“The Garden of Forking Paths” by Borges Luis Jorge Essay
“Century upon century and only in the present do things happen”
According to the story, Borges Luis Jorge lived in two different centuries. The narrator spent most of his time writing philosophical scripts. However, during these two centuries, Borges only saw perpetual political failures in his last century that was marked with different realities, occasions, and spaces. Based on Borges’s accounts, all these features depicted various realms and possibilities. Borges claims that the present century proved that life does not follow a single path neither is it a linear process. Unlike in the past centuries, the narrator observed that the current century had various recurring decisions and choices that he had to make to continue living. However, each decision presented potential consequences, which could make the future mysterious while the history to be immeasurable.
The narrator implied that, unlike the previous century, the present century taught him how to make life-related decisions that could help him accumulate and discover the survival techniques in a world that constantly changed. In the present century, people have to test and generate both imaginative and real ideas to avoid facing challenges in life. Besides, the current generation values aesthetics and they will do everything possible to achieve the aesthetical values irrespective of the circumstances and costs.
For instance, by examining the ancestral legacies, people living in the present century are able to discover various future possibilities through imagination, but they are threatened by death. The narrator means that time and space are incorporated in the current decision-making processes and the truth that generated the historical actions is revealed in the present century.
The entire story explains this phrase because the present century has mysteries relating to the meaning of diversity and time. Nevertheless, individuals are ignorant about their future and this directs them to make decisions amid competing alternatives in case they will survive. People living in different places have or experience, unlike time schedules which makes them compose and choose different options. In fact, the present century forces individuals and groups to explore various alternatives while taking the outcomes of death into consideration. Based on the story, the phrase shows that in the present century the effects of death imaginations make the survival choices sifted and revealed. Thus, for individuals to survive in the present century, they must base their activities on imaginative experiments.
John Stuart Mill supported this claim by asserting that whereas the essential and objective connection does not exist, the basic logic has the objective foundation. That is, the ordinary universe makes the foundation upon which individuals can make decisions that shape their future activities. John Stuart Mill argues that this is a fact as the experience acquired by modern individuals’ forms part of the test for their future logics.
“Countless men on the face of the sea and earth, in the air, and all that really is happening is happening to me”
From this line, it appears that the narrator had unbearable memory of what was encountered in the past that generated the current suffering. For instance, while he was working as a spy in the German military during WW1, the narrator left his residential place to accomplish the killing mission in Albert City. To avoid being captured by the German army, the narrator concocted an escape strategy that led him to the destination. However, after accomplishing his mission (murdering Doctor Albert); the story appeared in the newspaper hence revealing his whereabouts.
In this phrase found in the narrative, the narrator explicates the suffering he experienced after killing Dr. Albert. The speaker shows that immediately after the committed crime was revealed in the newspaper, the person who carried out the acts faces hatred from other societal members. With all the choking terror and hatred, both men and women will be forced to track down the suspect. This is what the narrator meant when he said that countless men who tried to track him down crowded the earth, sea, and air. In fact, the narrator had nobody to turn to or any place to run to because everybody looked down upon him and wanted to see him arrested.
From personal experience, it is true that once a crime is committed, it becomes difficult to find somebody who can support you. People will always hate the culprit and in extreme cases, they may decide to kill the person who committed the crime.
For instance, in our residential place, a managed 67 years was found defiling a twelve-year-old girl. The society disowned the man and when the police were informed about the incident, they went to arrest the culprit though he was nowhere to be found. It became a public notice that the man was wanted and whoever revealed his whereabouts was to be rewarded. Men and women searched everyplace, the hiding place for the criminal was finally found, and he was arrested. This was similar to what the narrator tried to account for in the story.
Friedrich Nietzsche in his philosophical work supports Borges’s claims. The philosopher asserts that contemporary principles and ethics are meant to shape what and how men should live and think. Individuals and groups that commit crimes should be punished to avoid the growth and spread of immoral behaviors in society.
