AutoBioPhilosophy: An intimate story of what it means to be human
AutoBioPhilosophy is an astonishingly frank and original autobiography that explores the fundamental question of what it means to be human.Robert Rowland Smith’s life story involves a love triangle, office politics, police raids, illegal drugs, the academic elite and a near-death experience. It sees him grappling with the tragic fate of his father, going through a double divorce and encountering a living divinity. We witness him confronting his demons but also looking out for angels.A former Oxford don, Robert uses these deeply personal experiences to generate philosophical insights that will resonate with everybody. What are the recurring patterns, unconscious motives and social forces that govern our behaviour? Through his experiences, and referencing writers from Shakespeare to Freud, he offers new models and ways into human psychology.As we are led into Robert’s private world, we gain an understanding of what it means to be human that is relevant to all.
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4th Estate
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First published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2018
Copyright © Robert Rowland Smith Ltd 2018
Robert Rowland Smith asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is based on the author’s experiences. Some names, identifying characteristics, dialogue and details have been changed, reconstructed or fictionalised.
Cover photograph by James Fulton.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008218461
Ebook Edition © March 2018 ISBN: 9780008218485
Version: 2018-04-10
When such a spacious mirror’s set before him
He needs must see himself.
William Shakespeare
What is it to be human? That is the question. This book offers nine answers, each mapping on to one of the nine chapters. Being human means:
1 Dealing with our fate
2 Standing in the flow of time
3 Needing a purpose
4 Living amongst others
5 Making mistakes
6 Belonging to groups
7 Facing mortality
8 Not knowing it all
9 Looking for love
Needless to say, there are far more potential answers than those on the above list. The nine offered here correspond broadly to the nine phases of my own life, from my origins to the present day. For I have used my own experience as the source material for answering the question of what it is to be human. To arrive at the general, I go via the specific.
What results is an autobiographical narrative that serves up philosophical insights along the way. But I should stress that the narrative has many gaps. It is not supposed to be a complete life story. My criterion for selecting content was how fertile it appeared to be from a philosophic point of view. If people or periods are represented unevenly, that is why. For example, because of circumstances unique to him, my father Colin plays a more leading role in the text than does my mother. In real life, she is no less important. This book is dedicated to them both.
In the vast majority of cases, I have changed people’s names for the sake of anonymity. When talking about individuals, disguised or otherwise, I have been as even-handed as I can be. I recognise that judgements are hard to keep out of one’s descriptions of other people, but the agenda here is philosophical rather than personal. Besides, it is the flaws in my own character that will be the most conspicuous by far.
The specific weight of the soul is equal to the weight of what has been dared.
Bert Hellinger
My formula for greatness in a human being is ‘amor fati’: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it … but love it.
Friedrich Nietzsche
At the brow of a hill in Norwood, south London, stands an imposing red-brick building. It is called The British Home and Hospital for Incurables. The word ‘incurable’ sounds strikingly Victorian, and indeed it was during Victoria’s reign, in 1894, that the building was officially opened. Just as striking is the word’s directness. Incurable. The people who come here aren’t going to get better, it says. We might mock the Victorians for their stiff upper lips and prudery, but in their choice of this word, they showed a frankness that we would balk at today.
Among the seventy-odd residents of this Victorian terminus is my father, Colin Rowland Smith. His particular incurability is multiple sclerosis. It is his story that will provide the framework for this first chapter.
The reasons for choosing my father are threefold. First, he represents the origin, along with my mother, of my own life. He is therefore the starting point of my story, which unfolds in the chapters ahead.
The second reason is that, by bringing a real person into the picture, we can gain some initial purchase on what a human being might actually be. For a human being is always a particular human being, not some vague notion of a human being. I often think of an article by the British novelist Zadie Smith, reflecting on the process of writing. She talks about how you always start out with the ambition of penning the perfect book. From the moment you write the first word, however, it becomes
