Avidity

Hard to believe Saul Bellow died only 3 years ago. Much of what he wrote seems too wise, honest and committed to humanity to have come from more recent days. Or maybe I've been reading the wrong things.

His mother wanted him to be a rabbi. Funny thing, he was one, in the sense that the word means teacher, as a writer with an unusually profound sense of what curdles the mind, the challenge of individuation and the mysteries of the self. How many souls did he fortify, writing as he did? How many who have had to turn away from the abuses of religious institutions more interested in limiting thinking than pursuing truth?

Reading him, I'm reminded that what plagues us is nothing new. In 1944 he wrote this about avidity, by which I think he meant our desperate hunger for personal accomplishment:

Of course, we suffer from bottomless avidity. Our lives are so precious to us, we are so watchful of waste. Or perhaps a better name for it would be the Sense of Personal Destiny. Shall my life by one thousandth of an inch fall short of its ultimate possibillity? It is a different thing to value oneself, and to prize oneself crazily. And then there are our plans, idealizations. These are dangerous too. They can consume us like parasites, eat us, drink us, and leave us lifelessly prostrate. And yet we are always inviting the parasite, as if we were eager to be drained and eaten.

It is because we have been taught there is no limit to what a man can be...Now each of us is responsible for our own salvation, which is greatness. And that, that greatness, is the rock our hearts are abraded on. Great minds, great beauties, great lovers and criminals surround us. For the great sadness and desperation of Werthers and Don Juans we went to the great ruling images of Napoleons; from these to murderers who had that right over victims because they were greater than the victims; to men who felt priviledged to approach others with a whip; to schoolboys and clerks who roared like revolutionary lions; to those pips and subway creatures, debaters in midnight cafeterias who beleived they could be great in treachery and catch the throats of those they felt were sound and well in the lassos of their morbidity; to dreams of greatly beautiful shadows embracing on a flawless screen. Because of these things we hate immoderately and punish ourselves and one another immoderately. The fear of lagging pursues and maddens us. The fear lies in us like a cloud. It makes an inner climate of darkness. And occasionally there is a storm and hate and wounding rain out of us. Danging Man, p.59

I bring this up because I've had so many conversations with people lately, people who are fine, but who seemed so hard on themselves for not being better at this or that, for not writing more, fiddling better, or being the ideal mother, whatever that is. In some cases I feel the poison is so painful that they, like Joseph in Dangling Man, are looking forward to a day when they simply won't exist anymore. Those high expectations are such a thorn, and they do goad us to lash out at each other, or unconsciously seek out the evidence that others are failing too. And that's how we get the immoderate hate we see in places like a Gawker comment thread.

I'm thinking the worst thing you can do around someone suffering from a bad case of this kind of avidity is to be pleased with yourself in spite of your imperfections. Oh, they will turn the lights on for you. I know you've heard those sort of criticisms dripping with rancor and bitterness. As if the poor soul's been turned into a blood sucking zombie. Even Saul Bellow had his share of lust for perfection, but I suspect he learned to measure people by the resiliency of their kindness as opposed to their resemblance to this phantom of greatness that haunts us all.