Part 3

=Havana, Wednesday, May 22, 1912, 12:12 A. M.= It is no use--I have to acknowledge defeat. Born with such a Jekyll-and-Hyde disposition that I am never normal, either so filled with ideals that everything good and noble seems possible, or so black that I shrink from myself in horror--even though it has been in thought rather than deed that I have transgressed or been an idealist. It is not that I have contemplated deeds of violence, but one thing, sex, is the cause of the perfect hell my life has been. During the past year I have foolishly thought I could make myself what I willed, could be consistent and normal; vain hope and it needed to-night to show me this. After all my noble aspirations, hopes, love of literature, and the beautiful things in life, I could not keep my resolve of my birthday. Torture is the only word for it. My sexual passions, from their first awakening, have given me no rest and never will. I have not had at any time a girl who loved me, have never even kissed. With almost uncontrollable passion, and yet the ability to be satisfied with embrace and touch rather than final consummation, yet have I not had that chance with any but the lowest who fill me with disgust, or else attract me in a mad passion which for the moment is insatiable. Much of this is due to my wretched physical health, wrecked nervous force and absolute lack of any kind of love for so long that I am too selfish and self-centred ever to amount to anything. Who is to blame? My father dead, how can I blame him for his share? My mother is the only hope left in the world. Without her, suicide would seem to be the only alternative, and I have ... what is this after all but the imagined courage of a weakling, my egoism the conceit of a degenerate? A month ago I would not have dared to write this, but unless this summer serves to recuperate me, I must go down rapidly. Having started sinking all round, I dare not go in for anything without a sleepless night.

I only write this record now for what use it may be as a human document. It may serve as a warning to those who ignorantly bring children into the world to suffer. I shall be repaid. In case I collapse suddenly it is my express wish that such of my letters, papers, including this and my other diary, as may bear on my struggles against an inevitable fate, may be sent to ... so that, without using my name in such a way that the family may be involved, he may use such parts of this record and the papers as may help to show the life-story of a youth who was prematurely tired, if I do not succeed in writing this in fiction form or otherwise myself before the end. Slowly but surely I am coming to the point where nothing matters. Something always pulls me back before I go too far, but will it always? Once let me go beyond a certain point in my dark moods and shame will keep me from attempting to get up again. Deep down in my heart, however, I have had and still do have in my most despairing moment the conviction that I have in me the ability to do great things, my love of the finer things, keen appreciation of character so that I see right through many people I meet, wherefore much of my continued unpopularity, great care in small details, love of neatness, order, strong passions, enthusiasm, many other things in my good moods which I cannot quite grasp, but my physical weakness annuls everything and leaves me a hopeless weakling, vacillating and desperately unhappy.

=Havana, Wednesday, June 5, 1912.= Feeling very much chastened, following the deepest disgust with myself and everyone, and everything else for that matter. I must state most emphatically that for the most part all that has gone before (during the past six months at least) is due to disease; not specific, but generally run-down, nervous, over-tired condition of body and mind. Therefore, although to-day again I start with hope to fight on, I do so with less wild enthusiasm, less tenseness. After all, the world does not revolve around me. I have sometimes thought it did, or at least acted as if I thought so.

Being calmer on my determination, the reactions I trust will be less violent. I have the feeling that I only have to get over this tired, nervous condition to be once and for all on the road to victory over myself.

One thing I will do--throw overboard as it were my preconceived half-formed ideas and start as a child. Too much have I stuck to convention and prejudice while congratulating myself on my radicalism.

Of course, everything is dependent on my recovery of health. Without this, life will indeed be not worth living, because the very things my heart and mind are set on accomplishing will be impossible, and a conventional, plodding life devoted to the accumulation of money is impossible for me. Death is much preferable. Art, philosophy, love of life in its nakedness, without false convention, must be my keyword, not for happiness, for that were impossible, but for sufficient interest to carry me through.

=Havana, Saturday, June 8, 1912.= I am gradually but inevitably coming to the conclusion that the only way to get along is to throw over all that I do believe in and pay the price. If I had done this before I might have been saved much of this petty personal struggle and put my divine energy into bigger things. I have let false conventions battle with the natural love of freedom and radicalism of an artistic nature, frittered away life forces in unholy passions where I might have put it into the big struggle. Now I will conquer or die, victory or death. Death even by my own hand is preferable to frittering the tremendous passion and nervous and mental energy I have away in a life of conventional ease, despising myself and hating others, and being hated. Oh! if I had only conserved instead of wasted, but even now at the eleventh hour it is not too late. Now, to-day, I will go forward to my fate.

=Havana, Wednesday, June 12, 1912.= In further thought over my decision of last Saturday, or rather that which has been growing on me for a long time, I must add that, as I am not any too sure as to what I don’t believe in, time must be a large factor in the matter.

Then again, due to that tired feeling and nervousness, I have during the past six months put too much emphasis on the dark side.

I have never for more than the briefest space of time contemplated self-destruction as I have hinted at several times. The thought has crossed my mind in my darkest moods, but I am not a coward and to-day must go a step further and say that I’ll fight to the finish against all outside difficulties, as well as ill health and natural defects of temperament and heredity. From now on any departures from a certain standard until I have changed that standard by thought and experience, I will consider in their proper light of weaknesses to be overcome.

All of which may be what I have been reiterating over and over again, but my awakening of to-day is a little broader. I leave the standard fairly flexible, but strong enough to be a rock in a stormy sea until the waters are calmer, and then my mind should be clearer so that I can readjust the various uncertainties to a certain point at least.

Life and a full life rather than mere reason I think will be the outcome, but reason and philosophy presiding over all as a benignant judge I trust. Who knows?

=Havana, Saturday, June 15, 1912.= My contract is up to-day, and for several days earlier in the week I thought of leaving suddenly and getting away from it all for a rest despite any notice to take effect on the 29th. I thought it over, however, and from standpoint of unpreparedness, doubt and honor perhaps--did not--or rather will not--as boat leaves to-morrow.

In thinking over problem of society it has occurred to me, or the thought has come to my mind of what little use the benefactions of rich men are to really help anyone in need in a personal way. I remember how I used to have such a passion for education--I did so want to know. I wrote Carnegie, Patten, Pearsons and E. H. R. Green, not begging for money, but telling of my great desire for an education and putting it in such a way that I asked the secretary to refer me to any board which they might have had for helping those desirous of obtaining an education. My physical weakness precluded the idea of working my way and studying at the same time. Of course, I received no replies, and I then realized that the most ambitious or deserving might be on their last legs and all this charity would count for naught.

The personal aspect of the question has long been forgotten; my ideas as to the value of a college education in its relation to the larger education of life have changed; whatever rancor I may have had against these men has gone; my outlook on life is different; the things that count now are few, are far between.

If my health permits, the necessity of making a living will cause me to write for money to a certain extent, but with a bare living income I think I should write from my heart, because of the great desire, because I look on it as an art, not a business. However, if my health continues as it is or gets worse, I will not sacrifice what little life I have left on the altar of the modern god--money. I shall write in blood the agony that has been eating into my heart and brain and give it to the world =if it will take it= for what it is worth. For myself I expect little, but it may help towards a better understanding of natures like mine, and in the future may help towards a little more forbearance, attempt to understand on the part of good people. But whether or not I =will= write it.

Before doing so, however, I intend to see that I do not, out of self-pity, fall into the error outlined in the December, 1911 issue of The International “Upton Sinclair’s Delusion.”

=Havana, Tuesday, June 25, 1912, 7:10 P. M.= It is getting tiresome, these moral reformations and back-slidings. But even now I can lay down a preliminary philosophy which I must subscribe to whether I will or not .... gives a general line of conduct which leads to progress in a wide sense and taking account of human nature, its strength and weakness.

Life, of course, comes first. Unless a man is going to deliberately plan suicide he must live. All account of death from outside sources must be left out of account because they are outside of his sphere to influence. By living I mean to touch the depths and the heights, each one according to the strength of his passions, his temperament. He should not be an ascetic except under certain conditions, and asceticism as a deliberate plan of life is absolutely wrong for a young man--whether for one who is older time will tell.

For instance, if a man is of a strongly passionate sex nature he should gratify it sufficiently to save him from tremendous nervous disturbances due to holding himself back. All conventional morality or standards to the contrary, gratification is not only justifiable, but not to gratify is a crime against human nature. If a man be of a cool phlegmatic disposition, a limited asceticism in this as well as other things may be good rather than otherwise.

The above is limited by conditions and circumstances. Disease, of course, should be rigidly guarded against. This is a matter that calls for action by the combined societies of the world. Assuming that the man of artistic temperament takes these precautions and gratifies his passions, he must restrain himself as soon as his gratification becomes a source of weakness rather than of strength.

In other words, as long as gratification of the senses does not weaken one appreciably that gratification is good and moral and conduces to life, but when it becomes a weakness and threatens the physical and mental strength of a man he must restrain himself. =Life= comes first, but by life I mean life with =Power=. Thus anything that makes for power and for a full life and healthy gratification of the senses is good.

This is my first definite outlining of the philosophy I have been endeavoring to attain. I have come thus far without reading any philosophy except bare outlines and reviews. Now I shall read and study life and build from these grounds. My philosophy is rather more individualistic than socialistic, but, of course, it is open to a reconciliation between Socialism and Anarchism. Conventional views are left entirely out of consideration. It rests with the individual how far he will be guided by precedent and prevailing opinion in a given situation.

As far as I am personally concerned, I have reached a state where any sexual gratification is a weakness and a strict asceticism for a time is a matter of self-preservation. Anything else is a deliberate throwing down of my philosophy and is a weakness of the worst type, and I write this after having constantly violated my decision to hold off, made on my birthday and even before then, and which has just culminated in this outlining of a general course to follow, holding in view the two objects, a full life and a healthy one, power and life. Without power life is death. With means of gratification lacking, one must hold off from baser forms at least until absolutely necessary, and then only on the most infrequent occasions.

Keeping these in view, life and power, I have something to anchor to while I am struggling towards the light, and I submit this in all seriousness as a good workable philosophy for a man who has not found himself and has hitherto been groping around blindly in the dark with very little prospect of light. Starting with this the years must bring more light, and the conservation of a love of life and at the same time of power will keep one in a state to take advantage of any new light on this terrible problem of existence, of how to get through life in the best way, for in the final analysis that is what all philosophy teaches.

Thus, in the future, gratification may be quite consistent with my philosophy; in my present weakened state I must hold off if I am to survive. Otherwise it is a case of deliberate suicide, and the only thing to do would be to go ahead and gratify until disease and weakness made it evident that death would be the only relief. Thus I go ahead for the present.

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my manifest destiny, that of doing something worth while in the world, so that the world will be better for my having lived in it.

Since May 10th, my own birthday, although on several occasions down to the depths, I have strengthened my purpose and the lapses are becoming less and less, and the increasing disgust after each is cementing my determination. One only has occurred since Tuesday last, when I outlined my philosophy, and I

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.... Thus, the fight has resolved itself into this,--if I can control myself when tired, nervous and depressed, the victory is won. On all other occasions I have myself pretty well in hand, and in normal moods, with good health, the outcome seldom seems doubtful, but I must watch the abnormal moods.

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=Havana, Tuesday, July 2, 1912, 12:45 A. M.= I don’t know whether it was a premonition which caused me to put morning at the head of my previous entry, because now, the same night, or the next morning very early I am obliged to repudiate it all. It is no use--my philosophy as outlined last week would be all right, but for two things, _i. e._, my absolute lack of opportunity of touching life, and my absolute lack of strength, physical, mental, or moral to cultivate power. Determinism is forced on me against my will. As far as possible in my good moods I suppose I shall follow my first philosophy of Tuesday, June 25, but, nevertheless, I am fast being forced to a thorough determinism because I simply cannot control myself. What I might have done had I not been forced to become a victim of our commercial system (so that at twenty-two I am exhausted, my enthusiasm and hope almost killed by deadly routine and no prospect of relief), I do not know, but I think I would have accomplished much under careful training or even a fair opportunity to express my individuality. To-night everything seems hopeless--whether insanity is creeping on me I do not know. I simply must have sexual intercourse to relieve the strain, and it is the lack of it which brings on these moods. If for nothing else woman is a necessity for me to relieve the great strain when routine becomes so deadly as to tempt me to throw everything to the winds. If I could come home and have a woman, I am sure that I could be saved much if not all this--the worst of it at least, but our damnable conventions keep me from them and keep them from me even though many women are enduring tortures of unrelieved emotion for lack of what I could give them. Oh! life is indeed hell--why, or wherefore, I don’t know, and I am fast reaching the point where I care less. In an evil moment I consented to stay on here for a few weeks longer for a consideration of my return fare to New York. This means three more weeks before I can get away from this damnable place which has been getting on my nerves more and more so that I never hated anything as I hate this island and everything and everyone on it.

=Havana, July 3, 1912.= Well, despite my little outburst of early yesterday morning, I am still in the fight. After every defeat I arise, chastened, perhaps, but with a growing feeling that I will win.

I must confirm and add to my philosophy as outlined on June 25th. As I wrote yesterday, Determinism seems to be true as things are at present, but even accepting this does not make me any the less a fighter, for it is quite consistent with that philosophy that my determinism is to be something, and the weak periods are only to strengthen me.

As to the =Life= part of it, that is still a little doubtful. I have not touched it enough, my experiences have not been broad enough with the other sex for me to throw over all conventions, for I know from experience and the experiences of others, that when a woman plays fast and loose she loses so much that even conventionalism sometimes seems preferable to a loosening of the bonds. My idea was to idealize the relations, have all children legitimate. While I think my part would be done all right, I doubt other men and women. Besides, I have always had an unconscious and sometimes conscious feeling of superiority to women--this has been so indefinite, however, that I do not lay too much stress on it at present.

I must reiterate =Power= as the keynote. Every weak yielding .... impossibility to me at least of what I will call “The Impulsive Philosophy,” _i. e._, philosophy of being guided by emotion and sentiment, to the exclusion of reason. Reason must coordinate, if not dominate, and at least impulse must not dominate. This is my second outline, but I am going to disregard the foolish system of dates,--time is to attain anything. I realize the folly of saying at a certain date I will stop this or that I will reform in this or that. All I can do is to attempt to live up to a certain standard as fast as I have decided it to be best and to endeavor to drop off everything that pulls me down as soon as possible.

=Havana, July 20, 1912.= Last day in Havana. At last my counting of each day as bringing nearer to my goal is about to end. Whether my return .... is productive of results commensurate with my expectations or not, my relief at the suspension of the agony of the struggle down here is so deep and heartfelt that I could shout for joy.

I at least have several good weeks behind me, and every day in which I make the slightest progress in any direction whatever is bound to react favorably.

For the present I reiterate my outline of philosophy of June 25th and July 3d. I intend to .... control pending a readjustment. At any rate for a year intend to have nothing to do with fast women--I do not say anything about intercourse without monetary consideration, but am unlikely to have much chance as I will not be looking for it.

Until I am settled in ---- relaxation will be the rule. With the least worry and the line of least resistence for a month or so I should be in a much better frame of mind to accomplish anything than by keeping up this constant nervous strain. Hope and confidence mark the last day, and I count the year as a leaf in my book of experience and looking back, do not regret my year in the tropics.

=--, August 1, 1912.=

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has a cottage for the summer.

The month of July was the best one for sometime. I have at last realized the futility of expecting to make great changes in my habits of life in a day and, therefore, attach less importance to a certain date for this or that as I have done previously. Suffice [it that] after a month I can look back and notice a slight improvement, more self-control and a stronger determination. This I find is the case now and with the prospect of a month of healthy activity and absence of nervous and morbid thoughts the present month should be one of the best of the year, and if a quiet determination without the passion of heretofore will help me, this seems assured. System will be the keynote as far as it does not interfere with the rights of others, for here I cannot be too selfish in my attempt to reach a certain standard, and besides I have no intention of becoming a slave to system, as I heartily dislike red tape. But I can start preparing myself for the big fight when I return home next month by making each day count.

=--, August 12, 1912.= Since the first I have been through an [intense] struggle, the worst yet. Being greatly disappointed at the unfriendly attitude of the family to my ideas, disgusted and tired, day by day I became more worried. Heated argument resulted in open charges of immorality on their part, that is, they considered my views immoral. Last night was the culmination of all this--for the first time I actually threw over all my plans and ambition and contemplated suicide. Many times the thought had crossed my mind before, but it was always as a possibility in the dim future, but yesterday the thought materialized.

I carried on a terrific mental struggle in bed and the will to live triumphed. I will fight on, but I will be more and more egotistical. I realize the vast gulf between me and the rest of my family. It is insurmountable, and my last hope now centers on my return to .... My mother is pliable and I may be able to sufficiently dominate my brother and my sister to fight it out there without too much interruption, which is the bone of my present situation.

=--, Friday, August 23, 1912.= Gradually throwing off that almost inborn habit we have of acting as a pose for others, I must sometimes act in a way which must appear immoral when such is far from the actual truth. In the endeavor, weak it is true as yet, to rise above good and evil, the only criterion is sometimes whether such and such an act makes for weakness. If it does it transgresses against nature, and I make the definition that anything which does not go against nature is neither good nor evil. From this point of view, moral issues do not enter into the question to the same extent. I am going to put into writing the distinction I make between conceit and egoism. Conceit is exemplified by the young man who, shallow of heart and brain, dresses in fancy clothes and parades around so that the girls can admire him. This is one instance I take to contrast it with.... With the desire to express myself, to be an artist, to live the fullest life possible, or whatever my precise object may be, it is absolutely necessary to be damn independent.