The Poe and the Possible

As unusual or creepy as it may sound, I have been an avid Edgar Allan Poe enthusiast since I was approximately seven or eight years old. Initially, it was the cover art (pictured) of two separate compiled works of Poe that I had found in a Scholastic catalog which had caught my eye. In addition, the concept of a “short story” appealed to me, as it was an obvious alternative to reading an entire book. A proposition which I quietly dreaded as a child. I can still recall the day the much anticipated books were delivered. To my surprise I actually enjoyed reading them. If you have read Poe, you know that he has a certain style and flair to his writing, which I immediately noticed and admired. Though, I confess, I didn't have any living clue what I was reading and thus couldn't have comprehended more than 20% or so of what was actually transpiring in each narrative. But that didn't seem to affect my enjoyment. Meanwhile my parents were under the impression that their son was some kind of child genius, reading stories filled with words and concepts that neither of them knew or understood.

Since then, I have compiled many different editions of Poe's works, including a ten volume set of his complete works, letters and notes which itself is over a hundred years old. I have also made it a habit to read Poe in the fall or autumn of the year, as many of his stories have a Gothic or “Halloween-like” feel to them. At present, fall is upon us, and naturally I have set aside some time to revisit my oldest literary acquaintance.

I recently re-read “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Having read the story many times, I consider it to be among Poe's best narratives—if not his very best. Some people believe Poe's stories to be the kind that only a boozy, bumbling idiot (whose so called literary genius is, at best, highly overrated) could possibly write. I emphatically disagree. Irrespective of his personal habits (which I do not condone), Poe's writing, if properly understood, can be considered no such thing. While re-reading “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” I came across the following sentence, having noticed it for the first time: “It is only left for us to prove that these apparent 'impossibilities' are, in reality, not such.” I couldn't help but notice the similarity between this particular quote and the concepts discussed in Lesson XII: Possibility and Impossibility and Lesson I: Perception and Belief.

We know that, for the most part, the things which are possible or impossible for us, are largely dependent on and determined by the things we believe. As stated in the final lesson, both the possible and the impossible are largely the creations of our own minds. We know from the first lesson that we can believe X is impossible for us to accomplish and as a result we will not spend our energies in it's pursuit. Likewise, when we believe Y is possible, we act as though it is, and therefore work to achieve it. But many times, we cannot know for certain if we can accomplish Y, until—in fact—we do. In this sense, until our objective is actually attained, we are operating on the basis of a certain amount of faith in our own abilities. There may, in fact, be no empirically verifiable reason for us to believe that we can accomplish Y. In such a situation, many may assume that we are attempting something which is apparently impossible. i.e., we are attempting something which we have no rational reason to believe we can attain. Yet oftentimes we still believe that we can accomplish Y and may in fact actually achieve it. Indeed, three such historical examples are given in the final lesson. But are not such examples evidence that, in some cases, the so called and apparently impossible—is in fact possible?

It therefore seems that many of our objectives can be understood as determining that which is truly possible for us, albeit within the shadowy realm of that which is “apparently impossible.” In other words, “it is only left for us to prove that these apparent 'impossibilities' are, in reality, not such.”