There is a very great deal of untruthfulness in the world today! More than there was even as recently as forty years ago - although, of course, there has always been a good deal of lying and even more misleading - even in the most honest places (which used-to include England).
In everyday social life there are some people who claim always to have had a Great Time, whatever they have been doing - at a play or concert, a party or holiday. By their own account - their lives are one fun thing after another.
The valuation is not accurate - as you realize if you ever happen to observe them in such situations. Indeed, nobody who was not in the grip of chronic hypomania could possibly regard their own life in the way they claim to!
Such people would be outraged if accused of lying, or even exaggerating, their own responses - yet, in their own way, each is systematically misleading other people about the nature of reality.
We, as social listeners, need to realize that such people are not speaking accurately; and the same applies to writing.
Social media has greatly increased the amount of Having A Great Timers among writers; just as, on the opposite pole, there are many more high-volume pathographers - indeed the same person may alternate their accounts of themselves, oscillating between accounts of exaggerated happiness and misery.
Although it is true that a false impression is being deliberately created; the audience are complicit - because the audience wants to believe that a life of continual fun is possible, and achievable by themselves.
And this is the basis of the exploitation: the apparently-hypomanic social media "influencer" is in some sense "selling" the method by which the audience expect to have as much as fun as the influencers appear to be having.
And this claim-hope forms the basis of whatever is "for sale".
But what applies, in a crude and rather obvious way, in the world of social media; also applies in the world of "serious" writing: of theology, philosophy, and spiritual writing generally.
Some authors (and these include some of the best, as well as most of the worst) project a personal of Having a Great Time; and describe their own exquisite responsivity to place and situation, to books and music; their intense and frequent religious experiences, their ecstasies and transcendental exaltations*.
And readers need to recognize that this is as false and misleading an artefact; as contrived a construct; as the over-acted excitements of social media influencers.
I did not recognize this as an adolescent; but (to an amazing extent) took authors at their own evaluation and projection.
It was a valid learning process to realize (eg. from further experience, critical analysis, or biographies) that literally nobody I have ever known of - IRL or by writings - ahs "solved the problem of living" in the way that so many such imply that they have.
This insight has been vital in realizing that there is no solution to the problem of living in this mortal life and earth; and that attempts to emulate constructed authorial personae do more harm than good.
It's a kind of laziness (to which I am also prone) to try and pick-up a purpose and meaning of one's own life in any second-hand, or emulating, kind of way.
Certainly we can learn from other people - but we'd be wise to learn from what is true, rather the fantasies they try to convince us are true. This involves acknowledging that almost everybody with whom we interact is not just habitually and by social-conviction dis-honest, but is making no serious or sustained attempt to be honest. Especially not about their own motivations and responses.
If we can sustain this realism; we might then be able to learn the right lessons, and make the right choices, relevant for our unique actual life and situation.
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*Some other writers adopt a chronic and pervasive pessimism and/or affectation of misery - which, if sincere and chronic, would have long since led them to obscurity and death; rather than the fame and esteem they bask-in. Schopenhauer and Samuel Beckett spring to mind. This negative propaganda has only ever been popular among a sub-sector of upper class (or would be upper class) intellectuals... But that's another story.
To be fair to Schopenhauer, he led a life of almost total obscurity and non-fame, much to his annoyance.
ReplyDeleteI was a Beckett fanatic earlier in life and was intensely disappointed to learn from his authorised biography that he was upper-middle class, worked about nine months in total his whole life and essentially free as a bird due to family wealth.
My favourite pessimist is Celine, who fought in WW1 and worked as a doctor in the poorest parts of Paris, often treating the poor for free. He at least earned his misery.
As for the ecstasy merchants, I associate them with the North London middle and upper-middle set, best exemplified by Julian Barnes and Ian McEwan, for whom it seems every moment is a delicate Proustian ecstasy of utmost refinement and cultivation.
@Karl - Many of the great writers, and almost all the great Irish authors (who were actually Anglo Irish https://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2011/10/anglo-irish-writers-of-first-rank.html) were upper class.
ReplyDeleteBut I would not class Beckett as one of the greats, despite that (in his early years) he was a gifted prose writer.
Like so many people who became "full time" authors at an early age, including his mentor Joyce (Dylan Thomas was another example); Beckett never attained maturity and had only adolescent stuff to write about...
Which is fine, up to a point; but seems to prevent a writer attaining the highest levels, even when they are vastly talented qua writer (as was Joyce).
I mean you have to have something to say, as well as an ability to say things.
In my view, there's a fine line between making the best of things and outright lying. If your misrepresentation is meant to advertise how good and fulfilling YOUR life is-- well, that's egotistical and probably depressing for other people. But if you are simply on the side of life, of cheerfulness-- trying to emphasis the good things of life in general-- then, surely that's good? Surely the difference between experience and perception, even self-induced perception, is not absolute.
ReplyDeleteI agree that for Christians, we also have the injunction: "Do not love the world or the things that are in the world."
I agree with Chesterton (again!): "To my thinking, the oppression of the people is a terrible sin; but the depression of the people is a far worse one." But obviously life isn't all sunshine for anybody. Does anybody really and truly believe it is?
@M - My point is that writers often, from whatever mix of intentions, create a false impression about the nature and possibilities of this mortal life.
ReplyDeleteI regard this as a very real problem. So many people seem to have the idea that life is a soluble problem!
But the alternative is false too - mainly because the pessimists assume either that this mortal life is all that there is; or else (among the religious or spiritual) that this mortal life is futile.
A smaller point is that a significant element of the differences between people's happiness in life is a result of disposition - character, health etc. I mean that some people find life a chronic and daily struggle, and are much more than usually prone to misery and despair. They are apparently made that way, or have become that way. Something may be done to help some of these people; but some people just seem to be of that type. It can be hard/ impossible for naturally cheerful people to grasp this.
I am not naturally cheerful at all and so I feel a strong urge to "talk up" life, for the sake of my fellow melancholics, and myself. And yet I think there is also a great deal of happiness and pleasure we might miss if we are not looking out for it and not becoming forgetful of it. Of course, the whole complexion of life changes radically depending on whether you believe in God and eternal life. I enjoy my breakfast more because I believe in Heaven.
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