Lately, I’ve been reading and rereading The Death of a Salesman.
I couldn’t stick with Meditations as much as I’d like, and I need something with a different style of language.
It’s an uncomfortable read. I’m a salesman. That’s who I am, it’s my nature. I’m not yet great at selling – and I’m just now learning about that.
Willie was given over to delusion. There’s a fine line between optimism and delusion. I’m not even sure delusion is bad- from Pollyanna’s perspective, life is pretty sweet.
Life has consequences. Willie cracked up under the pressure of all of it. His delusion caused him to not be able to be a good dad. He misapprehended the nature of what makes for success. He screwed up his kids. He didn’t rise through the ranks, he stayed chasing the next deal, payday, chick or whatever.
He sold himself a fiction, had no understanding of the business world he traded in. Sometimes, I’m Willy.
My father likes John Updike. I remember seeing Rabbit is Rich throughout our house as a child. I didn’t understand that Rabbit was a nickname. I thought that my dad was witholding some long epic novel about a Rabbit that got rich.
Rabbit is a bad guy. A truly bad human being. Worse than Willy. He’s a metaphor for America as well. I reread the first three books lately, through the eyes of a 35 year old.
America in the 50s, 60s and 70s had unearned wealth. We sat at the top of the world, and ordinary americans had national pride. We did nothing to earn our place in the world. We didn’t deserve it. Rabbit wound up having a wife he didn’t deserve, a job he didn’t deserve. He ambled through life without thinking anything all the way through. He never got that he was lucky.
His entitlement lead him to burn a house down, have dozens of affairs with people that weren’t his wife, wreck businesses and friendships. In the end, he got by, and had more than he ever deserve.
He wants to get away from the from grown up responsibilities. Rabbit escapes to a woman (and leaves his family behind). He runs from a good life, because he’s no longer the man or the High School Athlete of renown.
When we’re faced with grown up limitations, we can either do the work to become better, or flail. Most people flail. America flails now, as our wealth and demise are being ground to bits by the notion that we’re poor (we’re not). We prospered despite ourselves, and we fail despite ourselves.
All we can do is the very best we can to understand our place in the world and give to it. Rabbit never did. Even Hitler’s dog liked him. Rabbit occasionally does tender things and shows kindness towards others. Doesn’t make him a better guy – people are inconsistent.
Yet, despite his failures, fortune favored him. I know the feeling. To the last, he was entitled. He was just allowed to exist because of the wealth in America and he never saw it that way. I know that Updike did.
Self awareness is a bitch. It’s hard to really know yourself without feeling too proud or too blue. The best I can figure is that I go through my life feeling extremely lucky to have it, to be here. We all want to inject significance or meaning into our world. It’s nice to believe that we saved the day, did our job right or were somehow the lynchpin.
We’re cogs.We get to be alive – and we get to work together and hang out with one another. Isn’t that enough?
