Finally absorbed DT Max’s biography of David Foster Wallace, Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story, while on vacation last week and figure the window of film-related hubbub won’t be open forever. One passage that stuck out comes from a letter that Wallace wrote to Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of Prozac Nation, in which he describes a familiar conflict: how one’s inner lawyer can marshal shortcomings just as deftly as strengths in its quest for personal righteousness:
I go through a loop in which I notice all the ways I am–for just an example–self-centered and careerist and not true to standards and values that transcend my own petty interests, and feel like I’m not one of the good ones; but then I countenance the fact that here at least here I am worrying about it, noticing all the ways I fall short of integrity, and I imagine that maybe people without any integrity at all don’t notice or worry about it; so then I feel better about myself (I mean, at least this stuff is on my mind, at least I’m dissatisfied with my level of integrity and commitment); but this soon becomes a vehicle for feeling superior to (imagined) Others… It has to do with God and gods and a basic sense of trust in the universe v. fear that the universe must be held at bay and micromanaged into giving me some smidgeon of some gratification I feel I simply can’t live without. It’s all very confusing. I think I’m very honest and candid, but I’m also proud of how honest and candid I am–so where does that put me.
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Wow. That Bojack clip was suited for that quote.
Should I be worried that my favorite verse is “I thank God I am not like other men…” (just kidding). But there is the inner lawyer that will not stop angling to shore up my personal righteousness. I look forward to the day when that inner lawyer will be forever silenced – the day I see Jesus face to face.