#37 Is it low self-esteem or is it generosity
or both
I’m a person who feels like there is no way I could ever possibly repay you for your kindness. If you take me to dinner, for instance, I’ll remember it, tally it in my head, and the next time we’re out make sure that I have repaid you by a factor of More Than. If you sent me a birthday card seven years ago, I’ve thought about sending you one for seven years and a day. I insist on paying, I insist on driving, I insist on you having that last bite of cake, I couldn’t possibly, it’s my treat, don’t worry about it. This isn’t a thing that I have because I believe in a world of owe and be owed or tit for tat or eye for eye, but a thing I have because I never personally feel like I am allowed to have more than you, to take more than you. I promise you, you will never leave my presence feeling owed. You will always leave with more than which you came, and if you don’t I’ll venmo you.
This is a thing I used to think of as a flaw, something to be outgrown through the natural development of self-worth or self-something. Except ten years into recovery it hasn’t budged. I’m not sure I’ll ever be rid of “it”, and I’m not sure I want to be rid of it. Some of you, and by you I mean myself, might think I just revealed some unhealed part of myself, some lacking intrinsic worth, a child self still running the show. A girl who can’t receive. But I’ve done a lot of work, and I value myself. I feel worthy. I have self-esteem and self-respect. I’m more likely to think these days that my need to leave them with more than I took isn’t some obvious mark of the work I still need to do on myself, but actually a superpower. W.H. Auden said Let the more loving one be me, and I agree. Let me be the more generous one as well, even if it complicates my true or apparent confidence. Let me worry that you feel taken care of, satisfied, not harboring resentment. (Or maybe, it is really just more work to do.)
On that note: While I feel like I MUST write you four to six essays a month in order for this to be worth your time or money if you’ve generously supported this work, to take up space in your inbox, to leave you with more than which you came!, I cannot. I hate writing a piece an essay each week. It ruins it, it makes me want to quit writing, etc. Going forward, starting today, the weekly newsletter is turning into a roundup. It will look a lot more like this one (lots of links, fewer sentences up top). I’ll send a few additional long-form pieces each month, sometimes to everyone, sometimes to paid subscribers only. Addiction develops based on the uncertainty of the reward, after all.
From the Marginalian last week, which gave inspiration for the change in essay cadence.
I’m going to try letting what I love doing be more than.
Upcoming essays and longer pieces: The best books I read in the after-times (2020-current since I have not done a list since 2018); updated 15 books to build a holistic recovery; an interview with Angela Chen on asexuality and compulsory sexuality.
Ten Things Right Now
More year end lists !! Lithub’s 38 best books of 2022 (I’ve had my eye on Patricia Wants To Cuddle and The School for Good Mothers); Haley Nahman’s gift-guide; 25 best movies from Vox; best movies of 2022 from NYT; 10 best books by Vulture; best of TV by NYT; Sophia Coppola’s favorite books. Related, I finally saw Godfather III and I have lots of regret.
Years ago Spotify did this weird thing with Facebook where it just started posting what I was listening to directly on my timeline and at the time I was listening to the theme music from Bridges of Madison County over and over again and my mom’s boyfriend Bill liked each post. I didn’t learn about it until way too late and it was embarrassing and that’s basically what my Spotify wrap is always like. I think I have impeccable taste in music, but I listened to so much Interpol. My number one song was Dream for Dreaming by Patrick Watson and I think that’s only because of the lyric: I want to get old get dressed and walk the dogs, which sums up my 2022 mood.
In West Virginia, there are now more deaths than births per year. This article by Zach Siegel on brain implants treating drug addiction was perfection. It actually makes me feel like I’m on drugs when I read things like this because it drives home how deeply misconceived, misunderstood, and mistreated addiction is. We still treat it like it’s breaking news that people need personalized, complex and nuanced care and that we all can’t get brain implants. Also plug for my friend Dr. Carl Fisher who was quoted in this article. He is a very smart man about addiction and you can get updates from him via his newsletter here.
I am 100% going to see this. I also want this mug 🙃
I thought this was an elegant and thought-provoking piece, a complicated love letter of sorts, on Kyrie Irving. “It has always been absurd to me that apologizing is seen, by some people, as weak and cowardly, which are synonyms for “unmanly” — in itself is an indictment of how we define gender and what we expect from it — when learning new information, acknowledging wrongdoing and apologizing for it is much harder than standing firm in a puddle of wrong.”
Ann Friedman’s article on ambition won an award which is how I found it five months later. It reminds me a lot of the Quitted episode we did with Aki Ito on American hustle culture, how Aki asked why ambition had to be a word tied directly to work. Couldn’t we be ambitious about our friends? Our gardening? Our community building? Our naps!?
There are 172,000 unhoused residents in California. Here’s a guide on how to help.
NYC’s first recreational pot retailers
The Loevinger ego development scales (found as part of research for my book) have been making me think about this: A lot of people I/we deem “good” at social media because they appear to be above it all or self-possessed or confident or self-assured or able to eat the trolling criticism as an afternoon snack, etc., are not that way because they transcended and evolved, they’re most likely just stuck at an earlier development stage that looks a lot like transcendence. This also made me think of this quote from Gabor Mate in his book The Myth of Normal (which I still have not finished, but intend to, I stopped 400 pages in), in regard to politicians: “The closer I look at who populates the political landscape—the people at the top and we ourselves at its base (or somewhere in between, for the more privileged among us)—the more I see the wounded electing the wounded, the traumatized leading the traumatized and, inexorably, implementing policies that entrench traumatizing social conditions.” I think I am saying something like: I don’t think it’s a sign of psychological wellness to be really good at social media; I think it’s more often than not, an anomaly.
Mighty Leaf Green Tea Tropical is the best tea in the entire world
I love the newsletter Dirt and I can’t wait to see the film Aftersun and I definitely wonder what it says about me that I will give a standing ovation to anything A24 before it even comes out
On billionaires: “I find myself mesmerized by the question of Why? Why do we take such joy in the schadenfreude of watching the ultrawealthy fail, suffer, or otherwise pay their comeuppance in entertainment, while seeming relatively apathetic about actually flexing our power to change things in real life?” Xochitl Gonzalez wrote a brilliant essay I can’t stop thinking about. Also: Related.
When things get hard, remember Jane Austen almost quit writing
thank you, hol. whatever, whenever you write. it's always a gift, and it's a privilege to support what you're doing. you keep doing it, i'll keep tuning in. your writing brings me clarity and lights me up. love to you.
When u write, I hear myself. Thank you