Secrets and Lies - 4. Frederick (Designed for Greatness?)

Frederick

(Designed for Greatness?)

What intrigued me most about him was his ability to put his dreams on paper. He found accurate words and he had the courage to write them down, even publish his stories and poems in a time when the dreams he dreamed were supposed to be dreamed in private. I thought he was courageous, but perhaps he was just naive and was entirely unaware of the risk he took with presenting his dreams to the public, strangers who had no idea of who he was and what his dreams were truly about.

He dreamed of love and sharing his love with a beloved, an intimate friend. What was wrong about it? Nothing, as his dreams came from the depth of his heart. His dreams reflected his very soul, his nature, his whole identity. However, like I said, his dreams were dangerous as he risked to be terribly harmed, which in fact happened, yet not because he dared to speak of his dreams frankly. He would have been able to cope with the blame when people realized what his dreams were all about. If he had been truly courageous, that is, which unfortunately turned out he was not.

I encouraged him to put his dreams on paper. I even pushed him, urged him to write more and reveal it all. This was the mistake I made. And he blamed me for it. He thought it was my fault how things developed, how things turned out in the end. I loved him and he loved me. I am still certain of it. However, when he received the first comments on the story he had published, he was not able to cope with the response. The response was mainly negative. His story was rejected, and therefore he felt rejected as well, as the author of the story, as the man who had written down his dreams and put his very soul into his writing. He felt rejected as the man he was, as the man who dared to love, as the man who loved another man.

I had anticipated the negative response. Yet I had not seen how much it made him suffer. People did not understand, did not want to be confronted with his dreams. They were narrow-minded and they did not know they were. Social and religious rules limited their thoughts and made them behave like sheep that followed the shepherd, never questioning who the shepherd was and what he was aiming at in the first place. They were cowards. They shied away from everything that they had been taught was wrong. They were believers who eagerly believed what others told and taught them. They had no opinion of their own. They did not reflect on anything. They always sought the easiest way to go. They always sought the most pleasurable company.

Frederick was a threat to their world. His dreams diverged from the norm. He did not fit in and he dared to provoke the public. It was only natural that the words he had written provoked opposition, provoked a negative response. He received positive comments as well, in letter and in person. However, he focused on the rejection. I realised – too late unfortunately – that he was labile, fragile, mentally unstable. He was not courageous and he was not strong. He had only pretended he was. Or perhaps I had been blinded, had not wanted to see his insecurity. Now that I think of him and the time we shared together, I can see that his instability showed much earlier, years before the inevitable happened. Could I have helped him? Could I have stirred him away from the collapse?

I sometimes think I could have done so and then I blame myself for having been blinded. I cannot forgive myself the mistakes I made. Then again, he was obsessed with his writing. He wanted to be perfect, match the old masters. No, I could not have stopped him, I am certain of it. He wanted to write a masterpiece that was mentioned together with the works of the Greek masters. He was not courageous. He was pretentious. He was truly convinced that he was a literary genius, one in a million, one the world saw only every thousand years. It was ridiculous.

I pushed him to write down his dreams. It was me who wanted to stir a riot. I wanted to provoke the public, wanted them to face what they usually ignored. I hoped his writing would stir a public discussion and over the years make it easier for me and others to live their dreams, be who they are, without being shunned, without always hiding or being on the run. I was the dreamer who dreamed a silly dream that was never supposed to come true. I was naive. Well, I was a very young man then. Now that I’m older, I can see that I dreamed.

Frederick was not a dreamer at all. He did not dream the same dream at least. I think now that he planned it all, rationally and in almost cold blood. He read the ancient masterpieces and he adapted his writing to them. He was by no means a genius. He was not able to create anything new, anything of his own. He focused on the style of his writing. It was elaborate. It matched the classics. He wrote about love between men, not because he sought to express himself, but because of Plato who had done so and had become famous. Frederick had totally misunderstood the ancient master. I see this clearly now, from the perspective of an older man.

I had misjudged Frederick’s personality. I had not seen him, but an image of him that I had created myself. I thought he was like I was. I thought we shared the same dreams, the same thoughts and goals. I was so terribly mistaken.

I would have never anticipated his reaction to the negative response on his writing. He turned to a woman in order to show everyone that he did not diverge from the norm. He dropped me like a hot brick. He broke up with me and refused to talk to me or even reply to my letters. He forgot me from one minute to the other, without feeling the faintest regret. He blamed me for how things had turned out, and then he left and closed the door. I was hurt, my world broke down, but I recovered, luckily, as the years went by. He did not, however.

He was obsessed with making undone what he thought was wrong or had gone wrong in his life. He tried to write even more elaborate poems. However, they were bad and grew worse over time. I cringed when I read what he had published. It made me angry and I felt embarrassed for him. That made it easier for me to distance myself from him. My heart healed and I saw clearly how things had been and why they had developed the way they had. He clung to the woman he had turned to. He wanted her love, wanted her to cleanse him from his imaginary sin. He wanted purification, salvation, a new start. He wrote about the love they shared. However, she was a married woman. Their affair was a scandal like his love for me had been. He made the same mistake again. And this time, it broke him.

Society rejected him for the misconduct. And they rejected the woman. She died, of a broken heart, I guess, and this made him finally go crazy. She had left him, albeit she had no right to do so. In his opinion, he was the one who was in control of things. But she had died without his permission. He had lost entirely control. He lost his mind. He went totally crazy. He never recovered, perhaps shied subconsciously away from it because he did not want to be confronted with his total failure.

I gave up on him. What else could I have done? But I cannot forget the time and love that we shared. I’m reminded of it every day in my life, because our break-up has so much changed me as a person. It left a permanent scar that hurts sometimes, yet also makes me unique and not one of the crowd. I have matured. I’m not a wise man, but I am a wiser person.