In his essay, “Talking about Bicycles,” C. S. Lewis in—seemingly—narrating a friend’s account, outlines four significant stages of experiencing events and materials in life. He starts off with a concrete material example––varied experiences with a bicycle––and ends on abstract concepts like love, war, and the aristocracy. Throughout this short exploration of the four stages, I attribute all quotes to Lewis rather than his unnamed friend, who might be fictional.
So of course, “Talking About Bicycles” is not really about bicycles but the stages of experiencing that Lewis outlines as: 1. The un-enchanted age, “In early childhood … a bicycle meant nothing to me.” 2. The enchanted age, “Then came a time when … to have learned to ride … and to be at last spinning along on one’s own … was like entering Paradise.” 3. The disenchanted age, “The bicycle, itself, became to me what his oar is to a galley slave.” And 4. The re-enchanted age, “The value of the thing promised remains even if that particular promise was false—even if all possible promises of it are false.”
The attributes of the first three states, un-enchantment to disenchantment, are easily recognizable, and seemingly common experiences, when compared to the last state, re-enchantment. Once their conditions are identifiable to us, we can all yield several examples and memories ranging from the mundane to the peculiar to distribute among the first three categories. However, re-enchantment, neither so simple to define nor so easy to comprehend, is a superior level of experiencing life. And yet the first three states are necessary for the last. Thus Lewis states:
I don’t think I could explain to a bachelor how there comes a time when you look back on that first mirage, perfectly well aware that it was a mirage, and yet, seeing all the things that have come out of it, things the boy and girl could never have dreamed of, and feeling also that to remember it is, in a sense, to bring it back in reality, so that under all the other experiences it is still there like a shell lying at the bottom of a clear, deep pool—and that nothing would have happened at all without it—so that even when it was least true it was telling you important truths in the only form you would then understand.
To Lewis, the state of enchantment is a “mirage.” But I wonder if one must have experienced marriage to grasp the particular example. Is it not true in some aspects of dating, or living together with a partner? I dare say it might even be comparable to that time when you went food shopping without any plans of buying oranges, but upon coming across a very juicy and delicious looking bag, you could only eagerly bring it home and immediately dive into it. Although the first few oranges were quite delightful, half-way through the bag you found you were rather tired of the whole thing and there were actually a couple of bad oranges in there as well. However, maybe a couple of days, or years later, the memory sort of stayed with you and the whole experience merged together in a way that has led you to appreciate the bag of oranges in a more philosophical light that is even applicable to other experiences.
Thus Lewis feels it is necessary to distinguish the un-enchanted person from the disenchanted person.
You read an author in whom love is treated as lust and all war is murder. And so forth. But are you reading a dis-enchanted man or only un-enchanted man. Has the writer been through the enchantment and come out onto the bleak highlands? Or is he simply a sub-man who is free from the love mirage as a dog is free. And free from the heroic mirage as a coward is free? If disenchanted he may have something worth hearing to say. Though less than a re-enchanted man. If un-enchanted, into the fire with his book. He is talking of what he doesn’t understand.
The un-enchanted age, lacks depth in that it requires little to no actual experience. In the same way it requires little to no risk, thus it’s more or less a shallow opinion. The disenchanted age, on the other hand, develops interests which lead to efforts, and efforts that require risks. As Lewis expresses, “the great danger we have to guard against in this age is the un-enchanted man mistaking himself for, and mistaken by others for the disenchanted man.” The disenchanted, prior to reaching disenchantment must have taken delight in a material or event, exercised hope, and acted in faith and be discouraged into a state of disappointment––probably a couple of times. It is a tried state.
Similarly, enchantment––a pleasurable but novel state precedes re-enchantment: a stage of tried experience that is knowledgeable of more than just the simple and pleasant aspects of a thing or circumstance and has gained the ability to appraise and appreciate the unappealing and difficult natures that are inseparable from the circumstance or event. As Lewis metaphorically explains, using as an example, a donkey who had had a carrot dangled in front of its nose and gained the realization that it appreciates more the smell of the carrot than its taste: “Wouldn’t he look back when he was an old donkey living in the fourth age and say “I’m glad I had that carrot tied in front of my nose. Otherwise I might still have thought eating was the greatest happiness.””
It seems that when one’s experiences are within the first three brackets, they are not as matured as when they reach the state of re-enchantment. One slips in and out of un-enchantment, enchantment, and disenchantment frequently without any conscious categorization or appreciation of the stages. Yet with awareness of these stages, especially the fourth state, re-enchantment––in any particular thing––one’s experiences attain a level of wisdom that enable one to appreciate even the disappointing and challenging aspects of life and come to see—through contemplation & self-reflection—their necessity, usefulness, and even beauty.
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Jane A. Odartey
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Reference:
+ C. S. Lewis. “Talking About Bicycles.” Read by Ralph Ralph Cosham, Blackstone Audio, Inc., 29 Aug. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCi4BL8r8HI&list=UUJsucJOpXBfZHzoJIfVYVNA&index=2.
