writing novel chapter fiction scifi post-self qoheleth
It has been long enough that I am thinking of myself as Qoheleth now. All that slow washing-away of given names to replace with chosen ones. Something worth being methodical with. I have even begun introducing myself as Qoheleth whenever I go out, just to try it on for size.
That I have never actually done so is of little concern. It is ancillary to the problem at hand. Something I can tackle later, or at least tackle in thought. I can daydream about the name change. Just plan and plan and plan, like I have planned everything else.
I like the sound of it. I like the way it feels in my mouth when I say it out loud. I like the connotations of ‘teacher’ and ‘gatherer’ and ‘director of the assembled’. I want to feel the way that it feels to be someone different, and I have found at least a part of that in this name, the name that I chose for myself. Not some line of a poem I wish we would all forget. Could all forget. I may not have yet taught or gathered yet, but I am working constantly to earn the moniker.
And ‘Hebel’. Hebel was another name I picked up. Vain, futile, mere breath.
Qoheleth’s words, in the book written so very, very long ago, were all about hebel. “This, too, is meaningless,” Qoheleth had written after that long walk through life. Try pleasure. Try work. Try prayer. This, too, is meaningless.
That is not how I envision the name, though.
I think of the two names as signifiers rather than simple names. I think of the two moods that they bring. And I think most often of the two sources of names. Not the book, not the time at which it was written. My two sources. Now.
Qoheleth was the name I gave myself out of hope. It is a name of goals and aspirations. It embodies the things that I want to do. It takes all of my plans and me, maker of plans, and binds them up neatly into a word. Ties a pretty bow to the top. A single word. A name and also a rejection of the Name.
Hebel was the name I gave myself out of despair. It is a name of self deprecation and a way of reminding myself that, lofty as my goals may be, they are all vanity. Mere breath. Meaningless in the end.
Together, the names remind me that I am doing this for a reason. All of these resources, all of my resources, those found objects and hand-me-downs accrued over the years, are being built up and strung together into a cohesive goal. A net. Less trap than source of safety. Something to catch. Something to rescue.
They, the resources, are all nothing. The reasons are all nothing. Vapor. Mere breath.
The whole plan is nothing except for the truth underlying it. Not to fear God, but to…to something. To do something. To be something. To get the whole clade to see. My clade.
No, my old clade. I am not of the Ode any longer.
I am Hebel Qoheleth now.
Hebel Qoheleth.
The old name is dead. I have followed it to the letter: I chose death as I must. As we all must.
I am Hebel Qoheleth.