Who are you? (Anyone) - For My Brothers and Sisters in the Failure Business

Seymour Krim's essay, "For My Brothers and Sisters in the Failure Business," was a Deal Me In read, a gripping one that explores a way of being I recognize.

I like the essay's intensity, its frankness and the way Krim gives it a thick texture. It feels like dough to knead and pound on.

Our secret is that we still have an epic longing to be more than what we are, to multiply ourselves, to integrate all the identities and action-fantasies we have experienced, above all to keep experimenting with our lives…

The ‘failure business’ he writes about is the life of imagining yourself as different personae and trying to act them all out, rather than dedicating yourself to any one thing. The failure he describes comes from trying to be too many things, in a society (specifically, the US) that seems to make that possible and offer endless choices (though for many people, this isn't the case, and the US he describes here is largely a dream itself).

When do you stop fantasizing an endless you and try to make it with what you’ve got?

It becomes addictive. It leads anywhere and nowhere. I like that he explores how self-defeating it can be, but at the same time not without its rewards. Sometimes it even pays off for people in practical terms. But the risks are steep. What happens when you realize you have little to show for the passing years? (Though you can also ask what "little to show" means. People can change profoundly and enrich themselves in ways that aren't obvious if you don't know them intimately.)

But if you are a proud, searching ‘failure’ in this society… then it is smart and honorable to know what you attempted and why you are now vulnerable to the body blows of those who once saw you robed in the glow of your vision and now only see an unmade bed and a few unwashed cups on the bare wooden table of a gray day.

I like how this essay is a wry celebration and a lament. Krim writes with bitterness, but not without passion. He embraces disillusionment without sounding broken.

Beethoven's Heiligenstadt Testament (read for Deal Me In 2017)

When Beethoven was in his early 30s, he addressed a letter to his brothers explaining his withdrawal from society and misanthropic behavior.

He tells them that for several years now he’s been losing his hearing and can’t bear the thought of people finding out. He considers the humiliation, the wounds to his pride:

Oh, how could I possibly admit an infirmity in the one sense which ought to be more perfect in me than others, a sense which I once possessed in the highest perfection, a perfection such as few in my profession enjoy or ever have enjoyed.

This is a common response to personal struggles - self-imposed isolation, to spare oneself from pity or insensitive reactions. He expresses its agonies, the fear of exposure warring with the desire to be understood.

What’s most powerful in his letter is the tension between craving life and desiring an end to his suffering. He admits that he considered suicide. What mostly held him back was an urge to keep working on his music. Though virtue, too, might have played a part in holding suicidal thoughts at bay, he emphasizes the role of art even more: “Oh, it seemed to me impossible to leave the world until I had forth all that I felt was within me.”

Continuing to live to see out one’s potential, and what one can keep bringing to the world, even in the face of suffering and uncertainty, means everything. It isn’t something that can be encouraged through platitudes or rote admonishments. It’s bloody and raw and hard-won (and can be easily lost too). It’s everything.

Beethoven lived another twenty-five years after writing this letter. Here’s his last symphony, courtesy of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on their YouTube channel:


I read this letter as part of the Deal Me In 2017 challenge.

Week in Seven Words #244

arresting
There are some sounds to which I fall silent and still.

present
The key is to appear clearly to yourself and think, "Here I am. Here's what I'm doing." And not have to shy away from either.

pretense
He makes the "both sides are wrong" copout. Yes, both sides have flaws - but for one side, it's a few typos, while for the other side it's the equivalent of ungrammatical chicken scratch handed in on toilet paper.

ribs
I'm imprisoned in the stories I tell about myself.

soggy
Rain puddling under a bench where we sit and share a bag of peanut butter cups.

soreness
Damp and tired, feet chafed, after a long walk in the park with inappropriate footwear.

version
Change the narratives then. Cobble together some new ones. Find out who you are after years of not listening, of treating yourself as second-rate.

Nonfiction Book of the Month: Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Written by a psychiatrist who survived Auschwitz, it's a book that will change your life.

I'll just leave an excerpt here:

As each situation in life represents a challenge to man and presents a problem for him to solve, the question of the meaning of life may actually be reversed. Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.

11 things I (re)learned in 2011

1) You can only fool yourself for so long.

Any part of your life feel like a sham? Answer that question honestly. You can't hide behind a job title or among other people. The turmoil and falseness will tear you apart inside, and cracks will form on the surface. It's best to have a reckoning with yourself, no matter how painful. What abilities, relationships and personal traits have you left untended? What fears and pains did you ignore as they festered? Did you manage to do some good? What don't you regret? And what comes next?

2) Don't expect too much from others.

I almost wrote this as "don’t expect much of anyone," but it sounded like a bit of grumbling misanthropy, which isn't my intention. What I mean is that people don't owe you things - not love or success or approval - and they're not to be confronted with a feeling of entitlement or burdened with too many lofty expectations. There might be people in your life who are generally much better than others at understanding you and treating you with love, care and generosity of spirit, but they're still human, and they can't read minds.  This isn't about accepting bad treatment from others; it's about seeing them as they are and not putting unreasonable burdens on them.  With an attitude of not expecting too much you're more likely to receive good things with gratitude instead of taking them for granted. And if you're in a bad situation or the target of toxic behavior you might be able to deal with it more effectively instead of spending a lot of time railing at everyone and everything about the unfairness of it all.

3) Demand the best of yourself

By"the best" I don't mean someone else's best or a set of superhuman expectations that you will either never try to live up to or will inevitably fall far short of if you do try, resulting in shame, guilt, inertia, melancholy, and perhaps an eensy bit of satisfaction that you managed to sabotage yourself so nicely. Don't set up your life so that you're spending most of your time licking your wounds and feeling sorry for yourself.  What do you love and hope for? What do you want to give to the world? How do you want to improve? Set goals, plan out the steps you'll need to take towards them, and expect that if you mess up or if things don't go your way, you'll pick yourself up, reassess, learn and keep going. Over and over.

4) You can't demand the best of yourself without being able to forgive yourself

A lack of forgiveness suggests little hope and faith.  Under these circumstances it's much harder to work well, live well, and see your own efforts as worthwhile because you're not really focused on the future (or on the present) anyway.  It's also much harder to avoid similar mistakes or poor choices in the future and to repair past wrongs, because you feel that your efforts will be useless.  Guilt and regret are meant to prod you towards meaningful change; they aren't signs that everything you do is futile and that there's no hope for you.  Don't be so hard on yourself.  Pining for inhuman perfection will keep you from being productive, loving, and engaged with life.

5) Figure out why you're procrastinating

It's not always easy to identify 'wasted time,' because 'wasted time' can give you inspired ideas and necessary relaxation.  Or it can wear you down and make you miss opportunities.  It's also a matter of attitude: you look at what you did yesterday or the day before, and you may see something good in it, some potential, or just dismiss it out of hand as lost time.  Either way it's not coming back.  Often it's a gut feeling: you know you're wasting time and putting off the important things, but you can't seem to stop procrastinating.  Why? Ask yourself what it is you're afraid of or what you hope to avoid.  Are you setting yourself up to fail? Maybe you think the work is fundamentally worthless or pointless; you can't think of a meaningful purpose for it.  Maybe you want to keep things exactly as they are and not face any surprises.  In any case, really think about why it is you're procrastinating (sincerely think about it, and don't just use it as yet another exercise in pointless procrastination).

6) An all-or-nothing attitude is counterproductive

One way to hold back from doing anything meaningful is by telling yourself that you won't bring about a perfect outcome or solution.  Either you want everything "just right" (whatever that means), or it's not worth doing at all: another example of superhuman expectations.  With that attitude there wouldn't be civilization.  No society can prevent or justly punish all crimes; does this mean we should stop writing and enforcing laws and stop fighting to redress judicial wrongs? Contributing to a charity won't prevent or stop every instance of hunger or sickness or pain in the world, but could it improve the life of at least one person? An all-or-nothing attitude is an excuse not to work towards anything worthwhile for yourself and others.

7) Instability is a fundamental part of life

Circumstances are always changing.  You're changing.  Life is fragile.  Living involves a series of adjustments, sometimes minute, other times huge and staggering.  If you pretend otherwise you will stagnate and be blindsided by circumstance.  There's a lifelong struggle for balance as you deal with all the shifts around you and in you.  You want to have a steady sense of self, a steady purpose, without being too inflexible or too changeable.  

8) There's no escaping from yourself

So don't be passive about your life.  And don't let others tell you what you should be; they're not the ones who will live every second of every day with the results of those choices.  Hear other people out, learn from them, value meaningful criticism, but ultimately make your own choices.  Words of approval and acceptance can feel like everything but they aren't, especially if they come from people who want you to compromise yourself.  They might have the best intentions.  They might think their advice will spare you from future pain and disappointment.  Their good intentions might also be mixed up with (or superseded entirely by) other motives: the need to control you, the need to live through you, etc.  If you're not what they want you to be then you become difficult and unmanageable.

9) Being kind is undervalued

It's seen as a weakness, or as a trait to develop in yourself if you aren't clever, good-looking, young, or rich.  There's a misconception that it's easy to be kind, because anyone can do kind things.  And it's true; anyone can.  But it's not always easy.  Not when you're having a bad day, when your temper is foul or when you're frustrated and other people are right there as perfect targets for your anger.  It's not easy when you're feeling short-changed and bitter, or when the people you're kind to respond rudely or ignore your efforts.  Part of being truly kind is also discerning the individual needs of different people, as opposed to pushing the same kind of charity or help on everyone regardless of who they are and what they really want or need; this can be very difficult to do well (and under some circumstances almost impossible).

10) Have patience

You will rarely get immediate results.  You will rarely get the exact results you expect.

11) "Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts."

You said it, Churchill.

Be well, and have a great new year.

Good Short Fiction: 4 stories from Adaptations

Collection: Adaptations: From Short Story to Big Screen
Editor: Stephanie Harrison

Title: Auggie Wren's Christmas Story
Author: Paul Auster
Auggie Wren works at a cigar store. His real name isn't Auggie Wren; that's just what he told the author, Paul, to call him. Auggie is an unassuming guy. You wouldn't guess that he's a photographer and that every day for years he's been taking a photo of the same street corner ("the same people in the same spot every morning, living an instant of their lives in the field of Auggie's camera"). And you'd probably never guess how he got his camera. That's where the Christmas story comes in. A major part of the story is that he pretends to be a blind old lady's son who has come to visit her for Christmas; the old lady is on to him, but she's lonely and he's got nowhere else to be, so they pretend. Another thing that isn't clear is whether Auggie is making this story up. How much do you want it to be true? Either way it makes for a good story.

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Title: The Harvey Pekar Name Story
Author: Harvey Pekar
Illustrator: R. Crumb (Robert Crumb)
Harvey Pekar doesn't change much from one panel to another in this short comic. He's a scruffy ordinary guy who is thinking out loud about his life and more specifically his name: Harvey Pekar. It's a strange name, he thinks, and he talks about how people used to tease him for it. He then mentions other Harvey Pekars he's seen in the phone book. This is the best part of the comic - his thoughts on the multiple Pekars and how his identity might be bound up with them. Is he connected to them in a deeper way than shared names? What are they like? Maybe his life could have turned out like theirs, who knows. "Who is Harvey Pekar?" he asks. I looked at one image after another of Harvey and wondered the same thing, getting a better sense of him but also asking myself just who he is and why it's him (and not another Harvey Pekar) featured in the comic.

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Title: My Friend Flicka
Author: Mary O'Hara
When Kennie McLaughlin's father grudgingly allows him to tame one of the colts on their ranch, Kennie is drawn to a wild and fast colt that no one thinks is tameable. It's difficult to confine the young horse; she goes into a frenzy, breaks free and runs off. Her need to get away is so desperate that one day her escape attempt ends in a horrible injury:

Twenty yards of fence came down with her as she hurled herself through. Caught on the upper strands, she turned a complete somersault, landing on her back, her four legs dragging the wires down on top of her, and tangling herself in them beyond hope of escape.

The colt's chances of survival are slim; her skin is lacerated, and the wounds are infected. Even if she pulls through, there's a chance that she'll be crippled for life. Kennie needs to make a choice: he can abandon her as a lost cause and let the ranch workers shoot her, or he can try his best to nurse her back to health.

My Friend Flicka is a warm family tale, though the warmth is never cloying, and the possibility of death and serious injury is presented starkly. Part of what makes it a good story is that it shows how a young boy learns to take responsibility for another life. His attempts to tame the colt led to her injury; to discard her in the aftermath would be callous. Kennie and his horse form a deep bond; he's determined not to betray her and treat her life lightly.

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Title: A Reputation
Author: Richard Edward Connell
Saunders Rook is an ordinary pleasant guy who would like to be noticed a little more. So one evening when he's dining at his club, he breaks into a lull in the conversation by telling everyone that he's going to commit suicide on the Fourth of July - a pronouncement that surprises him at least as much as it surprises his audience.

He had never demanded much of life; his existence was not rigorous, but placid. He was a sub-editor on a woman's magazine - he conducted the etiquette page - and this brought him twelve hundred dollars a year. He had inherited an income of twelve hundred more. He was able to live in modest comfort, for he was an orphan and a bachelor; he had a season ticket at the opera; his health was good. If he had a cross, it was a light one: minor editors of minor magazines usually rejected his minor essays, imitations of Charles Lamb, hymning the joys of pipe-smoking and pork-chops. So it startled him not a little to hear himself announcing his imminent self-destruction.

People who overlooked him before now turn to him with breathless questions. They ask him why he's doing this. To protest the state of civilization, he says, and they go wild with interest. Suddenly everyone is talking about Saunders Rook. He gets letters from people who either beg him to reconsider or congratulate him on his determination. He's invited to dinners thrown by intellectuals and artists, and his essays are solicited for magazines (though he notices with some nervousness that a couple are scheduled for posthumous publication). One of the ironies of the story is that Saunders loves his life, especially now that he's getting all this attention. Still, he has a reputation to maintain, so he keeps pretending that he's grown deeply disgusted with the world.

"But why do you feel that the state of civilization requires so drastic a protest?"

Deline asked this question as Saunders Rook was enjoying the third course, tender roast young guinea-fowl with mushrooms; Rook loved good food.

"Because," said Saunders Rook, with fork poised, "it's rotten."

Around the table went murmurs of approbation and interest.

Richard Connell's story pokes fun at the chattering classes and how they're quick to read profundity into Saunders Rook's words; hype, excitement and endless discussion swirl around Rook's careless statements, as if he's become a kind of prophet of the age. Connell is also careful to show us the day of reckoning: a sunny beautiful Fourth of July in Central Park, where Rook has decided to kill himself. Families are strolling and picnicking, and the city seems to be shining. Will Rook go through with it? It's the most important decision he'll ever make, and you wonder whether he'll be guided by his private self or by the demands of his public persona; maybe it's gotten to the point where his reputation really is everything. You also get the sense that no matter how he chooses, he'll fade back into obscurity at some point, once his fifteen minutes of fame are over.

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Other stories from this collection include Babylon Revisited (by F. Scott Fitzgerald), The Basement Room (by Graham Greene), Killings (by Andre Dubus) and The Sentinel (by Arthur C. Clarke), along with The Swimmer (by John Cheever), Tomorrow (by William Faulkner), and Your Arkansas Traveler (by Budd Schulberg).

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This post has been linked to at the Breadcrumb Reads blog in Short Stories on Wednesday #16.

Week in Seven Words #89

coiling
They're sitting in the kitchen making long colorful paper chains to loop around the walls of their sukkah. The decorative chains spill over the kitchen table and pool and heap on the floor.

decumbent
Hit by an illness first thing in the morning, I find that the world is shaky when I'm out of bed. I stay under the covers, reading by the light that slides in through the blinds.

furtherance
I learn again that it's best not to put off doing something good and worthwhile with the complacent thought that there will be another opportunity for it soon.

illustrative
As I'm reading them picture books about a spiffy giant and a Gruffalo and a snail that travels the world on a whale's tail, she asks me why the pictures show some things but not others; for instance, if the story tells you that a fox ran off and hid, the picture only shows you the hiding part but not the running part. After I tell her that everything can't be shown, and that the people who write and illustrate the books have to pick and choose, her older brother starts to talk about how in movies you can't see what's going on with all of the characters either; when one character's story is on screen, other characters are off-screen, with things happening to them that we can't even see but maybe will only hear about later.

lucent
On my walk home, bright globes of light burn on either side of the path. It's nighttime and a fresh new day has begun.

precipitation
The tables and chairs are beaded with rain water.

unawares
Scrabble Junior can be as challenging as regular Scrabble, simply because Scrabble Junior lulls you into a false sense of security.

Worth Watching: You Can't Take It With You (1938)

Title: You Can't Take It With You
Director: Frank Capra
Language: English
Rating: Unrated

Synopsis
Alice (Jean Arthur) and Tony (Jimmy Stewart) are in love. Alice comes from a household of fun, free artistic people presided over by her grandpa, Martin (Lionel Barrymore). Tony comes from society's upper crust; his father, the arrogant and powerful Mr. Kirby (Edward Arnold), is a banker. Martin is already a thorn in Mr. Kirby's side; his refusal to sell his house prevents Mr. Kirby from completing a lucrative deal. At last the families meet, in an evening that includes fireworks, a wrestling match, some jail time, and a courtroom scene with an adorable judge (Harry Davenport).

Characters
The film features a house full of eccentric people, so it has at least one good thing going for it right there. My favorite of the bunch is Alice's mother, Penny (Spring Byington), a sweet absent-minded lady who writes plays at her desk in the main room as fireworks rumble from the cellar, and her other daughter, Essie (Ann Miller), dances ballet while setting the table; Essie is supposed to be clumsy, so Ann Miller does her best to look like an amateur dancer. Another character I like is Mr. Poppins (Donald Meek) who is rescued by Martin from a mindless job and installed as a permanent house guest, working mostly from the cellar on his masks and mechanical toys. I don't remember if the movie ever explains how Martin has enough money to support a large household. Maybe he worked for years and saved up, or maybe he really never paid any taxes.



The wily and kind Martin, played wonderfully by Lionel Barrymore, is contrasted with the avaricious Mr. Kirby whose values slowly shift from the jail scene onwards. Mr. Kirby's character development is one of the best parts of You Can't Take It With You - it's a gradual dawning, as he realizes that he's a distant father with little joy in his life and no true friends. Edward Arnold is a subtle expressive actor, and I loved one point in the film when he's in an elevator and the doors open on a large board room full of men hungrily applauding him and waiting to gorge on the profits he'll make from a landmark deal; the close-up on his face shows dismay and spiritual exhaustion, in a powerful moment.

His son, Tony, was never cut out to be a banker. Stewart plays Tony as goofy, gallant, and mischievous - which makes him a delicious romantic lead; he's the kind of guy who can laugh at himself while softly and confidently flirting and moving in for a kiss. In the course of the film he grows up a little and takes his first steps away from the life that's been laid out for him since birth.

Like Tony Alice is also different from her family, but she has a close loving relationship with them. Of everyone in her family Alice is the least eccentric, though even she prefers sliding down banisters to taking stairs. Jean Arthur makes Alice sensible without being boring, and gentle without being meek. She has a quiet feistiness, and in the courtroom scene the underlying steel in her emerges.

Relationships
Alice and Tony are in love from the start. What they need to figure out is how to marry happily when they come from such different backgrounds. Alice's family likes Tony, but Tony's family, particularly his haughty mother (played by Mary Forbes), thinks Alice is unsuitable.

As Alice and Tony's relationship is tested, a fellowship slowly forms between Martin and Mr. Kirby. Martin at one point loses his temper and berates Mr. Kirby, then apologizes and gives him a harmonica. The harmonica becomes the symbol of their friendship, and of the simpler happier life that Mr. Kirby wants to settle into by the end. Martin effectively rescues Mr. Kirby much as he did Mr. Poppins.





Though class conflicts are central to the film, at its heart it's more about what's important in life. The film's title comes from the observation that you can't take money with you to the grave and beyond; if you're letting your heart wither as you pursue wealth, if it gets to the point where you're sacrificing everything and everyone for it, then what kind of life are you leading?

Memorable sights and sounds
Harmonicas lead to happiness. A harmonica duet has the power to reunite quarreling lovers and give them hope.

I didn't see this film primarily as a comedy though there are funny moments throughout. Jimmy Stewart screaming like a murderous toddler is among them (in the very same scene where he offers a marriage proposal). He's showing Alice how since infancy all he's ever needed to do to get what he wants is yell loudly enough. Stewart's comedic talent also extends to some awkward dancing and the mild, natural way in which he says funny things.

Stand-out scenes
The courtroom scene is a highlight, with all of Martin's friends from the neighborhood showing up in contrast to Mr. Kirby's four lawyers. This is the scene were Alice makes a stand against her future in-laws' snobbery, and Mr. Kirby is already beginning to see how impoverished his existence is.

I enjoyed all the scenes with Tony and Alice too, when it's just the two of them. They banter, confide in one another, and bring love and levity to stuffy places like Tony's office or a high-end restaurant.





Further thoughts
Sometimes the film drags along or a point is belabored. Regardless it has a heart and a strong cast of characters. One of the lessons it leaves you with is not to live an anxious miserly existence. Love your life and the people in it and don't live in constant fear.

*All images link back to their sources (Flickr; Flixster (community); Wikipedia).

L'equip petit

A documentary about little kids on an underdog soccer team (what would be a little league team here in the U.S.). They haven't scored a goal yet. They speak with seriousness and passion about the game; failure isn't fazing them. They're also having fun, as are the people who coach them.

l'equip petit from el cangrejo on Vimeo.

Extracts: Purpose and passion (or lack thereof) in life

From Middlemarch:

We are on a perilous margin when we begin to look passively at our future selves, and see our own figures led with dull consent into insipid misdoing and shabby achievement. - from Chapter 79, Sunset and Sunrise

But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope. - from Chapter 51, The Dead Hand

It is an uneasy lot at best, to be what we call highly taught and yet not to enjoy: to be present at this great spectacle of life and never to be liberated from a small hungry shivering self – never to be fully possessed by the glory we behold, never to have our consciousness rapturously transformed into the vividness of a thought, the ardor of a passion, the energy of an action, but always to be scholarly and uninspired, ambitious and timid, scrupulous and dim-sighted. - from Chapter 29, Waiting for Death

One Reading of "The Broken Sandal"

This is how Denise Levertov's poem ends:

Where was I going?
Where was I going I can't
go to now, unless hurting?
Where am I standing, if I'm
to stand still now?

The speaker has dreamt that her sandal came apart, and now she has to stop walking and actually consider the conditions of the road she's on - the dirt, the rocks - and where she is and where she's going.

It's a short poem, and abrupt like the thong of the sandal snapping, but like with any good poem there's much in it. Yesterday I read something about the tendency to sleep-walk through life, and the poem stirred those thoughts up too - how it's easy to fall into a direction or rhythm that we don't think about too much, make choices small and large in a similar way, until something finally arrests us. Comfort, complacency, a numbed mind then give way to uncertainty and agitation. We wonder where we are, where we're headed to, and how we'll deal with it all; things we assumed would last are absent, our previous state of mind has fallen apart. We look around us and wonder how we even got here.

What's also interesting is that the poet isn't describing an actual event - that the sandal did break - but that she dreamt it did. She's anticipating these events, thinking about life and what she's doing with her life even before circumstances might force her to. And as a poet she's calling on us to have that kind of dream too, to imagine our travels stalled, difficulties cropping up along with insistent questions about our purpose. How would we begin to answer?

Yes it was uplifting...

And silly, and lovely, and absurd. Also really funny at times. Nudging you in the ribs a little - reminding you of life's possibilities.

Up, a great movie to watch on a winter evening with friends.

And some things that came to mind after it was over, when I was humming the theme music and feeling happy:

- Day to day life can be an adventure too

- You're not too old to have one (both an adventure and a day to day life)

- Don't shut yourself away from the world and other people

- Letting go is a poignant, painful but often necessary part of growing older

- Dream, don't stop dreaming, no matter where you are and what you can do about those dreams

- Have some balloons around; you never know when they'll come in handy

- Assist the elderly

What am I becoming?

George Eliot was a brilliant author in many ways. She understood people, how they shape and are shaped by society, the hundreds of little influences that affect decisions and alter character. She understood human flaws and human triumphs, people's ideals and limitations, their hopes and secret pains, moments of illumination and stubborn blindness.

I read Middlemarch several years ago and had jotted down passages that struck me, that I knew I'd want to revisit and think about. One of them is the following:

We are on a perilous margin when we begin to look passively at our future selves, and see our own figures led with dull consent into insipid misdoing and shabby achievement. – Chapter 79, Sunset and Sunrise

Eliot writes that specter well - one's own future self, a drab and gray figure sacrificed piece by piece, over the course of years, to mediocrity. A seemingly painless sacrifice, committed for the sake of comfort and approval and to appease one's gnawing fear of failure. And so instead of imagining our best selves and struggling towards that, we give up, we go slack, we pretend that the the virtues, values and gifts that we cherished aren't that important after all.

Guard against the impulse to let yourself slip away, to allow yourself to slip along without effort or imagination. It might be tempting to tell yourself that it's no use anyway, that what you do isn't of any consequence; yet everything we do - or don't do - has a consequence for ourselves, for others, for the world, even if we can't understand the full extent of it.

Even when life and its pressures seem overwhelming, don't lose sight of yourself and what you hope to be.