One of my friend’s favorite authors, David Foster Wallace, died. He killed himself. She sent me an interview that he had done with Salon about his novel Infinite Jest.
DFW: I wanted to do something real American, about what it’s like to
live in America around the millennium.Salon: And what is that like?
DFW: There’s something particularly sad about it, something that
doesn’t have very much to do with physical circumstances, or the
economy, or any of the stuff that gets talked about in the news. It’s
more like a stomach-level sadness. I see it in myself and my friends
in different ways. It manifests itself as a kind of lostness. Whether
it’s unique to our generation I really don’t know.
I haven’t read Wallace’s books. After reading his interview, I think that the sadness in American society that he was talking about is loneliness. More and more, I think our culture has such weird expectations of how people are supposed to live- how independently we are supposed to live.
There was something deeply healing about being with my family this summer. I think it was partly all the big trees around their house, and mostly being with people who my fate is intertwined with day in and day out through the many mundane tasks of life. I loved seeing my mom everyday. It was startling to realize how much her body looks like mine. (Actually, vice versa, she would point out.) I’m not usually around people who look so much like me.
We were all together to take care of my Granddad who broke his hip, his leg, and who has Alzheimer’s. It seems to be very common in our society that people pull together after an accident or natural disaster and people report feeling surprised and uplifted by how everyone pulled together. It’s like we have to be forced into the kind of togetherness we want all along.
I admit that as humans I think we are still working out how togetherness and belonging can coexist with the freedom to be ourselves. It often seems to be that people have to make too great a sacrifice of their own selves to belong to a group. So, I can understand the wariness many people have about getting close to others.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a successful large scale model of getting to be free to be yourself and belonging. It probably exists on a small scale, in some families. As for me and my self. I was born with a very independent streak, (probably like a lot of people who find their way to the UU church) and I wouldn’t usually give in even if it meant I didn’t get to belong. I was also born with a desire for a lot of interaction, snugliness, love, and everyday togetherness.
I think I have baffled and vexed my family who values obedience and going it alone. I’ve sort of beat them into submission over the years though, persistently wanting to be near them while demanding that they let me be myself. They are actually a pretty great family to be with now. (We’re approaching nirvana – give us a couple hundred years or so.) We have gotten to the point where I think loneliness dissipates: when you can be your real self with people and still be loved.
When I found the UU church, I thought I had found my home. It’s ideals seem to match my ideals of sticking together and letting us be ourselves. We have had major problems in the last couple years at my church. For me, I did get a lot of my sense of community from the UU church and the depth of that became clear when I started to feel like I was being ousted and realized how deeply and painfully that was affecting me.
It hurt me so badly to have my efforts at problem solving not work, to be told to be quiet, to not be allowed to speak, to try and try and try again and get no back up from anyone with a position of authority, no acknowledgment of the violation of our shared values. After many, many months, -over a year- I decided to leave my UU congregation. A few people who were hurt have decided to stay and continue trying to resolve the issue. Leaving has it’s pluses and minuses. For me, more peace of mind has been a big plus, but I do miss the cheerful and convenient community of the church.
Like Wallace said later in the interview, we do need to find a way to grow up. It sounded like he liked AA. As painful as the last year and a half with the church has been, I’ve grown a lot and learned a lot about my spiritual path. I would like to find a community of spiritual practice, maybe in a church, maybe another UU church will be a part of that, maybe in informal groups.
Even if I go to a church again, I don’t think I want to get my main sense of community from a church or other formal organization again. I found that I was very dispensable. More shockingly, such a large number of us (about 40 young adult age people) seem to have been dispensable. I’m scaling my togetherness needs back to a smaller, non-official group.
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