Coping

There’s this section early on in Infinite Jest that I return to when life feels particularly challenging, like it has this week. It’s a list of truths and observations, the kinds of one-liners that in most contexts come off as trite platitudes but in this specific case hit rather hard. They’re framed around things you’d learn in a halfway house for substance recovery. While many of them are specifically about addiction, like this one …

That certain persons simply will not like you no matter what you do. Then that most nonaddicted adult civilians have already absorbed and accepted this fact, often rather early on.

… others are clarifying and beautiful and cutting in ways that resonate broadly. So I’m compiling my favorite parts here.¹

See y’all next week with some food takes. Take care of yourself.

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If, by the virtue of charity or the circumstance of desperation, you ever chance to spend a little time around a Substance-recovery halfway facility like Enfield MA’s state-funded Ennet House, you will acquire many exotic new facts. You will find out …

That no matter how smart you thought you were, you are actually way less smart than that.

That you do not have to like a person in order to learn from him/her/it.

That loneliness is not a function of solitude. That it is possible to get so angry you really do see everything red. That cliquey alliance and exclusion and gossip can be forms of escape.

That logical validity is not a guarantee of truth.

That it is possible to learn valuable things from a stupid person.

That it takes effort to pay attention to any one stimulus for more than a few seconds.

That sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place and, like, hurt. That you will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do. That there is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness.

That concentrating intently on anything is very hard work.

That it is simply more pleasant to be happy than to be pissed off.

That a clean room feels better to be in than a dirty room. That the people to be most frightened of are the people who are the most frightened. That it takes great personal courage to let yourself appear weak. That you don’t have to hit somebody even if you really really want to.

That no single, individual moment is in and of itself unendurable.

That other people can often see things about you that you yourself cannot see, even if those people are stupid.

That having a lot of money does not immunize people from suffering or fear.

That trying to dance sober is a whole different kettle of fish.

That acceptance is usually more a matter of fatigue than anything else.

That different people have radically different ideas of basic personal hygiene.

That, perversely, it is often more fun to want something than to have it.

That if you do something nice for somebody in secret, anonymously, without letting the person you did it for know it was you or anybody else know what it was you did or in any way or form trying to get credit for it, it’s almost its own form of intoxicating buzz. That anonymous generosity, too, can be abused.

That having sex with someone you do not care for feels lonelier than not having sex in the first place, afterward.

That it is permissible to want.

That everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else. That this isn’t necessarily perverse.

That there might not be angels, but there are people who might as well be angels.

1. Few things are more predictable than a white, male, 31-year-old author of a culture-leaning Substack quoting David Foster Wallace to you, but here we are. It’s a good book. A banger, even.