The closing of the famous mind

by David Benjamin

“The only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility; humility is endless.”

— T.S. Eliot

 

MADISON, Wis. — For a writer, humility is a survival strategy. I get reminders of this on a daily basis.

The silver lining about being humiliated, often by anonymous strangers, is that the experience sometimes gives me something about which I can write. My latest comedown was delivered, indirectly, by Rachel Maddow.

This blow to my leathery ego derives from an unfortunate tendency to respond impulsively to a pleasing, or provocative remark by a public figure or op-ed pundit, by writing a personal letter of approval or fellowship.

It all started on the evening of the State of the Union Address when, in passing, Rachel referred to herself as a “civics geek.” This pricked up my ears because, just months before, I had published a civics-intensive juvenile novel, Choose Moose. In a twinkling, I had composed a letter to Rachel, to helpfully apprise her of the contention that I had written an exceptionally accessible and entertaining primer on civics. I packed an autographed Choose Moose into a Priority Mail envelope, with my letter, and sent it off toward Rockefeller Center to brave the tender mercies of Rachel’s gatekeepers.

Of course, when I dispatch these missives into the celebrity vortex, I almost never get a response. They simply disappear. Rachel’s team, however, upped the rejection scale by refusing to even open my package, and then they sent it back. I couldn’t help but appreciate this level of disdain. I even felt a pang of sympathy, for a group of people who’d been drained of the instinctive human thrill of getting a package. People love packages, even if it’s just a bunch of address labels from Doctors without Borders. Who can resist tearing open the box or envelope just to peek at it, before tossing it away?

But Rachel’s hardboiled minions didn’t toss my package! They made sure I knew that I’d been rejected, summarily, with not even the consolation that I might have piqued their idle curiosity. They added insult to rejection.

So, I’m humiliated. No big deal. Happens every day. But here I am compounding this humiliation by rattling on about it. What’s wrong with me? Okay, so I’m a writer, which is a subspecies of show business. I exploit my troubles by exposing and mocking them, for the amusement of others. Really, who isn’t richly entertained by a pie in the face?

But I digress.

Rachel, of course, went untouched—unaware—of this tiny contretemps between her gatekeepers and her latest postal popinjay. She has attained a status of being above it all.

From the place where I’d been put, I got to thinking about what it means to be above it all. The higher you ascend, the farther you are from the chaos and inspiration, the mystery and mess that churns and burns down below among the ordinary and ungated. Rachel is free to entertain and examine only ideas she has already authorized. She’s only obliged to talk with people like her, who’ve been already validated as experts and deemed worthy of her interest.

When I was a kid, I collected stamps. I had no specialty. I had no idea that serious philatelists—whose collections had bankable value in the thousands of dollars—focused on discrete categories, limited editions, misprints and geographic regions. I just liked stamps, and I liked—when I had a few bucks to blow—ordering those fat envelopes packed with a hundred, two hundred, five hundred random “world stamps,” all of them common and, to any serious collector, worthless.

But I wasn’t looking for a two-cent Hawaiian blue. I was hoping for stamps that would fill a blank space in my album, or if they depicted an interesting face—Grover Cleveland or Adolf Hitler, or if they commemorated a great moment, like the orb and spire of the 1939 Chicago World’s Fair (which my grandfather actually attended!), or the package included a few of those triangles from Monaco or a brightly colored ski jumper from San Marino (where nobody skis), or I could discover an thought-of, unimaginable place on the far side of the Earth—Upper Volta, Togo, Brunei or Palau. In my whole life, I never opened a package more thrilling that those envelopes full of cancelled stamps.

I suspect—no, I know—that when Rachel was that age, still opening her own trickle of little-girl mail, she felt the same thrill, maybe not for stamps, but perhaps for lickable bird stickers (with the accompanying book) from the National Audubon Society, or a machine-autographed 8-by-10 color glossy of David Cassidy, or a variety of ten different seed packets (tomatoes, cucumbers, cantaloupe, carrots, bachelor’s buttons) from Burpee’s.

For Rachel, that’s all over. Her every package is pre-opened, or left untouched and shipped back contemptuously. There are, for her, no surprises undreamt-of in her settled and cushioned philosophy. She is Orson Welles on the Ferris wheel.

I though about retorting to Rachel, but how? I thought of resenting her, but it’s not she who did it. And how do I resent some staffer who’s just as insignificant and unheard-of as I am? Could I be so petty? I considered envy, but I know that Rachel—sorely laden by her fame—works harder to stay famous than I do to stay obscure.

As a writer, author and publisher, my career aspiration is to be known, to become—if at all possible—famous. But, after ripping open my return-to-sender package, throwing away my letter to Rachel and putting my (autographed) novel back in the bookcase, I have consider the consequences of notoriety.

Right now, there are a few who people read my books, know my work, like my style. I hear from one now and then, take the time to respond, shmooze with them whenever we meet in person. So, I wonder, what happens if this handful of fans swells somehow into thousands, into millions, many of them eager to tell me their own stories, share with me their hopes and dreams, foist upon me their dog-eared manuscripts and beg me to read their self-published confessions?

What if, finally, I had to hire my own crew of functionaries whose purpose was to fend off these importunate riffraff and, if necessary, insult them in the process? What if, after I had delegated a platoon of minions and bodyguards to shield me from my long-sought popularity, everyone who wanted to shake my hand, express their thanks or share with me their very best idea, got a pie in the face instead? What if my staff were as rude as Rachel’s? And what if my erstwhile fans then came away from their only near-encounter with me confirmed in their suspicion that I’m just the latest in a long line of overhyped assholes?

And what if, by cocooning myself away from the world that has given me all my inspirations, I sent back—without even looking at it—my Hawaiian two-cent blue?