⌂ Brief Shameless Thoughts on Being Human and Limited
On love, ghosts, regret, condescension, anxiety, aging, and more.
Today is my birthday, so I get to do whatever I want. Which in my case means writing 10 brief shameless thoughts on being human and limited.
Ever since I read Nietzsche’s Human, All Too Human in college, I longed to write a book of aphorisms. How wonderful to touch upon so many important topics in such a succinct way!
I deemed it far too pretentious for me, of course, to actually write such as book. Who was I to share my wisdoms? What insights could I possibly possess at my young age?
Still, I couldn’t stop myself from collecting aphorisms. Each time an experience, text, or conversation led me to an idea about life, I wrote it down. This gave me immense pleasure and satisfaction, even with no one reading my words. The realizations were from me and for me, like a diary.
Once I became a novelist, I found “good” use for my aphorisms: I put them into the mouths of my characters. How it drove my editors nuts! No normal person speaks this way, Claire!
Then in 2017, I read Sarah Manguso’s wonderful 300 Arguments and my old longing came back. Could I write a similar book? But I had other projects in the making and I never took the time.
Life is too short to finish all the books I want to write. So I recently decided to turn some of these might-be books into essays. And what better occasion to publish one of these essays than on my 49th birthday? We get to be a bit pretentious on our birthdays, right? We get to make a list.
So here are 10 of my old, new, and rewritten aphorisms, inspired by 49 years of life and a hell-of-a-lot of books. They’re personal, yet hopefully recognizable, and as such might make feel others less alone in their experience of life.
1. Love is an unfinished art project, not a commodity for trade.
Love is seldom an equal exchange. When we love, we’re not always loved back or we feel loved for the “wrong” reasons. Likewise, we cannot always love the people who love us in the way they desire. Even when love flows both ways, there are times we give more than we receive, or receive more than we give, and that’s alright. Asymmetrical love is still love. We want to be as generous as possible with our affection and attention, because the kindness of strangers is real and it feels amazing to be such a stranger. When we love, we’re creating something beautiful.
2. Ghosts are no more surreal than our love for them.
Our death is what ends our life. After we die, our consciousness may continue in some other way or realm, but our life as we know it has come to an end. Our death therefore falls outside the perimeters of life. But the same cannot be said for the people who once lived. Whatever we do with our dead—bury them, scatter their ashes, talk to them, raise temples in their name, invite them to visit us, or ignore them—they will always come back and haunt us, because their home, quite simply, is in our memories.
3. Regret is best as a teacher, not a whip
At some point, we all wish we had acted differently. Looking back, we can learn from how we’ve misinterpreted a situation or ourselves and do better next time. But when we keep punishing ourselves for a mistake, we turn a problem of the past into a blight that keeps spoiling the present.
4. Power is the reflective pause between the monsters on our path and the fight that follows.
As much as I’d like to defend free will in this era of deterministic thinking, we often cannot control what happens to us. But we can stop ourselves from reacting to problems in a way that makes them worse. If we take time to think about how best to respond, our actions will be more effective than our immediate emotional reaction would have been. The better we get in inserting that reflective pause, the more invincible we will feel.
5. Putting others down is the quickest way to show how low we are.
We don’t like feeling insecure about ourselves or our choices. When we’re confronted with other people’s idiocy, ignorance, or illiberality—which is actually a word—we may be tempted to disparage them, hoping that we come across as more refined by comparison. But this is a delusion. Condescension will expose our limitations faster than Dutch wind will mess up our hair. True confidence is non-judgmental.
6. The only way to ensure we’re never wrong, is to assume we always are.
When we observe the world, we first see what our (un)consciousness has already prepared for us. We harbor prejudices of which we’re probably unaware, and the facts on which we’ve based our convictions might be outdated. For this reason, we should always remain skeptical of our beliefs and advance our knowledge like science, in small increments or with paradigm shifts. Meeting opponents is not an occasion to tell them they’re wrong. It’s an opportunity to test ourselves. By putting ourselves in their shoes and seeing the world through their eyes, we can become aware of our own biases. And there’s nothing shameful about admitting that we were (partially) wrong. The sign of a healthy mind is that it can change.
7. Curiosity is an antidote to anxiety
Anxiety directs our attention to real or imaginary threats. Anxiety is not necessarily irrational, so it’s hard to argue our way out of panic: We believe we have good reasons to be afraid. A better way to respond to anxiety is giving our mind something else to focus on. When we’re busy figuring out the oddity of Japanese past-tense adjectives, we cannot worry about falling victim to Alzheimer’s disease at an early age.
8. When your first name is Claire, words that begin with “C” cling to your consciousness like children to candy at a carnival.
Life is a cultivated chronicle of cold chance and careful choices; of compassion, connection, and coded communications; of challenges and conquests; of cycling away from cruelty and contempt.
9. Aging is a privilege
Some people tell us we look younger than we are and mean it as a compliment. Others advise us to keep our real age hidden because of ageism in the writing business. I admire people who talk openly about getting older (hello @oldster!) and will try to be among them. One of my aunts died at 28. My father at 53. My mother at 75. My grandmother at 107. I celebrate my healthy 49 years with gratitude and pride.
10. Being a writer is being in constant communication with all other writers in the world, even the ones whose words we’ve not yet read and whose languages we cannot comprehend.
No author is an island. Writers write because they read. We borrow, we paraphrase, we create invisible or evident links. With this interconnection comes a responsibility. Giving credit when credit is due is not generosity; it’s essential. Alongside Friedrich Nietzsche and Sarah Manguso, there are two other authors I should mention here. Thank you, Maria Popova and Laura Kennedy for inspiring me to write this list.
Author News: Upcoming Podcasts
My book campaign (if it can be called that) for Woman of the Hour: Fifty Tales of Longing and Rebellion had a bit of a rough start. The shipping costs on the publisher’s web shop were too high and my entire author website went down with a critical Wordpress error.
But good literature doesn’t die at the hands of technical glitches. And your curiosity and kindness saved the day. You welcomed the book cover with lots of enthusiasm, critics requested copies of the collection to review, and I have two podcasts scheduled!
If you want to hear me talk about my story collection, nomad life, writing in English as a Dutch person, and more, please tune into the following shows:
The Old Man’s Podcast, live on Monday May 19 at 7AM PST, on the Podbean App and available for listening afterwards on the Old Man Website.
The Catskill Mountain Dreamer, live on FM radio on June 19 at 1PM EST, and available for listening afterwards on the Catskill Mountains Dreamer website.
Preorder Link Fixed + Special Limited Order
You can now order Woman of the Hour: Fifty Tales of Longing and Rebellion without excessive delivery costs. The publisher and distributer fixed the error and so there’s nothing to stop you.
Especially since it’s my birthday.
And there are still 3 slots available for the special limited offer: order the book, send me the proof of purchase, and get a 1-year paid subscription for this newsletter for free!
For more information about Woman of the Hour, please read my previous newsletter.
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Time to Say Goodbye
Am I really spending my birthday writing? You may wonder. And the answer is “yes,” at least partially. Because I love writing. But a long time ago, Daniel and I invented the concept of Birthday Week, so that we could spread fun activities or special treats over time and the day itself would never feel too loaded with expectations.
So on Monday, to kick it off, we traveled to Guanajuato with
and of Brent and Michael are going places (a newsletter I wholeheartedly recommend), and together we walked all over this colorful town filled with art, great food, murals, music, mummies, and hooks from which the heads of revolutionaries hung. I’ll publish a newsletter about this later. But the greatest gift was gaining two new friends.All my best,
Claire
P.S. What aphorism speaks to you the most? Or better: Write your own in the comments below!
Curiosity is the antidote to anxiety! I've written a lot about the tension between the two, but you're saying it better than I ever did.
Happy Birthday! Thank you for these aphorisms. They might inspire me to try to write one. Have a beautiful day.