternoon of October 19, I was here, tinkering with the manuscript, doing some editing and whatnot. I remember being in a pretty good mood. After all, I was almost done with my first manuscript, and I knew that it was good. I felt a lot of confidence about its worth, and I actually believed that once I sent it out to publishers, which I had every intention of doing, it was going to get “picked up” and my career would take off. I just knew it.

The Universe loves moments like these. They’re the sort of human experiences it sits and waits for, like a spider on a web, daring you to feel that one unforgivable thought, that heinous fucking assumption on your part that finally things seem to be working out. Those are thoughts it’s begging to hear you think, drooling with malice in the moments beforehand, and striking like a pouncing tiger when, finally, you do let your guard down enough to think that maybe everything’s going to be okay…

My girlfriend at that time called my cell phone, informing me that she purchased some interesting items from Victoria’s Secret earlier that day. “Want to come over?” she asked, a hint of seduction in her voice. I did want to come over, very much.

In a matter of seconds, I was guzzling down the rest of my coffee and packing up my stuff. I’m still not entirely sure how it happened, and the physics of it escapes me to this day, since I’m pretty sure laptops don’t bounce. In any case, the Universe struck as I was stowing my laptop in my bag. It skidded out of my hands, hit the edge of the table, and bounced to the floor… where it shattered into numerous pieces. For several shocked moments, I just stood there looking down at the rubble, never fully accepting what had just happened, knowing that the hard drive was obliterated, knowing that all my photos, all my files, my entire music library… and one almost finished manuscript were now all gone, irrecoverably lost.

As I picked through the debris on the floor, I saw the hard drive, clearly busted in two. I gathered up all the other pieces and threw them in the trash, but the two portions of the hard drive I kept. After calling my girlfriend to tell her that sex had to wait, I went to the nearest computer repair store and softly set the two hard drives pieces on the counter. “Can you get the data off these?” I inquired. The guy assured me that, no, as far as he knew, there was no technology available to retrieve data from a shattered hard drive. (But that was fourteen years ago; it is definitely possible that such technology does exist today; I wouldn’t know.)

I drove home, not to my girlfriend’s apartment, in possibly the foulest mood imaginable. And for the next few days, I just stayed in bed, with my head buried in the pillow, adrift in that desolate sea of despair and depression I already knew so well.

Today, as I sit in that exact spot and report what happened to my laptop in October of 2005, the reader can be sure of one thing: I am definitely saving and backing up my work. I won’t make the mistake again. Ever.

I brought a tatty book to the coffeehouse with me: “Our Mutual Friend,” by Charles Dickens. If my memory serves, this was his last book, and some say his finest. I don’t know; I haven’t read it yet. I brought it along with the notion of starting it, but now that I’m here, I lack the motivation. Reading a book by Charles Dickens, no matter how good the book, is like repainting your entire house, inside and out. It’s going to be so worth it in the end, but summoning the impetus to get started can be such a daunting prospect. You know it’s going to just take forever and require more attention than you initially wanted to give. This isn’t to say Dickens isn’t worth a read, but his books are just so long and heavy and tiring. They are not just a pastime, they’re a fucking commitment. A good commitment, but still, they are best to be avoided unless you have nothing but copious hours of free time on your hands.

So I stuff “Our Mutual Friend” back into my bag and instead pull out my notebook, where lately I’ve been recording several of my thoughts. As I browse through it, one of them grabs my eye anew, and I quietly read it out loud: “There’s no such thing as happiness, there are only varying degrees of suffering and, now and then, the absence of suffering, which we interpret as happiness.” I’ve had this thought before, and I’ve talked about it before. Though I’m still not fully convinced these words are true, I am mindful of how often they reappear in my thoughts, and I find myself wondering if the Universe is trying to tell me something. I don’t really believe that, since I don’t suppose for one second that the Universe is conscious and can tell humans anything. Still, part of me feels like this thought keeps coming back to me for a reason, as though there is some bit of relevant wisdom here that, for now, continues to escape me.

After a quick refill of coffee, I return to my seat with a new thought in mind, and I jot it down in the notebook just below the other one: “If happiness doesn’t exist, maybe sadness doesn’t either. Maybe human emotions are neutral on their own and take on only the properties we give them based on what we believe is true. If so, then, in this sense at least, we do create our own reality.”

(As I re-read what I just wrote, I fight off a wild impulse to get out my pipe and light up. Smoking doesn’t go over too well in public places anymore, even though the pipe should be set apart from the cigarette in every aspect.)

If happiness and sadness are illusions, which at this point is only a theory, then the emotions we experience must be the result of what we choose. But who would choose sadness? No one would. If it’s really up to us, everyone would be the picture of total happiness. And if they’re not illusions, why does it feel like happiness takes so much work while sadness requires no work at all? If I literally do have the power to choose one over the other, then why am I opting for sadness all the time? Why is anyone? Who in their right mind wouldn’t choose happiness if indeed they have a choice?

I have grappled with these questions before. Many times, in fact. I’m no closer to an answer now than I ever was, mostly because there is no answer, nor could there ever be. This is the human condition defined at its most basic level: the enduring ache for an answer to the cosmic question of happiness versus sadness, and the fucking frustration of never finding one.

Ever the bearer of timely literary quotes, some vague bit of phrase from Abraham Lincoln rolls around in my head, but it fails to fully materialize in my memory. Luckily, I have a trusty laptop to hand. A few clicks on Google do the trick, whereupon the quote comes back to me: “Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”

That basically echoes my present thoughts on the matter, though I’m not at all pleased with the implications of this idea. Moreover, another quote, this time from Ernest Hemingway, flashes through my mind without the aid of Google: “Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”

I’m not really sure where this leaves me. Fucked, I guess.

I sip some coffee, then scratch the stubble on my chin as I consider again the words of Hemingway. He’s not wrong, but why is he right? If ignorance really is bliss, the inversion must also be true. Why is it that knowledge begets sorrow? The very idea suggests that existence and reality, on their own, are cruel and inherently unfavorable. In the New Testament, Jesus says the truth will set a person free. But if ignorance is bliss, and it seems to me that it is, then knowing truth, rather than setting you free, actually imprisons you in a pit of depression. Truth, no matter how much I crave it, might actually be the enemy.

But why? Why should the conditions of reality be bad? At the very least they should be neutral. The idea that they could be either good or bad suggests intent, which suggests design, which is exactly what Christians have been preaching for centuries now. But they also preach that their God is good, that he is love, and that he actually cares about the welfare of ordinary people. Assuming this is true, why are the conditions of reality bad? Christians will blame it on sin, but entropy existed in the Universe long before we “sinful” humans did. Something just doesn’t add up there.

I stop typing for a moment and look at the people around me. More patrons in search of a caffeinated fix have wandered in, and the coffeehouse isn’t as sparse now. I see a man with a fedora, a woman dressed in a corporate suit, a cute young girl sporting the sort of top she knows will direct men’s eyes to her chest, though she’ll probably get indignant when it inevitably happens. I see a middle-aged couple, and judging by the awkward body language, I assume that they don’t know each other well. I see an old man wearing the clothes of a twenty-year-old and, oddly enough, he is pulling it off. I see people reading the newspaper (still, in 2019), people sipping coffee, people whose faces are buried in their phones, and people looking around at everyone else, as I’m doing. This is humanity, here. I don’t see sinners. I don’t see abominations. In fact, I see nothing about these people that any god should find unacceptable. All I see are imperfect humans trying to have perfect experiences.

“Fuck the conditions of reality,” I think to myself.

Something about being in a coffee shop makes me feel alive, as though I’m at least partially connected to the human network through our mutual affinity for the earthy fragrance of roasted coffee beans. Maybe this has something to do with the history of the coffeehouse I discovered through my erstwhile research. For the last five hundred years, at least, thinkers shared ideas and debated philosophy, art, and politics in a setting that, just by the smell alone, could put even the most ardent revolutionist at his ease. Maybe this experience has seeped deep enough into our DNA to be associated, on some deep, ethereal level in our minds, with the edge of new possibilities, the precipice of change, and the threshold where life happens. I don’t know. It definitely has that feel for me, the coffeehouse experience.

I love the words “coffee shop” and “coffeehouse.” I love the way they look on a page. To me, they are words that come with related imagery. When I see those words, I think of Beat poets. I think of Allen Ginsberg sitting in the corner, hunkered over a notebook of scribbles that will eventually be “Howl.” I think of Sir Walter Raleigh and all the symbols of the Elizabethan age. I think of Bolsheviks pounding on the tables, shouting in their angsty tones about the specter that’s haunting Europe. I think of mustached intellectuals smoking cigars, debating the merits of James Joyce and T.S. Eliot. I think of white hipster hepcats in the 1940s, emulating the jazz legends of Harlem and waxing about the meaning of the words “jive” and “bebop,” as though they have any clue. I think of lithe Arabs reclining on cushions in some lavishly carpeted tent in the desert, calmly puffing on hookahs and enjoying their beverage in a hot and arid climate. And I think of post-modern authors bent over laptops, writing in public either because that’s where they do it best or because they want to be seen writing.

Almost as if on cue, a young woman sits down a few tables away, a scholarly looking girl with the librarian feel about her. She pulls out her laptop and, after a few minutes of surfing on the Internet, she opens up Microsoft Word and starts writing. I smile to myself and turn away. To study her any closer would be akin to looking in a mirror at a younger version of myself. I wonder if she knows how grueling and unforgiving the writing industry can be. I wonder if she knows it is far easier to dodge bullets and bend spoons with the mind than it is to be successful as a writer. In any case, she’s on her own journey and must be allowed to find her own way, to make her own mistakes, to discover the way things are, and come to grips with it. Besides, she could be the next J.K. Rowling, for all I know.

Still smiling, I pack up my own stuff, finish the rest of my coffee, and head for the door, thinking that though it’s a hard life and rarely rewarding, I wouldn’t and couldn’t be anything else but a writer. In fact, I’d rather spend my life writing books no one ever reads than spend a single minute pretending to be someone or something I’m not, for the only thing worth being in this life is your absolute, utter self.