This week we have an interview with Bethany Ball (author of The Pessimists), an essay called “Fuck Carpe Diem” by E.A. Farro, fiction about mysterious dead birds and possibly dead neighbors, and a post about new books of December.
Dear Identity Theory Readers,
Yesterday was all grey skies and wind and drizzle here in Nevada. I got out there. In obedience to the 5k training plan created through a mysterious algorithm in my Garmin watch, I ran two easy-paced miles around the block of the large park where I do most of my running.
Walking back to my house, I noticed several police SUVs circling the streets in my neighborhood in what appeared to be an organized manhunt. One of the SUVs pulled up to me and the policeman asked, “Have you seen a grey Chrysler with a soft top around here?”
I was in a daze and wanted to be a helpful citizen and so I said, “No, but I’ll let you know if I do. What color was it?”
“Grey,” he repeated, giving me an incredulous look, leaving out the “like I just said, idiot” part that was clearly running through his head.
“Oh, yeah, sorry. I’m just really tired,” I told him. He drove off to resume his search, and I went home to drink a protein shake in an attempt to make it through the grey-skied day.
So much has felt that way lately. Running into the wind towards an arbitrary goal. Grey skies over missing grey cars over grey words. The inability to recall the sentences that were just spoken.
Everything is messed up. Everyone is messing up. There is no day left to seize.
Yesterday I posted an interview with Bethany Ball. I read her book The Pessimists in October and it took me a while to complete the interview because of all the greyness in the world. (I’ve been slacking hard on completing interviews, though I wouldn’t call it slacking so much as failing miserably to carry out basic tasks of existence.) I was interested in Bethany’s writing because of her decades-long background in practicing yoga and meditation and the way she is able to take the dark realities of life and make them into satire that is both enjoyable to read and reflective of deeper truth.
In talking about her motivation for creating this novel, she told me this:
“I wanted to write a book that sort of said, ‘We are all messing up. None of us know what we are doing. Even the people who act like they know—they don't know.’”
Read the rest of the interview.
When I think about suffering and grey days, I often think about Hungary. My last name is Hungarian, and when I think of my ancestry and of the people I’ve known who have come from Hungary, I think about people who have learned to live with a heavy amount of suffering and found dark, often comical ways to go through it.
This week’s fiction comes from a Hungarian writer. It’s called “Birds on the Roof” and goes something like this:
Like five smashed bird corpses were lying over my head, and I couldn’t stop staring at those black spots, and I just couldn’t understand. I didn’t understand how a bird could slam vertically. Because, horizontally, that’s fine, I mean, sometimes they crash into glass doors and windows, but onto a glass roof? A hawk might have caught them, but decided to have something else for dinner, and dropped their lifeless corpses? Or they had a heart attack in the air when flying over the mall? Or they committed suicide? I started to wonder whether birds could stop flying intentionally, in the middle of the sky, and then fall into the deep, or if their survival instinct was stronger, like us humans cannot suffocate ourselves with our bare hands. Well, I couldn’t figure it out, although I even Googled “birds on the roof,” but I didn’t find anything. I also went back to the mall to investigate all this; I sat on a bench in front of the entrance, hoping a bird would fall under while I was there, solving the mystery. But I had no luck. Haven’t had any since. And now, sitting in one of the meeting rooms of that all-glass office building, I couldn’t help but think about this dead bird thing.
The HR lady definitely didn’t have this in mind when, at the end of the interview, she asked if I had any questions. I could see it on her face; I blew all my chances, but I didn’t really want that job anyway. Actually, I like freelancing, but my therapist told me it would do good for me if I met some new people, so that is why I applied for it. But really, I like working from home. So many things there you can observe. For example, there was a time when I thought my neighbor was dead…
Read the rest of “Birds on the Roof.”
Continuing with the theme of saying “fuck it” to HR people and fitness and doing things the right way, we also published an essay this week called “Fuck Carpe Diem.” Here’s an extended clip:
“I thought you were going to launch into a well-paid job at the end of the Governor’s term. I thought we’d buy a bigger house.” Steven says this without emotion, like he’s assessing tomatoes at the store. He is not one to react strongly in the moment.
I think, I am good at whatever I do. Really good. As long as it’s for someone else. The thought is like a stone dropping through a pond and landing with certainty on the silty bottom.
Steven pulls me close. Why not do what I want? I feel the weight of that stone in my hand. “Fuck Carpe Diem,” I whisper shout.
“I don’t get it,” Steven pulls back. His eyebrows furrow.
“I don’t care about houses.”
“There isn’t room for the kids to play with friends when they come over,” he says.
“I don’t want to be infinitely energetic and productive. I don’t care about a fancy career and a well-paid job. I don’t care about power. Fuck Carpe Diem.”
“Ummmm, I still don’t get it,” he says.
“I just want to sleep well at night. I want to be present when I’m with the kids. I want to write,” I say.
“That sounds like Carpe Diem to me?”
“No. Carpe Diem is go big or go home, work hard and play hard, burn the candle at both ends, worry they are growing up so fast and have to catch every moment.” The more I try to shout, the more the words evaporate in my throat, but I can’t stop. “Carpe Diem is having career success and babies and staying fit and going out with friends and visiting family all over the world, and, and—it is too much!”
“Anna, will you please just think about it longer?” he asks.
“Fuck Carpe Diem is about appreciating the negative space. Music is the silence between the notes.” We met as geology majors, we are scientists who study time, how can he not see that I need time for myself? That our time is worth more than anything else.
“Think about it?” he says.
“Hmmfpf” I snort. My friend Natalie once told me she makes decisions by changing her mind. Fully decide, try it on, and then walk away. Toggle back and forth. I look up at him and nod.
Read the rest of “Fuck Carpe Diem” by E.A. Farro.
I’ve been putting together a few end-of-year lists because that’s part of participating in the marriage of time and capitalism, but this week’s book list is a simple announcement of five new books. It includes titles from past interviewee Siri Hustvedt and some authors you’ll likely see interviewed on our site in early 2022 if I can find my way through the greyness.
Anyway I’m not going to reread or edit this email before sending because some immediate obligations are calling me now. I hope it works for you. Just pretend it has pretty pictures and stuff. Fuck carpe diem. Etc.
“Take it easy but take it,”
Matt Borondy
Founder
Identity Theory