Comparison is the thief of Joy
It's a loser's game
Comparison is a demoralizing habit.
End-of-the-year decluttering fervor has struck on the home front. I’ve been dumping my thoughts into spiral-bound notebooks and Word documents for decades, and it was high time to destroy most of my old journals, lest on my demise my kids discover what a mess I was. Or worse, what a BORING chronicler. For those of you old enough to remember the sound of a broken record, that’s my journals. Pick a year, any year: they feature the same damn whines, same damn aspirations, same resolutions to do more/better.
Simultaneously, my sister Holly in Nashville is also decluttering. A few days ago a box of our mother’s books landed on my doorstep. Inside were four books by E.B. White, a writer I admire above all others. He’s the one whose quote is on my Substack profile:
Last night I started reading from Poems and Sketches. I’d only read a few pages before comparison, that ugly joy thief, reared her head. Comparing a description by White to what I might have written in a similar situation, made me want to hang up my pen, if pens could be hung up.
On the one hand, I’m very observant—I have the ADHD wandering eye, seeing shiny objects everywhere. “Look at that pretty pink flower!” I exclaim. But it’s a surface glance. I don’t take the time to observe it closely or to find the words to describe it in a way that makes you want to lean in closer.
White wrote hundreds of “Letters from __” for the New Yorker, as if he were a far-flung correspondent, but they were almost all quirky personal observations from within the city or from his farm on the Maine coast. He was a blogger long before bloggers were a Thing, and long before the existence of the personal computer.
Here, in a short story about Manhattan, White describes going out on a hot summer morning: Awnings were being cranked down to spread the agreeable shade, the rectangle of relief sketched on the sidewalks.
I’d have written, “Thank god for awnings!” or even shorter, “Too damn hot!”
Going into his hotel room: [No matter the room number, they were all the same] It would first have that abandoned airless feeling. Flinging up the windows…and instantly the infiltration of the noise and the heat and the life and the pigeon on the sill, still straightening its feathers.
My version? Well, I wouldn’t have even bothered to describe something so nondescript as a conventional hotel room.
Back in the 1980s, early in my writing career, I typed out pages of text from E.B. White and John McPhee to get into the headspace of such skillful non-fiction writers. Now that my White collection has swelled, I’m going to give the exercise another go. It will be as delicious as eating chocolate mousse, and much more fun than embarrassing myself with an old journal. The destruction process can wait.
My 2016 journal was not all me me me, it was also full of Trump Trump Trump. (At least I’m consistent in my perversions.) It was a reminder of the havoc one crazed bull elephant could and did do in the china shop of American democracy. However, in 2024 he’s brought in an entire team of crazed bull elephants. Below just a few of them.
Trump’s proposed “leadership” team:
1) The Musk-led oligarchy/kakistocracy, a team stuffed with billionaires. Oligarchy is a government in which a small group exercises control for corrupt and selfish purposes. Kakistocracy is a government by the least suitable or competent citizens (“kaka” is slang for shit, if your 6-year-old didn’t tell you).
2) Family members. Holy nepotism, Batman! Prizes for everyone in the clan! Tiffany’s father-in-law, the Lebanese-born Massad Boulos to be senior Middle East adviser; Ivanka’s father-in-law, convicted felon Charles Kushner* to be Ambassador to France, and [he wants DeSantis to name] his daughter-in-law Lara to the US Senate that Marco Rubio will leave vacant. Finally, to get her out of Don Jr’s hair and make space for the new girlfriend, sending Kimberly Guilfoyle to Greece as Ambassador.
3) Government by Fox News. By the latest count, Trump has now named 13 current or former Fox employees to high-ranking positions. In case you’ve lost track, Media Matters has kept a running tally of the Fox-Trump pipeline.
4) Chaos-makers: the wackos and/or the dangerously unqualifed. Take RFK Jr… Please. The vengeful Kash Patel to head the FBI. The Russian asset Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence. Linda McMahon from the world of professional wrestling for Dept of Education. This is just a partial list.
*Jared’s dad Charles Kushner is a real sweetheart: 18 counts of illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering—a charge which arose from his retaliation against his sister’s husband. (He’d been cooperating with federal investigators in the case against Kushner.) Kushner hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, arranging to record a sexual encounter between the two and send the tape to his sister. Jared already walked off with $6 billion from the Saudis in the last administration, and Eric is getting into crypto currency (a favorite tool of money launderers…)
Enough with the ugly ugly.
Palate cleanser: Here’s a delightful interview with pilgrim/traveler Rick Steves in the NY Times this week. What an inspiring guy!
PUT YOURSELF IN THE WAY OF BEAUTY
Last night, peering into shop windows in my neighborhood.
My friend used to be the designer for Anthro in Philly (flagship store). They hire the most talented, creative, out-of-the-box geniuses.
Some write beautiful descriptions; others take photos and remind the rest of us to look at them. A quotable quote from my friend, Joy Overstreet: "Put yourself in the way of beauty."