There was an article recently in The Atlantic which recounted the story of a divorce. It generated a lot of controversy, as it seemed to paint a woman’s midlife crisis as somehow novel or brave. To be clear it was neither. The desire to pursue one’s own ego projects and new sexual partners to the detriment of one’s spouse and children is hardly new. Nor is it particularly courageous. “Honor Jones” (ironic name) was simply attempting to put an artistic, cosmopolitan spin on something that men and women have done since the dawn of time: leave their family because they were bored.
Despite the artistic flourishes about “being open to the world” and feeling the “cold wind in her face” and so on, she gives the game away in several places about what’s really going on. The banal and base impetus of her actions shines through the self-serving Eat, Pray, Love-esque rationale she tries to cover it with.
“I wanted to be thinking about art and sex and politics and the patriarchy. How much of my life—I mean the architecture of my life, but also its essence, my soul, my mind—had I built around my husband? Who could I be if I wasn’t his wife? Maybe I would microdose. Maybe I would have sex with women. Maybe I would write a book.”
Basically, “If I wasn’t married maybe I’d be somebody more interesting.”
She won’t be.
That’s not how it works.
People who are unsatisfied with their lives tend to project the problem out onto others. “If I didn’t have to fuss with my husband I’d have written a book by now!” “If I hadn’t had kids I could’ve gotten my doctorate!” “If I didn’t have to worry about my aging parents I could travel to Europe and find myself!”
Two problems with this line of thinking.
One, being creative is difficult. Most people aren’t held back by their relationships but by their inability. Before the world shut down over coronavirus, for example, a lot of people had deluded themselves into thinking that, if they just didn’t have to go to that dumb job, they’d be artists. Well, a lot of them got to sit home for a good while. Precious little art was made. That great American novel they all knew they had inside them never materialized. Out of the lockdowns the next Beethoven did not emerge. Nobody discovered new or interesting physics with all their new-found spare time. Most people are simply average. Of this fact they are in constant denial.
Two, even if such people were to write a book, or to compose a song, or to make a painting…
Who would care?
Seriously. That also would not matter.
Speaking from experience, let me assure you that if you find your life meaningless now, publishing a book or starting a podcast or writing a song isn’t going to somehow make your life seem to matter. I’ve done all those things and I’ve done them for long enough to know that they don’t make me “unique” or “special.” The world doesn’t need my words or my compositions. I’m not going to “change the world” or anything. I still do them because I enjoy doing them, like someone who enjoys playing pick-up basketball or doing crosswords. Writing a book or a blog makes you no more special than playing pick-up basketball at the YMCA. You aren’t needed because of it. You aren’t “going to be remembered”. Go to the Louvre and look over all the masterpieces on display. Do you know the names of any of those artists? Most everybody doesn’t. Would the world cry if any of their work burned in a fire? If the Mona Lisa was torched by a work of arson there would be a few days of outrage about it on social media (not in the real world) and then everyone would move on to the next trendy thing. And that’s the best you can hope for as far as “making an impact” or “being remembered.” A few days of people pretending to be sad that your work (which they never thought twice about while it existed) had been destroyed. DaVinici is a pile of bones under a church in France and that’s what you’re really running from. That’s what Honor Jones was running from. The fact of her own mortality.
It’s no coincidence divorce tends to happen most to middle aged people. They see the hourglass running out of sand and start to wonder… what was it all for? What was the point? What’s the purpose of my life? And not having an answer they begin to panic and they begin to act out and they begin to blow-up their lives and their relationships in a frantic effort at a do-over. Sometimes they get one. More often than not they end up not being important in the do-over life either.
Because you can’t be important. Nobody is. Not in that way at any rate. When the game is over the king and the pawn go into the same box. Everybody is replaceable.
My daughter painted a picture this evening of her little sister. It was great, about as well done as you’d expect a ten year old’s painting to be. I praised her for it and her little sister and I genuinely enjoyed looking at it. We put it on the fridge. For one hour it probably produced more genuine human happiness than anything hanging up at The Met does in a year.
That’s one reason why I think Jesus said the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to little children and grown-ups like them. Because the surest way to kill art is to make it serious. Because children don’t have a purpose and they aren’t looking for one. Because to them the world is still a miracle and that’s enough. They aren’t seeking to save the world or to be remembered or to make an impact. They’re just enjoying the day. “Hey, Daddy, look, a cow, isn’t that cool!”
And it was cool.
They were already “open to the world.” It was right there, outside the window. The children didn’t have to demolish their lives to find themselves. They already knew where they were. In a car, looking at a cow.
And that was enough.
Brilliant article. Something I needed to read. It's the ego isn't it? Even we do recognize the ego's role in all our ills we still can't overcome it and end up glorifying it.
I know an alarming number of women like that. They are kind of a dime a dozen but somehow believe themselves to be special and courageous when they act out and do drastic things. I've been tempted to behave that way myself, a few times, until I realized I was being a self-indulgent idiot.