Annoying woman in a dark wood
I noticed this link at Instapundit:
LATE-LIFE LAMENT OF A LEFTY WOMAN: “I don’t own a home and no one needs me; I am nobody’s mother and now I am nobody’s child, as my parents are no longer living. My friends and peers have gone on to have families, to marry and stop working…. On good days, I can take a yoga class and still feel like life’s potential is still just around the corner if I’m just open to it; on bad ones, I feel such futility, like I’ve squandered my own youth and beauty in the hall of mirrors that is our consumerist society.”
The link is to a post at Ann Althouse’s, and she in turn gives a longer quote which adds money troubles to the woman’s woes, and links to the full article, which is “an anonymous letter written by a 40-year-old woman to the ‘culture therapist’ at the NYT Style Magazine.”
I didn’t know the Times had a “culture therapist.” And the letter contains so many cliches – is so mannered and off-putting in so many ways – that it’s no surprise that quite a few of the comments at Instapundit and at Althouse’s range from mildly blaming and nasty to very blaming and nasty.
But that wasn’t my reaction.
The first thing that came to me was the beginning of Dante’s Divine Comedy (there are many slightly different translations, but this is one):
In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost. Ah, how hard a thing it is to tell what a wild, and rough, and stubborn wood this was, which in my thought renews the fear!
This woman is forty, the classic “middle of life” where people tend to evaluate what they’ve done so far, where they are – and woe to those who feel they’ve made poor decisions and come to grief and loss. Notice that this woman says both her parents have died, which means they probably weren’t all that old when it happened, since she’s only forty. If you read the entire letter, you’ll see that she feels profoundly alone and like a failure.
Yes, she was sold a bill of goods by feminists, and she bought it. Yes, she’s suffering from that now. But she’s suffering (if she’s a real person, that is; she might just be a fake one designed by the “culture therapist” at the Times to make some sort of point).
And she doesn’t know where to turn to give her life meaning. She is lost.
This is the classic situation in which a person can find religion, or a calling, something that gives his or her life back to him. But I don’t pretend it’s easy. It takes courage and wisdom. So I think a little compassion is in order.
You may disagree.
Maybe she should become a Republican, to give meaning and direction to her life.
I’m struck by the fact that she somehow feels that her life is over and she’s only 40! I have a patient who went to medical school at age 40, then did a residency in pediatrics. She now has a successful medical practice.
At age 40 this woman has plenty of time to pursue most of the things she thinks she’s missed out on.
“Culture Therapist” at the New York Times ! ?
Aaaargh !
Compassion, courage and wisdom. Three great words. Dennis Prager often speaks to the subject of women buying into the femnist program, citing the foolishness wrought by “a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle”. Being one’s best self is not a sex, race or socio-economic issue. And it also doesn’t have an expiration date.
The longer quote on Althouse’s blog includes the following: “I chose a career in the dying industry that is print journalism and it’s too late to choose a new one.” Yes, as Chris B notes, she could do some research and train for a new career. But I think that seeing one’s chosen field dying/evaporating/falling apart (whichever metaphor you choose) has got to be depressing in addition to fueling money worries. If she genuinely enjoyed working in journalism, she will miss the sense of satisfaction she derived from her work. And she is not the only person I know who is watching their chosen occupation falling into decline or being subjected to increasing government regulation and interference. Even in regard to medicine, I know several docs who chose early retirement because of the growing burden of government-imposed paperwork. I also had several friends in grad school who decided not to go into college teaching because of cancel culture, political correctness, whatever you want to call it. I don’t have a short answer for this particular woman’s unhappiness, but some of it at least is circumstantial. Some life decisions look poor only in retrospect.
I don’t disagree. She’s lost the people who were important to her through no fault of her own. She made decisions that seemed right at the time but didn’t lead to lasting happiness – and we all do that. Her friends are not including her as much as they should be.
But I also agree with the above comment that 40 isn’t that old! Her life is probably not halfway over yet. She could pursue adoption and foster parenting if she wants to be somebody’s mother. She could learn new hobbies. She could look into a new career if her current one isn’t fulfilling. There are still plenty of single men in her age group that she could connect with. She could travel. She could get pets. Not that I don’t understand where she’s coming from. We live in a very fast-paced world, life is rapidly changing, and we’re bombarded with stories of young people achieving exceptional success, so I think it’s normal to feel like you’re running out of time. A little perspective is necessary every now and then.
You have to be of a certain age to think of this, but Neo’s recap of the letter made me think back to when Ann Landers used to peg letters as having been written by Yale undergrads because they punched so many predictable buttons. IOW, this letter seemed so stereotypical that I wondered if it weren’t written as a parody of the type of woman who would write an actual letter like this one.
Sadly, that interpretation is actually preferable to it being reality.
“And she is not the only person I know who is watching their chosen occupation falling into decline” – PA Cat
She could always learn to code.
Joe Biden recommends that for displaced coal miners, so I would think a journalist would have no problem.
On the other hand, which I can say because I was a computer programmer during my period of gainful employment, learning to do GOOD code ain’t all that easy, and bringing in people who are not naturally inclined to that profession is a recipe for disaster.
https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/education/476391-biden-tells-coal-miners-to-learn-to-code
Uh, no.
Not the same skill sets at all.
I suspect the audience is a lot more clued in than Uncle Joe, who hasn’t earned a living in reality-based employment in decades — although it appears to have been gainful.
IF this is an actual person it is a sad affair. But self pity is no way to live. She needs to stop mopping and see the glass as half full.
Sounds like a real woman with a real dilemma to me.
Don’t most people have a “Who Moved My Cheese?” crisis at some point? Even women who get the husband, kids and white picket fence…
But but no, never stop mopping woman – gots to keep things spic an span.
My take too NNC! She bought into a feminist position but now finds it lonely. I know what it’s like to be forty-something and realize I made some wrong turns. I have lost my parents, but I’m considerably older than she, and my parents lived full lives. Part of me wants to reach out to her, but I think her critics are right in mentioning that she has bought into postmodernism, and though she disagrees with the younger snowflakes and radicals, she is going to have a very hard time breaking out of that philosophical cul de sac.
I met an annoying woman in a dark wood
So I went the other way
And that has made all the difference!
–with apologies to RF
shadow:
One thing she is running out of time for, however, is children – at least on having her own. She seems to have chosen career over that – or who knows, maybe her love life never worked out – but the door closes pretty soon on having biological children for a woman. And to adopt, alone, at that age, takes a great deal of courage, plus it often is the case that one must adopt a child who is difficult to place because of pre-existing problems or being older.
And now her career is going down the tubes.
The Biden remark is mind-boggling. As another software guy, I suspect that the intersection of skills and aptitudes required for that vs coal mining is tiny, maybe null.
It’s interesting to me how many women I see having their first child at 36,37,38 nowadays. I personally know of a few and it seems like I’m seeing many actresses also doing this. On one hand it’s great that they were able to do this but it’s also an interesting societal trend because pregnancy becomes more complicated at that age and I wonder how many women thought they could always have a child later only to have biology, timing and fate rob them of that.
Choices, choices, choices.
She’s having a midlife crisis and has chosen to make it seem more significant than it is by publicizing it. Seems like a stupid move to exaggerate a commonplace problem. Lots of people – male and female, with and without children or parents – go through this. Do I make any difference? What was/is the point of all this? Etc., other midlifey thoughts. It’s not unusual.
Now that her story’s out in public everyone else feels free (and is free) to impose their own lens on her issues but it’s so depressing to hear that, too. All that superior scolding! Feh!
What a depressing waste of time.
Another lone woman’s late life story; a rather different story.
Robert Frost, North of Boston (1915): The Black Cottage
Still wondering: who is “the Welshman”?
Sorry, not much empathy from me. 40 is not old. She can look for a partner, she’s far from the age of not being sexual attractive. And she can adopt. My wife and I had our kids when she was 39 and 41. It has been a bit strange as the oldest parents at the kid’s softball game, but we had other advantages that youger parents dont such as experience and more stability.
People switch careers all the time. What about online journalism?
If she bought into the hard core left feminist ideas, it’s far from being too late to change….sheesh
I am 61. I have started two businesses in fields I’ve never worked in and am succeeding. I also happen to live in a ‘senior’ complex of 87 apartments – with a lot of people just sitting and waiting to die.
She is young – but she is right that she has wasted a part of her life – maybe this is the beginning of changing the pattern.
I don’t have any animosity towards the woman, nor pity. We are the culmination of the consequences of the choices we make. We get to decide where we go from here.
On “shadow”, on “decisions that seemed right at the time… Her friends are not including her as much as they should be.”:
What a pity, that this culture has become so focused on pushing folks to put their impulses over everything, e.g. nurturing CLOSE friendships (with people from different classes etc.), which could’ve broadened her perspective.
I’m of a mind to guess (knowing Lefties as I do), that the kind of “friends” she made, were the sorts to expect the world of others, and wantonly lean towards excluding those who fail to meet these huge expectations (e.g. by inflicting micro-aggressions).
When the Left (MSM etc.) pushes folks (in her milieu) toward obsession, with “toxic masculinity” and “white privilege”, it sets such folks up for social failure with all, save for those who can coalesce only with their fellow haters of “white patriarchy”.
If you want to keep friends, you’d best get expectations that imperfect friends have a reasonable chance to meet.
But so much of the Left, dating back to the Stalinist pitch about “the Party isn’t everything, it’s the only thing”, has had virtually nothing helpful to say about keeping actual friends.
To physicsguy, on “it’s far from being too late to change… She can look for a partner”:
Problem is, even if she can first attract a partner, or change herself some, she’s probably stuck in a Leftist milieu, chock full of brats who’ll likely just keep on getting worse, in virtually every way.
Were she to move to a less Leftist milieu, such a newcomer is likely to be suspect in that milieu, for being just another Leftist User, who has likely left The Left for “opportunistic” reasons.
When you lie with dogs, expect to have a tough time getting rid of fleas.
I’m so fortunate, that I was able to sniff out the (mostly Leftist) social rot, and withdraw from such circles, c. 6 years ago, before the recent TDS orgy accelerated this rot.
Tracy Coyle:
We are a culmination of the choices we have made, but luck factors into it a great deal for some people.
There is no way to tell from reading what she wrote whether bad luck was a big factor. It certainly is likely to have been bad luck that she lost her parents quite young, for example.
I have cultivated friendships all my life but I have lost many friends. Some died. Some moved far away and although we may still be in touch, it’s nothing like being near them geographically. Some have pulled away for various reasons, not always explained, and sometimes just being that they are tremendously busy with grandchildren and that’s seemingly enough for them. As one ages it’s harder to replace friends, I’ve found.
She mentions friends moving away (“or have moved to other parts of the country or even foreign countries”). This is bad luck, too, and nothing to do with any decision she made.
Another thing I have noticed is that as one gets older it can become harder to make new friends. One conduit to friendship is school, another is having children in school and in community activities, another is being married (if one is single, many fewer people want to socialize with you, especially a single woman). These trends seem to me to be fairly universally true, although certain areas of the country are friendlier than other areas.
What struck me most about that piece was that gal says she’s too old to change careers – at age 40. Now, i’m 60 and can only wish for 40 again. I’ve had my regrets. If i were 40 again, i would go back to school and become a surgical nurse. Forty is plenty young for that kind of career change. That woman seems to have been sold a raftload of cultural bills of goods that are all swamp real estate in FL. Pity her, she’s probably not creative enough to see a way out.
Well, sometimes you sit for a bit and feel sorry for yourself. It’s natural.
But then you’ve got to get back up and get back in the game. I say this gal needs to hie herself hence to a Tony Robbins event. Here’s a Tony standard for people like her and like the rest of us:
I get knocked down
But I get up again
You’re never gonna keep me down
I get knocked down
But I get up again
You’re never gonna keep me down
I get knocked down
But I get up again
You’re never gonna keep me down
I get knocked down
But I get up again
You’re never gonna keep me down
“Chumbawamba – Tubthumping (Official Video)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H5uWRjFsGc
Imagine you’re in a ballroom with that song playing LOUD and you’re dancing full-out with a few thousand people. And you do that everyday for an extended weekend.
You start to look at setbacks a little differently.
physicsguy:
I don’t see her saying it’s too late to change. She says on “good days” she feels that “life’s potential is still just around the corner if I’m just open to it.” It’s on “bad days” that she feels she’s squandered her youth.
Well, perhaps she has squandered her youth. Her youth is over, and youth is a prime time for getting one’s life set on a good path. But I don’t see her saying that there’s no time left to do something else, just that (a) she gets depressed at times, and (b) her youth is over.
You and your wife had children when your wife was 39, which is great. But think about it: if the child was born when she was 39, she may have been 38 when she became pregnant. And how long had you been together before that? It takes time, usually, to meet someone and build a relationship to the point of having a child. The woman who wrote this is already 40. She has to meet someone, form a stable and committed relationship, get pregnant, and 40 is very late for all of that to begin to happen. Plus, by that time, fertility has declined tremendously:
Not only that, but a 40-year-old woman is more likely to find a partner who is older, often considerably older. That doesn’t mean he couldn’t father a child, but it does mean that he would be fairly likely to be divorced with previous children and less likely to want children in this new relationship.
Yeah, that’s my issue with her is that instead of thinking of how to change she wallows in her misery. That’s not helpful for o her or to anyone.
More on friends:
Moderate liberals are a MUCH better bet. than those to their Left.
The former are much less likely to be know-it-alls (incl., if not esp., about etiquette).
I’m still stunned, at the speed/ depth of the Left’s intellectual, emotional, and moral collapse, in these last 4-5 years.
I was still a committed progressive when I went started Tony Robbins events in the late 90s. I turned conservative for 9-11 reasons.
However, the Tony stuff was still important for that change. Apres-Tony all the leftie victim talk sounded stupid, crazy and downright unhealthy.
Anyone who blames her life on the “decline of print journalism” and “our consumerist society” is living on the wrong planet, if she expected better for her life to work.
I get stuck at her losing both parents – and her age. She may still be in the depression stage of grief. And hormonal changes may already be starting – I think my Mom was 42 when it started, and it was brutal. As her fellow traveler, whatever she did/didn’t buy into is of no consequence to me. She gets compassion.
huxley, where she says “I’ve squandered my own youth and beauty in the hall of mirrors that is our consumerist society”, she may have a point, if by that she means that consumerism distracted her from more important things.
I’m kind of tired of the women’s movement being blamed for everything. The reason that women postpone having kids or don’t have kids is because of the availability of birth control. Remind me again – did a woman invent that? As a kid I heard plenty of adults, both male and female, bemoan the fact they had kids. And I heard a lot of dissatisfaction with lives lived, choices made, and events transpiring that were beyond their control. The difference was that people didn’t blame themselves. They shrugged, cried, drank a little or a lot and then went on with their lives. On the one hand life is an excrement sandwich and on the other hand, in the immortal words of the now dead Warren Zevon, “enjoy every sandwich.” Suffering, pain, and misery are a part of every life even if you reject the women’s movement and make every decision perfectly. It’s also full of beauty, love, and laughter. Don’t blame the victim dammit! We all go through dark times and sometimes we verbalize our angst – to hear some encouraging words, to find out we’re not alone in our struggles, or just to hear ourselves complain.
I do feel some pity for her. Whether it was “squandered” or not, her youth, by any reasonable definition of the word, is over, though her life is not. To feel that one has wasted one’s youth is miserable. And she was definitely misled by that weird combination of feminism and consumerism that seems to define educated and affluent women these days. To what extent she’s to blame for that I’ll refrain from judging.
This struck me: “I’m kind of astonished when I see how many of my peers, educated, once-ambitious women friends don’t work professionally anymore, and have either moved to another country or married a rich partner. Or both! It’s like they’ve given up.”
(My emphasis) I suspect those other once-ambitious women feel like they’ve won. That’s another funny aspect of affluent feminism: the appeal of the rich husband seems to be as powerful as ever. It’s another one of those human realities that are Not Supposed To Exist, but which remain very much alive among those most committed to denying it.
Well, it’s complicated. I effectively lost my parents when I was seven and I squandered a decade or three hoping the hippie thing would work out and feeling sorry for myself.
I have plenty of compassion for my younger self and our 40 year-old friend in the advice column. But at some point you have to pick yourself up, stop looking back, and dig in to what’s in front of you.
Plus, as Eva Marie and the Noble Buddha inform us, suffering, pain and misery are part of every life.
If I burned votive candles, one would be for dear Warren Zevon.
I started going to Tony Robbins events because I was clinically depressed and sufficiently suicidal that my therapist was on a full-court press to get me on antidepressants STAT because (a) she cared about me and (b) she didn’t want to get sued. (She admitted the latter aloud in session.)
The best book I read on depression then, and key to my recovery along with Tony, was Julian Simon’s “Good Mood: The New Psychology of Overcoming Depression.” Simon (an economist, not any kind of psych guy, though his book came out of the cognitive therapy he had) said that depression was the result of comparing yourself to others and/or where you thought you should be in life.
It sticks out a mile that this woman is comparing herself to her friends and where she feels she should be at 40. Well, she’s not.
But … she’s only 40. She’s intelligent, healthy (so far as we know), accomplished and I’ll bet she’s reasonably attractive. That’s not a bad hand to play. Not at all. Millions of people would trade places with her. Maybe billions, if one considers the whole planet.
If she could let go, appreciate what she has and recalibrate her expectations with her reality, I think she would be OK. Indeed more than OK.
PS. I never went on antidpressants.
You can read Juilan Simon’s entire book, “Good Mood,” for free here:
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Good_Mood/
Huxley – I saw the video. Really great. Then I read about the band in Wikipedia. Some of their antics were awful (comments about police officers) some awful-hilarious (pouring water on the Deputy Prime Minister who was in the audience at a performance) and some were just plain funny (donating the money GM gave them for the use of a song to an anti-GM environmental group). Amazing.
The good news about the Left’s recent intellectual, emotional, and moral collapse is, that this makes it rather easier, to see people committing decisive Freudian slips about key stuff, than it was before this recent collapse.
As an example, aside from views on normal policy issues, one can now hear folks really show their hand, when they talk about the Russian “collusion”/ (Nunes vs.) FISA fraud stuff.
Rarely in history, have we seen such a set of widely touted B.S. theories, been so swiftly and decisively refuted by official reports (Mueller, in the case of “collusion”, and Horowitz, in the case of [Nunes vs.] FISA fraud).
Anyone who pukes out Dem talking points, on either of these issues is, most likely, a hyper-partisan Disaster Waiting to Happen.
The book “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos” by Jordan Peterson was not written just for young men.
In times of trouble I ask what my fatther, mom, aunts and uncles, surviving the Great Depression, would post 12/7/41 have done. I know the answer.
I haven’t looked at Althouse much for a few years but I read the comments on this. I actually thought most of them were quite thoughtful. Even many of the more negative ones were not just caustic snark but had some pointed insights that rang true. I was far more disturbed by the response to this letter from the NYT “culture therapist” which was a nonstop exercise in encouraging the worst aspects of this woman’s view of the world. Exactly what you would expect from that wretched publication.
“Still wondering….”
Indeed, a bit obscure; but from the Wikipedia entry on Jefferson:
“Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743 (April 2, 1743, Old Style, Julian calendar), at the family home in Shadwell in the Colony of Virginia, the third of ten children. He was of English, and possibly Welsh, descent and was born a British subject….”
BTW, thanks for the poem….
P.S. FWIW…
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/dna-tests-prove-jeffersons-welsh-2273078
https://sovereignwales.com/tag/thomas-jeffesron-welsh-speaker/
…which (latter) includes this tantalizing tidbit:
“Almost 50% of the Signatories of American Independence and constitution were Welsh…”
Huxley – I saw the video. Really great. Then I read about the band in Wikipedia.
Eva Marie: Yeah. The song too is a disappointment upon closer inspection. Not the life-affirming anthem I assumed it was. It’s actually a drinking song — of which Tony wouldn’t approve — so I don’t pay attention to the quiet parts about “pissing the night away” and just enjoy the pump.
Still … good to know someone clicks my song links!
Here’s another classic Tony song I’ve practically imprinted into my DNA.
“Haddaway – Life Will Never Be the Same”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtyiG7swshA
The singer looks like an idiot on the album cover. I’ve been careful not to investigate further.
Heck, I would trade places with our 40 year-old friend! Oh, to be 40 again.
But I’ve seen too many “Twilight Zone” episodes not to know there is always some pesky fine print to those deals.
She might learn that life with the rich guy, house and kids has some fine print too.
Thanks Barry: for thinking it through and for the links. The “sovereignwales” link, after clasping to T. Jefferson makes a beeline for Abe Lincoln (heh, greedy buggers aren’t they?). Which put me back where I went astray.
Still and all despite never having heard or seen T. Jefferson referred to that way, nor monikered thus (and I went to Va. Public schools in those long-ago days when the state was proud to teach these things year in and year out, so got quite a bit of instruction on that particular hero amidst the multitude of others) I agree with you, he is the most likely referent, followed by A. Lincoln at some goodly distance back.
Makes sense of Frost’s verse, and etc. Again, thanks.
Yes, an eye-opener for me, too.
No doubt(?) it’s Welsh vengeance for having been subdued and incorporated by the English way back when….
She chose … poorly.
But, thankfully for HER, it wasn’t HER fault.
I imagine she blames President Trump or the deplorables or the Republicans or the Jews.
Life is just so unfair. It’s kind of like The Universe just doesn’t care about us. Who knew?
We’re currently on a cross country road trip; yesterday I made my husband sit through three Jordan Peterson podcasts (because driver gets to choose!). I like Peterson because, while he can get repetitive, he is both kind and firm. He says flat out that “you” may indeed have made mistakes and done terrible things, but that NOW “you” ought to start choosing your path – not because he tells you to, but because, really, what else are you going to do? Keep on cowering under the covers? And then he provides some concrete and workable actions to take to start making a change.
Theoretically I’m listening on behalf of my kids. And I know opinions on him vary. But I’m 53 and he still manages to make me feel simultaneously slightly ashamed about the past and rather excited about the future.
It couldn’t be clearer that all of those Leftists—the Democrats, the MSM, and various Hollyweird idiots–spouting off about how awful Trump is, and how they’d like to humiliate and destroy him in a myriad of ways are, in describing Rorschach test Trump’s awfulness, actually “projecting,” and revealing how they think, what their attitudes are, and the content of their innermost selves.
Thus, we have the example today of Rob Reiner describing Trump as being an “ignorant, soulless, corrupt liar.” *
Then, there was also the recent example of De Niro saying that he wanted to see Trump humiliated by having a bag of shit thrown in his face. **
* See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/01/liberal-hollywood-cranks-celebrate-the-new-year-by-bashing-trump-on-social-media/
** https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2019/12/20/de-niro-trump-needs-to-be-humiliated-id-like-to-see-a-bag-of-sht-right-in-his-face/
Brave and stunning (TM)
In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost. Ah, how hard a thing it is to tell what a wild, and rough, and stubborn wood this was, which in my thought renews the fear!
This is another (disk 1, #1):
https://www.amazon.com/Ruth-Draper-Her-Company-Characters/dp/B073RTJVN5/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?keywords=ruth+draper+the+Italian+lesson&qid=1577992297&sr=8-1-fkmr1
Also available here: https://www.ruthdraper.com/#homeslide2
To my disappointment, there is nothing of hers on youtube.
I can sympathize. While a religious conservative now (at age 53), I bought into the feminist things when younger. To top it off, I came from a family with unhappy marriages resulting in my being told by many of the women in the family to never get married.
When you hear that repeatedly when young, it gets ingrained.
Yes, I’ve changed my life for the better, but I would have done things a lot differently had I had a more balanced view of life. I do get pangs of regret at times, but I carry forth none the less. I’m planning an early summer marriage, and while my family is small, I have 3 nephews who get all my attention and money 🙂
Mac – 1/1/20 5:37 pm “I suspect that the intersection of skills and aptitudes required for that vs coal mining is tiny, maybe null.”
I would suspect from Joe’s comment that, like Hillary, the intersection of skills and aptitudes required for being elected President vs. that which Joe has is tiny, maybe null.
Couple of thoughts: How many of her life decisions were made with the thought included “I’ll show them!”? Not show THEM how competent, brave, etc. But how she’s going against the conventional and toward lefty and feminism. And they didn’t work out.
Some years ago, ,a prominent feminist discovered her college age son had been unfairly accused of rape, and unfairly treated by the university. Why? she asked. She marched. She protested. She supported women who’d been abused. And now, what she’d helped build hit her son. Lots of cognitive dissonance. The comments were not kind. I wonder how many of this woman’s actions and decisions had unfairly negative effects on men. Her degree of feminism might hae been modest. Or not. My compassion is cinditional.
Does she do for others? My wife and I drive Meals on Wheels once or twice a week. Last summer, I found one of my clients, an elderly woman,, had fallen and een on the floor all night. She had fallen against the door, so I couldn’t get in. I called Emergency, waited until they got there, and went on to the rest of my run.
I went to the hospital, ICU, the next day. The hurses, restrained by HIPPA, couldn’t tell me how she was doing but, they said, “you saved her life”.I talked to my doctor about that and it’s apparently possible that the nurses weren’t BSing me. You never know. You don’t need that kind of drama to feel useful and valuable. Just delivering the chow and asking how it goes is marvelous. I hardly think I should get credit for it, it’s so …..something or other And people think you’re some kind of hero or something. It’s embarrassing. Point is, she can do something like this.
I recall reading, years ago, an author who’d been a magazine writer for news of various kinds. You never write anything without selling somebody out. Gave a couple of examples. I wonder if this woman’s time in journalism involved some things she wishes she hadn’t done.
Couple of thoughts: How many of her life decisions were made with the thought included “I’ll show them!”? Not show THEM how competent, brave, etc. But how she’s going against the conventional and toward lefty and feminism. And they didn’t work out.
Some years ago, ,a prominent feminist discovered her college age son had been unfairly accused of rape, and unfairly treated by the university. Why? she asked. She marched. She protested. She supported women who’d been abused. And now, what she’d helped build hit her son. Lots of cognitive dissonance. The comments were not kind. I wonder how many of this woman’s actions and decisions had unfairly negative effects on men. Her degree of feminism might hae been modest. Or not. My compassion is cinditional.
Does she do for others? My wife and I drive Meals on Wheels once or twice a week. Last summer, I found one of my clients, an elderly woman,, had fallen and een on the floor all night. She had fallen against the door, so I couldn’t get in. I called Emergency, waited until they got there, and went on to the rest of my run.
I went to the hospital, ICU, the next day. The hurses, restrained by HIPPA, couldn’t tell me how she was doing but, they said, “you saved her life”.I talked to my doctor about that and it’s apparently possible that the nurses weren’t BSing me. You never know. You don’t need that kind of drama to feel useful and valuable. Just delivering the chow and asking how it goes is marvelous. I hardly think I should get credit for it, it’s so …..something or other And people think you’re some kind of hero or something. It’s embarrassing. Point is, she can do something like this.
I recall reading, years ago, an author who’d been a magazine writer for news of various kinds. You never write anything without selling somebody out. Gave a couple of examples. I wonder if this woman’s time in journalism involved some things she wishes she hadn’t done.
“She might learn that life with the rich guy, house and kids has some fine print too.” — huxley
“Yer So Bad”
My sister got lucky, married a yuppie
Took him for all he was worth
Now she’s a swinger dating a singer
I can’t decide which is worse
[Chorus:]
But not me baby, I’ve got you to save me
Oh yer so bad, best thing I ever had
In a world gone mad, yer so bad
My sister’s ex-husband can’t get no lovin’
Walks around dog-faced and hurt
Now he’s got nothin’, head in the oven
I can’t decide which is worse
I just read the full question and then the advice at the NY Times. The “culture therapist” is so out to lunch — e.g., one of the things the questioner wrote was that she had money problems and being unable to save for retirement really worried her, and one of the therapist’s bits of advice was that the woman should travel to the “fabulous foreign places” some of the woman’s friends have moved to, as part of a general “refresh”. !
I just read the full question and then the advice at the NY Times. The “culture therapist” is so out to lunch — e.g., one of the things the questioner wrote was that she had money problems and being unable to save for retirement really worried her, and one of the therapist’s bits of advice was that the woman should travel to the “fabulous foreign places” some of the woman’s friends have moved to, as part of a general “refresh”. !
If she had any sense, she’d be talking to a financial planner and not writing to some twit who works for the Sulzbergers. Presuming she exists. (And, no, I don’t think she does; and, while we’re at it, Eppie Lederer was lying to the newspaper profilers when she told them she and her two secretaries read line-by-line every godforsaken letter she received).
I recall reading, years ago, an author who’d been a magazine writer for news of various kinds. You never write anything without selling somebody out. Gave a couple of examples. I wonder if this woman’s time in journalism involved some things she wishes she hadn’t done.
It was Janet Malcolm who said that. The subject was the guises and poses Joe Maginnes adopted in interviewing Jeffrey MacDonald. (Maginnes’ late life conduct and the memoir about him written by one of his children have pretty much wrecked his reputation, at least among people not hoping to score partisan points with his material).
but most women become unable to have a successful pregnancy sometime in their mid-40s.
Too optimistic. A passable rule of thumb is that a woman of 38 has one baby left in her.
I recall reading, years ago, an author who’d been a magazine writer for news of various kinds. You never write anything without selling somebody out.
Richard Aubrey: That was the one and only Joan Didion, IMO the greatest American essayist of the second half of the 20th C. (There’s also Tom Wolfe but he practically invented a new genre with his work.)
I am so physically small, so temperamentally unobtrusive, and so neurotically inarticulate that people tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests. And it always does. That is one last thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out.
–“Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” p.xxviii
Aside from falling short of perfection, I don’t believe Didion had a bad conscience about anything she wrote. She was simply noting her subjects were usually unaware how their lives and actions would look unsparingly exposed in a national magazine.
I’ve often wondered if neo has been influenced by Didion. I’m sure neo has read her.
I consider Didion’s essay, “On Self-Respect,” (also in “Slouching Towards Bethlehem”) must reading for all Americans. In her books she called much of the breakdown of our country.
Without [self-respect], one eventually discovers the final turn of the screw: one runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home.
https://www.vogue.com/article/joan-didion-self-respect-essay-1961
Which might be our 40 year-old friend’s problem. Self-respect.
There’s a documentary about Didion called “Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold” directed by her nephew Griffin Dunne. Griffin, also an actor, is the son of Dominic Dunne, once a famous producer. Dominic’s life fell apart when his daughter Dominique was murdered by her boyfriend.
Anyhow, the early part of her and her husband’s story, when they were surrounded by hippies and glamorous, drug taking, young actors was fascinating. She definitely saw it all with a steady circumspect eye.
TommyJay: I’ve been meaning to see that documentary.
Griffin Dunne is an interesting actor. I loved him in Scorcese’s black comedy “After Hours,” as a well-meaning, somewhat naive fellow who kept becoming ensnared in other people’s bizarre games. Dunne played a similar role in a lighter comedy, “Captain Ron” with Kurt Russell. I didn’t know about his daughter, however,
That family has seen some tragedy. I couldn’t finish Didion’s “The Year of Magical Thinking,” in which Didion lost her husband and daughter in close succession. Just too grim. Didion sounded entirely broken (understandably).
The book won a bunch of awards though.
PS. That Tom Petty album, “Full Moon Fever,” is my favorite of his. Florida boy made good! I miss him.
“For, dear me, why abandon a belief 105
Merely because it ceases to be true.
Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt
It will turn true again, for so it goes.
Most of the change we think we see in life
Is due to truths being in and out of favour. ”
Robert Frost via sdferr above.
So wise.
Barry – thanks for the links. AesopSpouse and I both have Welsh heritage, and sometimes spend our vacations cavorting with a US society dedicated to the study thereof.
Sadly, I couldn’t find anything verifying the use of Welsh by Jefferson and Lewis as anything other than a legend.
https://www.monticello.org/site/blog-and-community/posts/welshness
https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/languages-jefferson-spoke-or-read
The legend may have originated from the stories alluded to here:
http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/did-lewis-and-clark-seek-welsh-indians
BTW
St. Patrick really was a Welshman.
WRT Didion. Might not be her. The example I recall was about a model who had a problem with the industry–this was before metoo–and the model never worked again.
WRT Didion. Might not be her.
Richard Aubrey: I’ll take your word, though if that journalist used “writers are always selling somebody out,” I bet she copped it from Didion’s “Slouching” preface (1968). It’s Didion’s most famous line and damn true.
Didion has cut a swath through the writing world. I once read an unintentionally funny piece in which a woman writer went on at great length condemning Didion — in a manner utterly saturated with Didion’s style. A daughter shaking her fist at her mother.
From Off Center: Essays by Barbara Grizzutti Harrison (1980).
JOAN DIDION: ONLY DISCONNECT
http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/103/didion-per-harrison.html
huxley:
I admired Didion’s “Slouching,” which I read when it first came out. Haven’t read it for ages, though, and don’t remember all that much about it. I did read her heartwrenching book about the deaths of her husband and daughter, though. She is a very good writer. It was indeed a rough go even to read about.
Perhaps my writing was influenced by her, since I read her so long ago and did admire her writing.
And “After Hours” is one of my favorite movies.
The Year of Magical Thinking was hard to read, but I finished it, and then went on to read the book she wrote a few years later that was specifically on her daughter’s illness and death, Blue Nights. The main thing I remember from the second book is Didion’s fixation on fashion, in clothing, decorating, etc. Surprised me how important all that stuff was/is to her.
Surprised me how important all that stuff was/is to her.
Ann: Well, she did get her start at “Vogue”!
Wasn’t it Mademoiselle? That’s where Sylvia Plath also got her start.
Ann: It was “Vogue.” See wiki if you’re curious.
I don’t mind her “Vogue” background. I find the fashion world interesting in an exotic way. Plus I get to expand my vocabulary! I loved “The Devil Wears Prada.”
neo: You share a commitment to honesty and precision with Didion, even at your own expense, though you could well have to come to that on your own, I’m sure.
huxley:
Thanks!
huxley:
A couple of years before that Vogue thing, though, Didion won a guest editorship position at Mademoiselle. See this review of a recent biography on her: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-elitist-allure-of-joan-didion/399320/
Gloria Steinem’s famous feminist quip that ”a women needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” couldn’t be farther from the truth.
You cannot, in actuality, reverse or overcome a couple million years of biological and cultural evolution and history by ignoring it, or just declaring it no longer operative; as we are witnessing, that route leads to a whole world of dissatisfaction, regret, and despair and, eventually, to social and cultural collapse.
The much more truthful saying should have been that–just as Yang needs Yin to work and be complete–for the preservation and progress of the species, for social cohesion and stability, a woman needs a man and family–as does a man need a woman and a family–and, as unsatisfactory, turbulent, and difficult as things may be at times, one can’t live and flourish without the other, and without that bond, and the family, and the children it produces. influences, protects and raises, society stagnates, slides into chaos and violence, can become decadent, and possibly, then, just fall apart.
Sorry to be late to the party here.
It was Griffin Dunne’s sister, Dominique, not daughter, who was killed by her boyfriend.
Griffin did a hilarious cameo bit in one episode of Timothy Hutton’s Nero Wolfe series – ‘the button man’ in ‘The Mother Hunt’.