A Problem with Kindness

A post in which I come off as a crazy whiny asshole in need of a good dressing-down.

I really didn’t want to comment on any of the memories about David Foster Wallace currently on McSweeney’s. I think it’s a great idea and all the posts further demonstrate DFW’s great character and what the loss means to us.

However, one post irked me and now I’m going to write about it, because, if I’m going to write about bullshit most of the time, I should probably write about something that produces a strong reaction in me. I would have written to Amy Bergen, but Google didn’t give me an e-mail address right off the bat, so here.

Here’s the post in its entirety:

“I too am bewildered. Not least by the fact that the wonderful DFW told me two and a half years ago to hold on, keep going, accept the ebb and flow and mystery of life and wait till things got better. In 2005, I heard DFW speak at Kenyon (my alma mater). He gave a speech that encouraged graduates to see the extraordinary and the miraculous in the onerous workaday world they were about to enter. He urged us, especially, to have compassion.

Six months after I heard him speak, I was at my parents' house doing nothing. Not a willing, restful nothing, but a hopeless sort of nothing. I had tried and failed to get a permanent job in D.C., had returned to the Midwestern city where my family lived, had tried and failed to get a job there, had grown less and less inclined to live, had gone to Chicago, had prayed for a miracle in Millennium Park, and had come home feeling like a triple failure. In this spirit, I remembered that David Foster Wallace had spoken to my exact situation.

So I got his address off the Pomona website and wrote to him. I don't remember what I said—I whined, I wondered, I worried. I might have asked for answers. I didn't expect a response; I rarely write to people I admire; I just admire them from afar. But in this case I felt the need to reach out. This was in February.

In March I had moved into an apartment and started a temp job. Leaving the house felt like redemption, and I slowly began to build the sort of simple, happy life I wanted. Then I got a letter with a California "Very Hungry Caterpillar" stamp on it (I still have the envelope). Do you mind if I don't tell you what it said? Its contents have become far more personal and hard-hitting and apropos in the last few days. I can tell you that it showed immense humility on the part of Mr. Wallace, a lot of kindness toward a girl he didn't even know, and solid advice for the trouble he knew I'd encounter in life even though I admitted to him that I was well-off, I had many options, and I was overwhelmed with guilt for being a white middle-class college graduate and still so sad. It was some of the wisest advice I've ever received from anyone.

Now I'm in New York (I just got here) and I could use some wisdom, again. The recent news breaks my heart. I will admit freely that I don't know what to do. I want to help someone, somewhere, the way he helped me, but I can't even make it myself.

—Amy Bergen”

Now, here’s my problem with the post. Amy’s situation isn’t so uncommon among us. Many of us are sad middle-class college grads having trouble getting a handle on life, who question its meaning. At the Kenyon address Wallace spoke to her, and our situation, and she later wrote to him and received a response she calls the “wisest advice I've ever received from anyone.” Wallace, who didn’t know her, gave her advice on how to deal with the trouble she would encounter in life, advice that sounds more of the universal, rather than personal sort. Amy closes, saying she wants to help someone, somewhere. To me, the obvious help she could provide to many would be sharing the letter she received from DFW. It’s life advice that helped her, right? So, why couldn’t it help others? We will never get any more words from David Foster Wallace. So, if you have some, especially when you consider it “the wisest advice I've ever received from anyone,” why wouldn’t you want to share it? Because “Its contents have become far more personal and hard-hitting and apropos in the last few days?” How? Why are they more personal now? I can understand how special it must feel to have personal correspondence from David Foster Wallace. It would never not be yours. But, that’s the problem with kindness. We can see it in David Foster Wallace. Read all those posts. Read anything he has written. But, we have trouble learning from its example. We still all want to be special and to have things that our just ours that make us feel better than other people.

I hate this post. It’s petty. It’s me whining, “You have something and I want it!” It’s kind of crazy and childish. It too goes against the kindness I wish I could learn. However, I think the point is valid. Amy, you’re not doing anything you shouldn’t do. But, if you really want to help people the way David Foster Wallace helped you, isn’t the answer right there? I understand how personal the letter is to you, but isn’t there something nobler in setting aside that feeling? Also, sorry about addressing you via blog. If it’s any consolation, no one reads this, and you’re most likely included in that group. Sorry, we couldn’t hash this out over e-mail. Also, if it’s any consolation, I kind of feel like kicking my own ass for writing this, but it was written in the spirit of the DFW quote Zadie Smith mentioned.