Jan Lievens: Still Life with Books (c. 1627-28)

"Maybe I was meant to f#ck that last one up!"

This world sure can disappoint. It can encourage fantastic aspirations and then fail to reward them. It asks for dreams and then seems to scheme to find ways to undermine them. It wants your best before sending its regrets. We seem somehow destined to fall short of something. Always a fly in the works and one in the ointment. What's anyone to do? We try to remain faithful to largely fallacious ideals. We believe or insist we do, even though we couldn't reason through to resolution, either. Some days, it seems we're all pretending just as hard as we can, actively ignoring the obvious facts at hand. We might not be able to afford to know or afford to understand, so we plan with studied ignorance before blaming the shortfall on happenstance. We inhabit a hyperactive Disappointment machine.

Some people seem less vulnerable, as if they are exempted from the usual consequences. Their coins pretty reliably come up heads as called, and people speculate they possess a unique skill. Any skill over randomness relies upon something more than chance, or sure seems to. So there's a cottage industry—Hell, there are multinational corporations—dedicated to sharing these highly suspicious secrets. The initial stage of Disappointment might always be discovery. Someone seems to stumble upon the answer to some eternal question: the underlying secret governing something. This information initially seems a blessing, an answer to fervent prayer or bitter pleading. Whether the timeless secret of thinking and growing rich or the latest unapproved cure for toenail fungus, salvation seems to be the seeker's destiny.

Yesterday, another in an endless stream of who I am sure are perfectly charming young women called from The Philippines. The Phillippines seems to contain the headquarters of one of those multinational corporations specializing in republishing books. Alexa, yes, that was the name with which she introduced herself to me, just called to inform me that my best-selling book, The Blind Men and The Elephant (Berrett-Koehler 2003), had been the subject of increasing activity on the web. Many searches have recently been tracked to conclude that interest in it is coming back. She called to offer me an opportunity to republish the book under a more mainstream publisher's label and thereby garner many new sales, perhaps even an invitation for the book to be made into a movie or TV series, which might provide me with the opportunity to become a screenwriter and make the big bucks. Her story didn't track with my understanding of how the publishing industry has ever worked, and frankly, I have not been up nights aspiring to become a screenwriter. I told her I didn't want her company to redesign my book's cover. I confided that I wasn't in the business for money anymore. I do it for a living instead.

She was persistent. She emailed me the details, which seemed all that more unbelievable in print. She insisted that we continue the conversation after an hour's delay so I could research her offer. I refused, insisting I would look over the details and likely send her an email declining further seduction. My experience suggests that if I had agreed to participate in her scheme, it would have cost me a minimum of three thousand dollars, and no dream would have come true. It was good that I'd never aspired to become a screenwriter. Not even I, as the author, can imagine The Blind Men as a series or a film. It never aspired to become that sort of story.

I've dabbled with the notion that Disappointment might result from desiring too much or inappropriately. I decided early that I didn't want to be wealthy. The more money one accumulates, the greater the trouble. The billionaires who shouldn't even notice their tax bill fuss the most about it. The laborer accepts that they won't get ahead; that was never their goal. They perhaps aspired for a halfway decent roof over their head and a spot of supper. Keeping the bar lower means you can almost always propel yourself over. Pole vaulting is inherently disappointing. Even champions rarely clear their bar.

Disappointment might be a symptom of taking something altogether too seriously. We needn't think big to live satisfied. Let the Joneses next door keep up with themselves. I struggle enough to keep up with myself most days. Since this world seems like a disappointment engine, it might be best to simply accept this. It's nobody's job to make it any different. It might be better to focus on recovery if avoidance reliably proves a hopeless strategy. I might be here to Disappoint myself, but not to punish. After decades of serial practice, the Grace of bottomless Disappointment could be a consequent bottomless forgiveness. Maybe I was meant to f#ck up that last one!

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Grace, #PureSchmaltz