Alice Exists

            When we spoke about Alice Wolf Gilborn during class we talked a lot about how confused she must be because of sentences like, “If I didn’t exist, I could live happily in the Adirondacks without ever having to challenge nature in order to prove myself.” (91) Statements like these seem to make almost no sense. How can you not exist and still live in a place, much less live happily there?

But consider the context of this sentence. The paragraph above the one in which she makes this seemingly ridiculous statement is all about how small and insignificant she is. “If the sun was just a pinprick of light in the scheme of things, then the earth was microscopic and I was infinitesimal. Zero, in fact.” (91) Later, she goes on to talk about how big she is in comparison to an ant, how powerful. Throughout the entry she plays with the idea of size and importance.

I’m not sure that there are any coincidences out there. But I have learned very quickly, and over and over again, that contradictions are all around. They are the one consistency I have found in life. They are the reason so many things make no sense at all. Maybe this is the exact idea that Alice Gilborn runs into while writing this passage. How can she be so big to an ant and yet mean nothing in the scheme of the universe? If this is true, can’t she also not exist and live happily? And don’t hermits (the ones who live alone and don’t become famous because of what the write while outside of society) live without existing?