A few more priceless quotes from the book-length interview Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, pg. 256-57, this time touching on the black hole of ambition, inwardly-speaking, in regards to the law (of achievement). In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anyone express the deadend of “works righteousness” so well:
The great lie of the [ocean-liner] cruise is that enough pleasure and enough pampering will quiet this discontented part of you. When in fact, all it does is up the requirement… I can remember being twenty-four years old and having my, you know, smiling mug in The New York Times Book Review, and it feeling really good for exactly like ten seconds.
And then you’re hungry for more. So that, clearly, I mean if you’re not stupid, you figure out that the real problem is the discontented self. That all this stuff that you think will work for a second, but then all it does is set up a hunger for more and better.
And… that general pattern and syndrome seems to me to get repeated, at least in our culture, for our kind of plush middle-class part of the culture, over and over and over again in a million different arenas. And that we don’t seem to get it. We do not seem to get it…
It may be that those ambitions are what get you to do the work, to get the exposure, to realize that the original ambitions were misguided. Right? So that it’s a weird paradoxical link. If you didn’t have the ambitions, you’d never find out that they were sort of deluded.
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11 responses to “David Foster Wallace on Cruises, Ambition and the Discontented Self”
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NY Times columnist and PBS and NPR talking head David Brooks was remarkably upfront about his own unquenched desire for success in a recent article in New York Magazine:
“The thirst for admiration is like the thirst for money—it’s never-ending,” he says. “You never get to the point where you say, I’ve had enough.”
David Brooks is a personal favorite. And great pictorial reference to "Election," possibly the greatest comedy of all time.
David Brooks is one of the few columnists I enjoy reading anymore. He actually surprises me sometimes, because he refuses to wear an ideological straightjacket. The man allows for nuance! Of course, that may just be a sign of his unquenchable thirst for approval. He likes being liked by liberals AND conservatives 🙂
'Election' is simply brilliant. Tracy Flick is one of the all-time great characters.
Preach it brother Wallace!
"Dear Lord Jesus, I do not often speak with you and ask for things, but now, I really must insist that you help me win the election tomorrow because I deserve it and Paul Metzler doesn't, as you well know. I realize that it was your divine hand that disqualified Tammy Metzler and now I'm asking that you go that one last mile and make sure to put me in office where I belong so that I may carry out your will on earth as it is in heaven. Amen."
— Tracy Flick
If someone's at home (or if it's on IMDb), post Paul's prayer as a juxtaposition to Tracy's. I can post it later when I get home and get my hands on the DVD. It's actually quite touching.
Paul's prayer, with a very slight NSFW deletion:
Dear God, thank you for all your blessings. You've given me so many things, like good health, nice parents, a nice truck, and I'm very grateful, but I sure am worried about Tammy. In my heart, I still can't believe she tore down my posters, but sometimes, she does get so weird and angry. Please help her be a happier person because she's so smart and sensitive and I love her so much. Also, I'm nervous about the election tomorrow and I guess I want to win and all, but I know that's totally up to you. You'll decide who the best person is and I'll accept it. And forgive me for my sins, whatever they may be. Amen.