Joan Didion questions the Simple Life

File this under a quick addendum to by blog from two weeks ago in which I discuss the very reasonable desire to life a happy, normal life, but how we as a society benefit greatly from those who are willing to go all-in on selfish pursuits, often at the expense of their coworkers, friends and family.

I had never heard of Joan Didion until today. Clearly my oversite, as The New York Times today reported on the New York Public Library’s acquisition of Joan Didion’s archives. I read the article and I now know that you could fill yet another room with things I don’t know (the mansion keeps expanding). But beyond that, I was taken with a quote by Miss Didion.

Jennifer Schussler writes, "Didion, 22 at the time and less than a year out of the University of California, Berkeley, also added her thoughts on a book she had recently read that lamented the conformism of her peers. ‘All anyone in this generation wants is security and group belonging,” she wrote, “and what will happen to the world if nobody is willing to risk that security to gain the big things?’”

What indeed! One can hardly be blamed for desiring security and belonging, but it’s true that most of us will be mourned only by our friends and family and not by larger society. It’s a trade-off most of us make happily. Fortunately and unfortunately, there are plenty of ambitious souls on the planet willing to risk everything in the name of glory.

Love, Marriage and Divorce

Thirty years ago today my future wife and I spent our first evening together by watching the film Malcolm X on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, but not before Alice was carded for the rated R movie. Twenty-three years old and a second-year graduate student at the time, Alice fished out her driver’s license with good humor. Afterwards, even after ogling at Denzel Washington for three hours, she was interested enough in me to go out again, and the rest is history. Score one for the little guy. We’re celebrating today by avoiding each other; I’m on the tail end of a bout with COVID.

Just a few years prior to our successful first date, most would likely have put money on neither me nor most of my college buddies from ever finding a woman to marry, much less maintaining a successful marriage for close to thirty years. Somehow most of us beat the odds, and a few even convinced two women to marry them (though not at the same time) – a remarkable feat. That most of my friends have managed to maintain successful marriages led me to wonder about divorce rates today versus the 1970s and 1980s. The narrative I’ve told myself is that divorce was much more prevalent years ago when women were finally given more freedom to flee a marriage that wasn’t up to snuff.

But anecdotally, when looking back to my childhood, I can’t think of any close friends of mine whose parents went through divorce. A few moms were on their second marriages, but none of my friend’s parents split up during our childhoods or – for that matter – since, clearly beating the odds. It could very well be, as I’ve often suspected, that I unintentionally gravitated toward friends who had stable home lives, satisfying some need in me.

According to statistics, divorce rates peaked from 1976-1980, hovering at or over 50%. My parents’ divorce fell into this timeframe. Since then, the rates have dropped. Statistics can vary, but most experts agree that the divorce rate is lower than it’s been in fifty years. However, so is the marriage rate. So who the hell knows?

What I do know is that many of my colleagues and I have been very lucky, but we’ve also probably worked through marital issues in a way that our forebears did not. Paul McCartney’s lyrics from his 1989 song, “We Got Married,” are trite but on point:

It's not just a loving machine
It doesn't work out if you don't work at it

I tried composing something a little less hackneyed for my upcoming album, a song called “It Gets Better.” It didn’t make the cut, but I’m proud of the lyrics, and they sum up how I feel about being in a relationship that’s lasted thirty years: it’s better than ever. My favorite line, “It’s time for you to earn, what you think you deserve.”

Here’s to another thirty, Alice.

IT GETS BETTER (Copyright, Paul Heinz, 2023)

There’s no doubt the initial introduction
Provides all the function of seduction
To leave you riding high undeterred

But in time there’s a matter of transition
And some never temper the affliction
Of wanting things to stay as they were

Life may not go
Just as you planned
But you won’t know what I know
Until you stand where I stand

Love doesn’t grow weaker or meeker or bleaker
Although it’s been years since you met her
It only grows deeper so keep her you need her
Love doesn’t go stale, it gets better
It gets better

It’s been said that emotions lose their vigor
and fires of passion start to flicker
and leave you trembling out in the cold

Sure, we grow old, but love ages like a fine wine
It needs to be nurtured and in good time
It’ll set your beating heart all aglow

Don’t give in to a grim point of view
You will see what I see
If you just see things through

Love doesn’t grow weaker or meeker or bleaker
Since you found the wisdom to wed her
It only grows stronger the longer you long for her
You know she’s your greatest endeavor
It gets better

It takes courage
to handle life’s curves
It’s time for you to earn
What you think you deserve

Love doesn’t grow weaker or meeker or bleaker
So walk down the path where you led her
It only grows deeper so keep her you need her
You know that you’re better together

Love only grows richer and this is the picture
You’ve kept in your heart since you wed her
So never stop trying and strive ‘til you’re thriving
Yes this is your greatest endeavor
It gets better

The Costs of Work-Life Balance

Roxane Gay of the New York Times has an interesting piece this week on work-life balance, in which she commends the recent trend of people saying no to employers who ask for limitless sacrifices. After confessing that she is a workaholic, she writes, “The expectation that we should go above and beyond for employers who feel no reciprocal responsibility is a grand, incredibly destructive lie” and “it’s why an entire discourse rose around labeling people who are simply doing the jobs they were hired for, nothing more and nothing less, as ‘quiet quitting.’”

My HR professional wife has had to contend with this new way of thinking in our post-shutdown world (I hope post-shutdown). She has managers who are complaining about staff, calling them “lazy” or “not team players” solely because they do the work that’s been asked of them from home rather than in the office. My wife has had to push back.

“Do they do their work well?” 

“Yes.”

“Are they friendly with their co-workers and clients?”

“Yes.” 

“When you ask them to do something do they do it?”

“Yes.”

At which point my wife slaps her palm against her forehead. 

Do we really want people to stop making solid work-life choices that allow them to eat dinner with their children and make it to their after-school activities, if they also meet the essential objectives of their jobs?

Working from home may have some detrimental outcomes – we’ll see how this experiment goes – but so does working oneself to death, and the trend of young people resisting employers who want them to sacrifice their lives is a positive one. At least, it’s positive for the individual and for that individual’s family. I also try to consider things on a more macro level, because as a society we have benefitted greatly from people who are shitty parents but who have a drive to achieve greatness. 

I think of the lyrics to Rush’s song “Mission,” in which lyricist Neil Peart admires the drive and creativity of those who’ve contribute great works of art, film and architecture to our benefit while conceding that there is a cost to the individual, and by extension, that individual’s family.

We each pay a fabulous price
For our visions of paradise

Beethoven, Picasso, Einstein, Hemingway, Frank Lloyd Wright, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, etc. – they’ve all benefitted our society in profound ways, but in many cases they left a trail of oppression and neglect in their wakes.

I view the myopic drive for greatness as akin to owning a boat. I’m glad to have a friend who owns one, but I’d never want the headache of owning one myself. The same can be said of a career that supersedes family. I’m glad some families have had to endure that hardship insofar as the result benefitted the greater good, but I’m sure glad mine isn’t one of them.