In Hoke’s last letter, Wuck, you glimpsed a rabbit hole near the term “denial.” Tantalizing as it was—“is [denial] a necessary ingredient of health?” you wondered—you needed little more than a reminder of the time to move along.
It was, I think, your description of denial as “the weakest form of hope,” Hoke, that drew us both in. Still, I don’t think any of us would argue that the word’s foremost connotations are negative. What could be worse than to be “in denial?”
I was, for that reason, surprised to find that the word’s oldest definition—“refusal of anything […] desired”—is more in line with Wuck’s and my intuition that denial need not feel so unhealthy. The more pejorative understanding of the word—“the denying of the existence or reality of a thing”—<quote-01>first appears fifty years later, in 1576<quote-01>. Denial has roughly ten definitions, by the way, including “disowning,” as in Peter’s denial of Jesus. Man. What extraordinary courage and willpower it would have taken for Peter to cast his lot with Jesus that night. Then again, what good is he on a fourth cross atop that hill?
Peter, like an animal, could not master—could not deny—his desire to live. He fared better some years later, of course, boldly denying his most primal animalistic urge in the names of human love and loyalty. As far as disciples go, I think Peter is my favorite.
<quote-02>Then there’s Dylan<quote-02>.
“I’ve made up my mind to give myself to you,” he croons again and again in that fragile, drowsy rasp of his, at least six times in six-and-a-half minutes. It is, to be sure, no ordinary love song, not a tune about the throes of infatuation or the impossible promises young lovers make. As lovely as it is—you imagined, Wuck, Dylan fans dancing to the melody at their wedding—the song implies, I think, the very austere opportunity cost of matrimony. Of course, for a man of Dylan’s advanced age and experience, the opportunity cost is minimal, but—like Peter—he gets it right in the end.
Alongside artistic expression, one of the most remarkable things we can do, I believe, is pledge the whole of our romantic love to another person. I might go so far as to say these two qualities define us as “human” beyond all others. And what is such a pledge if not an awesome expression of willpower—of denial? I mean, think of what man forgoes in the name of devotion! The electric excitement of new attraction, different shades and contours of undressed loveliness, kissable lips—falling in love! And that’s not all; we also routinely deny our ego in the name of love, our pride, our unabashed self-interests, sometimes our dreams.
Really, we deny ourselves a lifetime of future pleasures—self-serving and exhilarating—so that a present pleasure might develop into something rich and rare. In a sense, we pledge to deny the rest of the world, to master our reality, to not only ignore the advances of, say, a mysterious girl after a show, but to decidedly not fall out of love. <quote-03>No one, you know, has ever fallen out of love without letting themselves<quote-03>. <quote-11>Falling out of love is a failure of denial, a failure to successfully deny the rest of the world<quote-11>. Committing ourselves to such an existence indeed demands, as Dylan suggests, “thinking it […] all through.” We resolve not to let desire—small and animalistic—supplant our <quote-04>uniquely human vow<quote-04>.
Animals, after all, have no talent for restraint, for denial. They can be conditioned to parrot the trappings, sure, but beasts in their natural state do nothing but heed their predilections and desires.
Does, say, a red squirrel deny himself a meal by stockpiling acorns and hazelnuts? Does a feral cat deny herself a meal by toying with a dying mouse?
I’d say no in both cases. The red squirrel has likely eaten his fill and is saving up for a time when he’ll be hungry again; the impulse to hoard exists in every fiber of his being. The cat, by “playing with her food,” not only reduces chances for injury by tiring her quarry but hones hunting skills she’ll need to survive when her prey grow few and crafty. This impulse exists in every fiber of her being, as well. The squirrel and cat don’t contemplate this stuff, of course; they simply act in a way their biology demands.
Humans are different—dare I say, special—because we do contemplate stuff, and our imminent deaths most uniquely of all (but we’ll save that for another day).
Man playing with his kill is cruel, stockpiling beyond necessity greedy. Are there inherent urges within us all that yearn for such cruelty, such selfishness? Absolutely. But we have the ability to deny these urges. And how better to justify the denial of our baser urges—urges that when realized harm ourselves and others—<quote-05>than with a story<quote-05>, something we fabricate to perfectly express what we know is difficult but good.
Still, there exists a meaningful distinction, I suppose, in denying ourselves something painful as opposed to something pleasurable. Hoke, you speak of denial in your last letter in the same way Jenkins does in “Earl”: <quote-06>denial as a survival mechanism. The naked truth of your inner turmoil—“self-doubt, anxiety, mounting sadness”—is so painful that you deny its existence<quote-06>. So too the seal-loving residents of Sitka celebrate Earl the Undying to shield themselves from the harsh realities of life. Maybe this “survival denial” is less harmful when everyone’s in on the fiction: we know there’s no singular Earl out there in the icy deep, but it’s nice to pretend. This too is an illustration of that other thing we humans are uniquely great at: creating narratives and numbers to make sense of our reality, to make it all a bit more bearable. It’s lovably human and entirely understandable, a gift that must well please our maker.
And so, at the end of this same letter, Hoke, in the midst of your <quote-07>dazzling meaning-making<quote-07>, you see fit to deny us—your readers—something we desire.
“Just you wait,” you tell us.
Here’s yet another face on the twenty-sided dice that is denial: a way we humans wield denial for pleasure.
The equation is simple enough: as our pain—spreading and festering like an infection—intensifies in denial, so might our pleasure. Need we look further than the human orgasm for proof? Forestall the moment of climax without diminishing desire and—at the very least—prolong the pleasure; amplify it, if you’re doing it right. For some, looking forward to a thing can be as satisfying as the thing itself—for Proust, even more so; his foremost wish was that the gulf between desire and action remain ever impassable.
In the last bout of comments, Wuck, you made a valiant effort at summarizing all of <quote-08>Proust’s million or so words<quote-08>: “the entirety of [The Recherche],” you wrote, “oscillates between disappointment at the arrival of the expected event, and thrill at the profundity of the unexpected.” Honestly, you’re pretty damn spot on.
I won’t for a second argue that Proust’s narrator’s purest bliss derives from anything but the unexpected, from those sublime flickers of involuntary memory that whisk him away to a treasured but forgotten moment. But such surprises are few and far between; there are only a handful of them—maybe five?—in 3,400 pages. And they certainly don’t account for the novel’s sum total of pleasure.
Indeed, Proust’s narrator enjoys a secondary pleasure more often throughout the Recherche—that of <quote-09>anticipation<quote-09>. And to prolong that pleasure, he routinely and rigorously denies himself the objects of his desire. Sure, as Wuck above attests, the realization of his desires is almost always a disappointment, but this fact never deters him in his future anticipations, never dampens his anticipatory delights. Really, every prolonged narrative arc in the novel is at least underscored if not sustained by anticipation. In one of my favorite sections—“Within a Budding Grove”—Proust’s narrator spends nearly two-hundred pages romanticizing a group of girls—“the little band,” he calls them—with whom he longs to acquaint himself. The mere notion of their “inaccessible, unknown world” thrills him; he speaks of the distance between them and himself as “stretching out before” him, offering him a “prolongation […] and multiplication of oneself which is happiness.” Day after summer day he sets out along the boardwalk at Balbec for a glimpse of them, and time and time again he ensures they do not meet. After finally making their acquaintance, he realizes why they allure him so: the girls embody anticipation. Like budding flowers, they have yet to develop fully into fruit; they are not yet ripe for collection. In fact, Proust’s narrator foresees a latent unpleasantness in each of them, but it is a distant reality: “beneath the rosy inflorescence of Albertine, Rosemonde, Andrée, unknown to themselves, held in reserve until the occasion should arise a coarse nose, a protruding jaw, a paunch which would create a sensation when it appeared, but which was actually in the wings, ready to ‘come on,’ unforeseen, inevitable.” In the present, each is the very picture of budding loveliness—beautiful, fleeting embodiments of anticipation.
This is the effect your cliffhanger has had on me, Hoke; I await eagerly, blissfully from “l’intervalle impossible” of Proust’s description. What do you have in store for us? Will it deliver or—as you’ve implied about your long anticipated first time with Sharon, Wuck—disappoint?
I won’t lie to either of you. There was nothing particularly noteworthy about my first time with Kristen on our wedding night. And yet, I cannot begin to do justice to the countless pleasures of our seven-years’ anticipation—not to mention the myriad other benefits to our relationship.
<quote-10>In the end, none of us can ensure surprise<quote-10>, much less involuntary memory. We are, at best, at the mercy of invisible forces. But we can effect anticipation, wield our powers of denial for good.
What is happiness if not a life filled with things to look forward to?
I’ve been thinking it all over, and I’ve thought it all through. I look forward to what comes next.
All yours, bud.
<pull-quote>Then there's Dylan<pull-quote>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>You are a professor who knows his audience. Bringing my and Wuck's beloved figures into this Montaignely essai. I'm already hooked.<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>why peter, murph?<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Apart from Judas, he's the only one I find myself thinking about as an actual human being.<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>haha. only two out the twelve even make it to the competition. love it.<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Well, Peter is the only real character. Thrillingly, fully human. Judas has a famous turn in the end, after one foreshadowed moment of missing-the-point. James and John, brothers, make some bold asks for power, first retributive then political. The narrator to John’s gospel frames himself in a role of deep, quiet connection with Jesus, but no real lines. Mostly, other than Peter, the disciples are written as flat as extras in a play. I do love Phillip’s simple question in John 14, which invites Jesus’ most beautiful theological revelation of the whole Bible to me.<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>well, you gonna give it to us or what?<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>I got this, Hoke.<p-comment>
<p-comment>Phillip: What's up with that?<p-comment>
<p-comment>Jesus: Shit is whack, bruh.<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Phillip, deep into years of walking with Jesus and the disciples, impatiently asks, "So when are you going to SHOW US 'The Father'?" Jesus answers, "Phillip, how long have you been with me? . . . Don't you know that when you see me, you see the Father?" Like a Kaiser Soze reveal, but Jesus thinks it should be obvious to his friends. That the entire character of God is seen in Jesus. Friend of sinners, suffering. No "almighty" hidden in the sky. This is it, bro. Boo!<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>That's very Henry James of Jesus: "Pay attention, guy."<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Yeah, I relate to Phillip. Saint of Totally Missing It.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>No one, you know, has ever fallen out of love without letting themselves<pull-quote>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>What a thesis. Parts of this could make a t-shirt, or bumper sticker. Or Wuck could make them into Instagram memes, as he's wont to do these days.<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>a hopeful, hokean sarcasm! i’m calling it!<p-comment>
<p-comment>falling in love vs falling out of love. i love the disruptive, disorienting implication of falling in love. falling out of love? i’m less sure that’s right. isn’t it more a hardening? the slow accumulation of disinterest? becoming immovable? such grounded qualities seem at odds with the sensation of free-fall.<p-comment>
<p-comment>love and marriage, i’m realizing through these comments, are often very much at odds. marriage is work. marriage is effort. marriage is attention. marriage pays off. love is blindsiding. love is a whirlwind, a revolution. love requires surrender. submission. perhaps marriage is health, but love is life.<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>I think "falling" contains multitudes in the same way "denial" does.<p-comment>
<p-comment>It's difficult for me to see love and marriage at odds. Marriage without love would be actual torture. I almost always want to be left alone.<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Yes, I'm growing in sarcasm! At least with the Instagram teasing. But not with how much I loved this quote, which is quite sincere. Big stuff we're talking about here. Re: love & marriage. I think of what so many writers have said at conferences, workshops, programs, interviews: the "blindsiding" "whirlwind" of inspiration, the muse, happens a hell of a lot more often if you're at your desk writing at 9am each day. Discipline is being there, cultivating the conditions where the magic happens. Discipline and inspiration are not at odds at all. Love without marriage (or some form of surrender and fidelity over years), love without self denial, love without discipline and covenant . . . is as short lived and immature as high school love and high school poetry. A life of sustained love and sustained creativity only happens through discipline.<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>a marriage void of love would be hell indeed. and i love this addition of the sustaining power of discipline. tom waits has a funny bit about his frustration with his muse when she shows up outside of her allotted hours: not now! can’t you see i’m driving!<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>uniquely human vow<pull-quote>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>i remember you mentioned the word vow when we were discussing marriage before my wedding, murph. you mentioned how it’s a unique thing, a vow. what do we vow to do in life? how many vows do me make? how many publicly?<p-comment>
<p-comment>i think this stuff a charade, for the most part. the wheel hits the road in the subtlest of ways. my real vow to sarah happened long before the wedding, and it wasn’t made deliberately. i had to discover that i'd made it, and then deny that for the purpose of the ceremony.<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>It just one day dawned on you that you had pledged for life the whole of your intimacy to another person?<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>yes. why? did you sit down with a pencil and paper and work it out?<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>I didn't need a pencil and paper, but yes.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>than with a story<pull-quote>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>couldn’t agree more. the oldest story? the moral one, no? good vs evil.<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>You don't think "good for your health" / "bad for your health" came first? I imagine listeners not taking these messages seriously enough, and so the storytellers had to magnify the stakes--not just "bad for your health" or "bad for you" but "bad."<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>oh for sure it did. but when the move from the instinctual to the conceptual? it’s a fascinating point in the development of consciousness to think on.<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>The beginnings of do’s and dont's in the earliest Hebrew law, developed in the desert by a liberated slave community, in Leviticus, are largely public-health-based. All the blood and semen and washing and who’s in and out and pots and pans and animal guts and genitals and hands touch and distancing codes. It blew my moralistic little Bible mind when I started to see this on my first adult read through the OT.<p-comment>
<p-comment>After health issues is economic stuff. Big time. How to avoid power and debt games, undoing patterns that create slaves over time, how a people makes sure no one gets fucked. Remarkable stuff. All to support your point above. <p-comment>
<p-comment>The moral archetypes in early Genesis? Those creation stories came many generations later when the Israelites were exiled in Babylon. For a couple generations they were hearing the locals' Epic of Gilgamesh, and they made their own (which is brilliant, in my opinion). Even the “evil” of the fruit not to be eaten is still a basic health warning: This will hurt you, so don’t eat that one tree. All the others? Literally: Eat eat!<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>denial as a survival mechanism. The naked truth of your inner turmoil—“self-doubt, anxiety, mounting sadness”—is so painful that you deny its existence<pull-quote>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>I do appreciate the compassionate spin you're putting on this. A good therapist would do this: bless or affirm how one's (destructive) defense mechanism has indeed protected the client from pain, in its own imperfect way. Even meth addiction, some would say.<p-comment>
<p-comment>But (and this is why a client is in therapy in the first place) I would say that the "negative" version of denial--let's call it repression--is unhealthy. Such "denial" makes individuals and society at large neurotic. <p-comment>
<p-comment>I mean, much of my work is helping folks UNDO denial: inviting guys to face all the trauma and abuse and depression and guilt that was too painful and therefore repressed. Same for mainstream folks in courts and churches: facing all the racism, addiction, violence is "too painful" to accept, so we arrest and incarcerate (ie, repress, DENY) everything we can't face.<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Yeah. I am not sticking up for all twenty of its sides, only maintaining that there as many good rolls as bad ones.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>dazzling meaning-making<pull-quote>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>I should tell Rachel this is what I'm really up to whenever she rolls her eyes at me trying to integrate way too many issues in a conversation. "Babe, you're not catching the dazzling meaning-making?"<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>Proust's million or so words<pull-quote>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>I love that you BOTH have read all of In Search of Lost Time--Murph for doctoral studies, Wuck because what better way to read it than with a friend--and that I get to glean the best reflections here, labor free. Like having two friends who worked a vineyard and vinting room having you over for a sip in the cellar. Thanks!<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>i had read swann’s way a couple years prior in the same grey tryptic-like editions that you and i would later use, murph. i even got partway into within a budding grove before getting sidetracked. this is evidenced by the coloration and dog-earation of the pages. your books are crisp, because you got through them faster. each of mine are worn, and progressively less so.<p-comment>
<p-comment>i forget how exactly it came up that you were reading it, murph, but yes, i leapt at the opportunity to go through with a partner. you were done in, what? three months? it took me a year and a half. perhaps if we’d done it while i was working on orange i would have been able to keep pace. it was nice to receive encouragement from you as you blazed ahead. like someone standing at the top of a ridge assuring the straggling climbers the view is worth the climb.<p-comment>
<p-comment>remember how this wasn’t the case with infinite jest, hoke? murph, shouting down the mountain: stay there guys, i’m coming back down. bummer. i wonder whether or not i’ll ever return.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>anticipation<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Denial’s begotten son in whom he is well pleased?<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>[HEART EYES emoji]<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>In the end, none of us can ensure surprise<pull-quote>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>if the end is bliss, the contentiously defeatist approach could help, no?<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>Falling out of love is a failure of denial, a failure to successfully deny the rest of the world<pull-quote>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>I wonder if the mark of a strong claim is how long it makes the reader think about it, test it on different life experiences, re-read it, think some more. I love this. Kierkegaard quotes the Epistle of James in his famous title, "Purity of heart is to will one thing." To say a full Yes--as any artist, spouse, parent, or person who is going to do well at something knows--you have to say No to many, most, other things and people. This is what is so hard for me. I spread myself thin. You've now pre-diagnosed any falling-out-of-love that may happen to me. It would be a failure of my denial. Letting a campfire go out because I said yes to fifteen other things around the campsite.<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>murph and i return from the river, fresh fish and water in tow. hoke! the fuck?! you had one job! hoke: oh. sorry guys, my bad. hey put that shit down come check out these ants!<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>That is totally me. Precisely.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>impulse<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Geez, Wuck.<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Yeah, man. It's not Deep Idea Chess. It's not Fathering/Mentor Figure Affirmation Session. It's like going to a chiropractor when you know your back isn't right. You don't defend your back, or push theirs. You lay down prostrate, humbled, then celebrate the pops, cracks, and applied pressure when something bent in you is addressed and possibly loosened, with informed care.<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>ok ok. this is helpful. is this what you’re insinuating with “geez, wuck,” murph?<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Yes, it is.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>impulse<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Geez, Wuck.<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Yeah, man. It's not Deep Idea Chess. It's not Fathering/Mentor Figure Affirmation Session. It's like going to a chiropractor when you know your back isn't right. You don't defend your back, or push theirs. You lay down prostrate, humbled, then celebrate the pops, cracks, and applied pressure when something bent in you is addressed and possibly loosened, with informed care.<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>ok ok. this is helpful. is this what you’re insinuating with “geez, wuck,” murph?<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Yes, it is.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>impulse<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Geez, Wuck.<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Yeah, man. It's not Deep Idea Chess. It's not Fathering/Mentor Figure Affirmation Session. It's like going to a chiropractor when you know your back isn't right. You don't defend your back, or push theirs. You lay down prostrate, humbled, then celebrate the pops, cracks, and applied pressure when something bent in you is addressed and possibly loosened, with informed care.<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>ok ok. this is helpful. is this what you’re insinuating with “geez, wuck,” murph?<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Yes, it is.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>first appears fifty years later, in 1576<pull-quote>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Tell me you have a paid subscription to the OED.<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>or got tom to get him a bootleg copy.<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>I retain full library access from CGU.<p-comment>
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