On solitude
I had a dreadful Wednesday this week. I sit on a bank of desks of four journalists. On Wednesday one of them was on holiday; another had a doctor's appointment, and the third was sick. So for my entire day at work I spoke to nobody and nobody spoke to me. Except, that is, the head of web content, who informed me that the plan to have an independent "page" for my newsletter and an online archive had been kicked into the long grass. So, once again, my product effectively ceases to exist apart from the revenue that it brings in.
That led to a fairly severe bout of loneliness and thenceforth, depression. My job suits me in many ways. I am a lousy team player. I am (I like to think) a good writer. I'm self-disciplined and can get to work early in the morning, day after day, week after week. But it hasdownsides, and one of those downsides is that I never get to meet anyone. The other journalists carve up the conference deals abroad as it suits them. I have to do a daily, and any conference that I did go to would be "extra" rather than "instead of". And it takes a monumental effort of will-power to get myself out in the evening. It can be a bloody lonely life, and when there's no-one to talk to in the office, it's worse.
Which kind of led me to ponder the rottenness of a single existence. All of the research is out there. What I was saying was hardly revelatory. Single men in middle age are likely to die earlier, are more likely to commit suicide, are more likely to have a drink problem. I wrote about the things that I had missed out on in life (for which, I admit, I have nothing to blame but myself and perhaps a little bit of bad luck -- but no-one said that life was fair) of which by far the worst was not having a loved one and not having had kids.
Jonathan Palfrey posted failry quickly that the grass was often greener on the other side (which is true) and Martin Nicholson posted this afternoon, perhaps in an attempt to make me feel a bit better, that loved ones and children consumed a vast amount of time, money and mental energy, and that it wasn't all positives (also true).
But the thing is, I know of no father who, when pressed, has said that he has regretted having kids. Whereas I know of many people without kids who regret it enormously. For me it's a gaping hole (one, which, admittedly, I sometimes feel more powerfully and sometimes feel less powerfully). At times it's as if, in a parallel universe, I am a father, that there's another me who has had children. As if, indeed, I did have them, but they no longer exist. No-one says to a parent who has lost a child: "but think of the positives. You'll save lots of money as a result". (Indeed it must be doubly worse to have lost a child, because you stop being invited to parties because may parents seem incapable of any conversation apart from what their kids are up to, and how Charlotte or Timon is doing so well at school -- a line of chat not really suitable when the counterparty has lost their child in a tragic accident). For me, it's something like that kind of feeling. I had it, and lost it.
So, I'm not in a boat on my own. Fathers who have lost their wives and children in messy divorces are perhaps even worse off (one can long argue on the relative merits of "better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all") . In "Infinite Jest" there is a "Union of the Hideous and Improbably Deformed". I sometimes felt that David Foster Wallace was using this group as some kind of metaphor for that group in which he found himself, the Group of the Doomed To be An Outsider. Foster Wallace, of course, eventually gave up and topped himself, a tragic loss of a great writer and, in my own egoistical way, perhaps the strongest argument I can find against not taking that path to permanent oblivion. If what I write brings a fraction of pleasure to the world that David Foster Wallace brought to me, than I have no right to stop writing. It is, as it were, a duty to carry on writing as long as there are people who want to carry on reading what I write.
Well, that's my excuse for continuing to drivel on, anyway. Half the time it's just displacement activity.
A lovely phone call from the Youngster this evening, if only because it was some kind of contact with the outside world. We talked about chatting up women and the weirdness of the universe (particularly women) and the death of Gaddafi and, well, it was just a nice chat. Perhaps if I played live poker more I would have more nice chats like that. Perhaps it's actually my job, the thing that in a way I like and which keeps me financially stable, thats militating against all of those things that I want to do and, indeed, could do if it weren't for the contstraints imposed upon me by my work. More likely, though is it is just me making excuses.
__________________
That led to a fairly severe bout of loneliness and thenceforth, depression. My job suits me in many ways. I am a lousy team player. I am (I like to think) a good writer. I'm self-disciplined and can get to work early in the morning, day after day, week after week. But it hasdownsides, and one of those downsides is that I never get to meet anyone. The other journalists carve up the conference deals abroad as it suits them. I have to do a daily, and any conference that I did go to would be "extra" rather than "instead of". And it takes a monumental effort of will-power to get myself out in the evening. It can be a bloody lonely life, and when there's no-one to talk to in the office, it's worse.
Which kind of led me to ponder the rottenness of a single existence. All of the research is out there. What I was saying was hardly revelatory. Single men in middle age are likely to die earlier, are more likely to commit suicide, are more likely to have a drink problem. I wrote about the things that I had missed out on in life (for which, I admit, I have nothing to blame but myself and perhaps a little bit of bad luck -- but no-one said that life was fair) of which by far the worst was not having a loved one and not having had kids.
Jonathan Palfrey posted failry quickly that the grass was often greener on the other side (which is true) and Martin Nicholson posted this afternoon, perhaps in an attempt to make me feel a bit better, that loved ones and children consumed a vast amount of time, money and mental energy, and that it wasn't all positives (also true).
But the thing is, I know of no father who, when pressed, has said that he has regretted having kids. Whereas I know of many people without kids who regret it enormously. For me it's a gaping hole (one, which, admittedly, I sometimes feel more powerfully and sometimes feel less powerfully). At times it's as if, in a parallel universe, I am a father, that there's another me who has had children. As if, indeed, I did have them, but they no longer exist. No-one says to a parent who has lost a child: "but think of the positives. You'll save lots of money as a result". (Indeed it must be doubly worse to have lost a child, because you stop being invited to parties because may parents seem incapable of any conversation apart from what their kids are up to, and how Charlotte or Timon is doing so well at school -- a line of chat not really suitable when the counterparty has lost their child in a tragic accident). For me, it's something like that kind of feeling. I had it, and lost it.
So, I'm not in a boat on my own. Fathers who have lost their wives and children in messy divorces are perhaps even worse off (one can long argue on the relative merits of "better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all") . In "Infinite Jest" there is a "Union of the Hideous and Improbably Deformed". I sometimes felt that David Foster Wallace was using this group as some kind of metaphor for that group in which he found himself, the Group of the Doomed To be An Outsider. Foster Wallace, of course, eventually gave up and topped himself, a tragic loss of a great writer and, in my own egoistical way, perhaps the strongest argument I can find against not taking that path to permanent oblivion. If what I write brings a fraction of pleasure to the world that David Foster Wallace brought to me, than I have no right to stop writing. It is, as it were, a duty to carry on writing as long as there are people who want to carry on reading what I write.
Well, that's my excuse for continuing to drivel on, anyway. Half the time it's just displacement activity.
A lovely phone call from the Youngster this evening, if only because it was some kind of contact with the outside world. We talked about chatting up women and the weirdness of the universe (particularly women) and the death of Gaddafi and, well, it was just a nice chat. Perhaps if I played live poker more I would have more nice chats like that. Perhaps it's actually my job, the thing that in a way I like and which keeps me financially stable, thats militating against all of those things that I want to do and, indeed, could do if it weren't for the contstraints imposed upon me by my work. More likely, though is it is just me making excuses.
__________________