The Terrible People

 Blogger and Substacker Freddie deBoer published a rant this morning taking aim at the type of Gen X high-achiever who feels the need to constantly deprecate their own success and remind us that—even though they have collected all the brass rings of life—"those kinds of things don't really matter to me." 

DeBoer's point is that, if people are going to be better and more successful than us at everything, they should at least have the decency to brag about it. Having taken everything else from us, why can't they let us have the moral superiority, if nothing else? Do they really need to win the "most humble" prize too? 

I am reminded of Ogden Nash on the subject of "The Terrible People." In his characteristically oddly-metered verse, he excoriates the type of rich person who is constantly trying to tell us that "money isn't everything" and that wealth has not made them happy. Spare us the false modesty, says Nash: 

I don't mind their having a lot of money, and I don't care how they employ it,

But I do think that they damn well ought to admit they enjoy it.

This the essence of deBoer's beef as well; and there is much to be said for it. To be sure, no one likes it when a successful person rubs it in for their less successful friends. But what worse kind of rubbing it in could there be than winning and then telling us all that the victory is nothing but ashes in their mouth? 

All well and good. But... there are a few potential objections one could raise. For one thing, in an age of value pluralism, it's not always so clear who the successful people are. Am I successful? It depends if you ask me at 10 AM, after my second cup of coffee, or at 11 PM, when I'm struggling to sleep. 

How about Freddie deBoer himself? In penning this rant, he presumably has in mind some obnoxious corporate lawyer or specialist physician he knew from high school. But that person in turn might be envying deBoer his many Substack followers and the fact that he often has his name in print. 

DeBoer's screed is at heart a take-down of people who have pursued "conventional success." But what success is conventional, exactly, in today's society? How many of the corporate lawyers out there feel like failures when they lie awake nights? How many would not gladly trade places with DeBoer? 

Okay, okay, but suppose we really do hypothesize a person who makes lots of money and loves their job and is celebrated and has a stable marriage with the ideal partner and darling children—multiply the perfections as many times over as you wish. Should that person at least have the decency to brag? 

We all actually know at least some people like that, or who appear to be like that. And we, in our envy, imagine they must be gloating to themselves inwardly, and counting over their winnings each night, even as they outwardly pull a somber face and tell us, "you know, success isn't all it's cracked up to be." 

But this may not be what their inner life is like at all. Indeed, I've often been struck by how the most successful people I know, at every stage of life, are completely uninterested in articulating their own goals or victories. I've never understood how they can work so hard without even wondering why, but they do. 

A mollusk does not wonder why it slowly accretes its shell. And so too, a successful perfect person does not consciously strive after success. They are just living out their natural life history. They simply become the thing that they are, as the poet John Davidson would put it. Such is the law of the natural world. 

There is a poem by D.H. Lawrence in which the speaker tries to engage his interlocutor in a conspiracy to acknowledge how "superior" they both are. But all he receives in return is blank incomprehension. "I couldn't say," the other replies. "I've never got to the bottom of superiority. I should like to." 

And perhaps that is how it really is. The envious will always imagine the superior ones must be very pleased with themselves, and are simply obnoxiously refusing to "admit they enjoy it," as Nash put it. But perhaps they really aren't. Perhaps they don't even know they're superior or successful or anything. 

Perhaps the mollusk's shell just grew on their backs without their noticing, or wondering what it was for, or ever consciously formulating the intent to grow it. We demand to know how they did it, how they knew, how they succeeded, but all they can say is: "I've never really looked into it much. I should like to."