Dealing with the Master

I have not read a novel by David Foster Wallace yet.  I will.  Soon.  I have read many of his stories, two of his books of essays and a commencement speech he gave in 2005 (which is the year I graduated from law school). You can read the speech here:

http://moreintelligentlife.com/story/david-foster-wallace-in-his-own-words

I love the speech.  It really got me thinking.

A few months ago, I read The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes.  A book club I attend discussed that book in detail and it was well received.  One topic of discussion focused on a character named Adrian.  I really liked Adrian's character and how he was written in the book.  Adrian was wise, brilliant and articulated advice sagely.  But, Adrian was ultimately flawed and weak like all people.

Adrian made me think of  David Foster Wallace.  Wallace is brilliant, wise and his speech is one of the best bits of sage advice I have read.  Yet, Mr. Wallace ended his own life not three years after emphasizing how important life before death is to the graduates.  Adrian also took his own life in the book, and he said he did so to finally experience peace.  But, suicide is not the only reason the two seem connected.

When you read anything written by DFW, you will come to a certain conclusion that his own mind was his "terrible master" as he stated in his speech.  His writing is so intense.  Nothing he has written could ever come from a calm mind.

I have written about how difficult it can be to read DFW on my book blog.  I feel like I need a break even after an essay collection.  It makes the idea of reading his novels intimidating and scary.  His commencement address confirms my suspicion that DFW could not turn off his brain, but it explains that he did not want to, either.

Adrian could not turn off his brain.  Many of us cannot turn off our brains.  I almost never can.  And, it does become difficult at times, although I have never suffered as DFW or Adrian.

At our book club meeting, Adrian's rationale for his suicide was a controversial topic.  I remember one member stating that Adrian's reason made no sense and that the decision was selfish.  Suicide will always be called selfish, but not everyone agreed that Adrian's reason was nonsense.  I think it did make sense even if it is something I would not choose to do.  And, if I had to guess any one thing that could ever (in theory) cause me to go that route, quiet would be it, and nothing would be a close second.

To me, Adrian's reason for suicide made more sense than any reason I have ever heard.  Peace.  The author describes Adrian as a person who could not stop thinking.  Adrian missed no angle and was thorough in brilliant ways.  His suffering within his own head was well detailed.  And it felt like being inside the head of  DFW if his writing indicated anything about his inner turmoil.

Yet, despite his later failings to heed his own advice, DFW's speech is great advice to those who seek peace within.  It is about choice and taking control of the "terrible master" that, if left alone, will torment.

It is about choosing happiness over frustration by changing default settings and by knowing when to consciously shift focus to something that will relieve frustration.  The example I have experienced most often comes from the grocery store.  I have developed the ability to tame frustration by observing my surroundings or by losing myself in thought rather than fret.  It is calming, but it does nothing for the clutter, which has its own frustration.  You could say the choice is how to suffer.

As a child, I used to revere what looked like elite adult conversation when we would go to the home of one of my father's colleagues for a cook out.  All those adults having adult conversations.  Doctors and their families engaged in deep conversation.  We watched Halley's comet through a telescope at one of those parties in 1986.  I was not yet 10.  It was the height of intellectualism in my world and it looked great.

Much of my life has been spent trying to be efficient as a result.  Why? Because I wanted to be at such a barbecue with highly intelligent people discussing the world's problems.  It drove me and made post-graduate school a necessity in my mind.  Too often, however, my later attendance at just such gatherings revealed vapid or mundane conversations.  I later saw a picture from one of those gatherings with one of the doctors flipping off the camera.  I think reality and what it looked like to 9-year-old me were not the same.

I hated coming to that conclusion.

But, just like DFW said in his address, most of life is about the mundane.  And, to escape the mundane, you must clutter your mind.  High-minded discussion is hard to find, and can leave a person feeling unfulfilled.  Late-night blog posts (like this one) become too common as an outlet.  This entire blog started as an outlet for me more than four years ago.  But, a person must have an outlet.  Well, I should say that I need outlets.  Without them, I would be lost.  Without the right kinds of outlets, the mind becomes a terrible master, indeed. I sleep little because it is all I can extract from my mind as a concession.  Sometimes that just has to be it.  I choose to accept that.

I turned off the TV to learn German to prove I could... created time to read by excluding so many "normal" things in life... all of it to create efficiency necessary to be part of a barbecue I now know existed only in my mind.  And, just like DFW says, what I worshiped became an undoing.  The result was that I was told that even my entertainment schedule had become an exercise in duty and efficiency.  It was true.

No one is immune.  Some sort of disorder happens to us all.  The difference is how each of us chooses to deal with it.  I do maintenance as often as I can, but who knows what works in the end?  My maintenance platter includes book clubs, blog writing, good conversation, and language work.

DFW reminds that we retain freedom to choose how we look at it.  My mechanical approaches to things eroded some of my sense of empathy.  One choice would have been to mourn that.  I chose to make many changes to deal with that (that's for another post), some effective, others not and none perfect.  My exposure to nursing homes and end-of-life decisions through work led to damage that needed repair.  My recent choice to deal with that was a tough one, but ultimately rewarding (and will not be posted about).

Everything I have written above about my self-diagnosis seems very reasonable to me.  And everything DFW said to those graduates in 2005 was wise and true.  Just because he committed suicide does not mean he was wrong in 2005.  And, my own inevitable victories and failures to enforce peace internally will not be a philosophical victory or failure, either.

What path we choose does not always reflect our understanding.  It may just reflect a choice none of us can really understand.