On bureaucracy, bad mornings, and the terrifying possibility that everything is working exactly as intended.
There is something almost comforting about Franz Kafka. Not the stories, obviously; those are horrifying. But a man writing over a century ago managed to describe the modern human experience with such alarming accuracy that it suggests things have always been terrible. At least we're consistent.
The Morning Gregor Samsa Had Other Problems
In The Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning to find that he has become a monstrous insect-like creature. His first concern is not the transformation. It's the train. He worries about missing it, about disappointing his employer, about how to explain his absence. Apparently, waking up as an enormous bug is still not a sufficient reason to call in sick.
Management agrees. Before the morning is over, the chief clerk has turned up at the family's front door to ask, with great politeness and no visible curiosity about the cause, why Gregor has not reported for work. Gregor, behind a locked door and in a voice that is no longer entirely his own, assures him that he will be along shortly.
This is Kafka's quiet genius: even the most extraordinary personal catastrophe can become a scheduling inconvenience.
The body has undergone an irreversible transformation. Management would still appreciate an update.
Anyone who has ever answered work emails through a fever may recognize something of themselves in Gregor. If so, we made a shirt about it.
The Trial Never Ends
Then there is Josef K., who is arrested one morning for reasons nobody will explain. He spends the rest of the novel trying to navigate a system whose procedures are elaborate, whose authority is unquestionable, and whose purpose remains a mystery.
Sound familiar? Today, Josef K. might spend three hours trying to verify his identity through an automated customer service portal. His request would be assigned a reference number. His reference number would not be recognized. He would be advised to contact support, and support would direct him back to the portal.
Kafka didn't need to invent an especially cruel bureaucracy. He simply understood what happens when systems become more important than the people trapped inside them. The truly frightening part isn't that the system is broken. It's that it might be functioning exactly as designed. (For the full experience, there is a Trial shirt too.)
We Have Improved the Technology. Not the Situation.
Kafka's characters inhabit a world of inaccessible authorities, incomprehensible rules, and endless obligations. We've added smartphones. Now we can experience existential dread from virtually anywhere, with push notifications.
Our calendars remind us of obligations we regret accepting. Our inboxes replenish themselves overnight. Applications require passwords, passwords require verification codes, and verification codes occasionally require an application. Somewhere in this arrangement, we were promised convenience.
Kafka would have appreciated the irony. He might also have been disappointed by how little imagination we've shown.
Kafka Was Being Optimistic
Kafka is often described as bleak, oppressive, or nightmarish. Fair enough. But there is also a peculiar kind of humor running through his work: not the kind that produces a cheerful laugh, but the kind that makes you stare at a wall for several seconds before admitting that something is funny.
And look at what his characters actually do. Gregor worries about his job. Josef K. tries to cooperate with his own prosecution. Everyone behaves as though a reasonable explanation must exist somewhere, if only they can find the correct department. They search for answers, they attempt to negotiate, they assume that someone, somewhere, understands what is happening.
That is the optimistic part. We still believe it, too: that if we complete the right form, follow the correct procedure, or explain ourselves clearly enough, the world will eventually make sense. It's an admirable belief. There is remarkably little evidence for it.
Still, we get up. We make coffee. We answer messages. We navigate mysterious institutions. We occasionally transform into metaphorical insects.
And tomorrow morning, we'll do it again.
Another productive morning.
Welcome to Samsa Social Club. A club for the overread and underrested.