{"id":6786,"date":"2024-03-11T13:10:23","date_gmt":"2024-03-11T17:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/george-saunders-on-how-to-live-an-unregretting-life-the-marginalian\/"},"modified":"2024-03-11T13:10:23","modified_gmt":"2024-03-11T17:10:23","slug":"george-saunders-on-how-to-live-an-unregretting-life-the-marginalian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/george-saunders-on-how-to-live-an-unregretting-life-the-marginalian\/","title":{"rendered":"George Saunders on How to Live an Unregretting Life \u2013 The Marginalian"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Profit<\/a>
\n<\/p>\n

\n

\"George<\/a><\/p>\n

The price we pay for being children of chance, born of a billion bright improbabilities that prevailed over the staggering odds of nothingness and eternal night, is the admission of our total cosmic helplessness. We have various coping mechanisms for it \u2014 prayer, violence, routine \u2014 and still we are powerless to keep the accidents from happening, the losses from lacerating, the galaxies from drifting apart. <\/p>\n

Because our locus of choice is so narrow against the immensity of chance, nothing haunts human life more than the consequences of our choices, nothing pains more than the wistful wish to have chosen more wisely and more courageously \u2014 the chance untaken, the love unleapt, the unkind word in the time for tenderness. Regret \u2014 the fossilized fangs of should have<\/em> sunk into the living flesh of is<\/em>, sharp with sorrow, savage with self-blame \u2014 may be the supreme suffering of which we are capable. It poisons the entire system of being, for it feeds on the substance we are made of<\/a> \u2014 time, entropic and irretrievable. It tugs at our yearning for, in James Baldwin\u2019s perfect words<\/a>, \u201creconciliation between oneself and all one\u2019s pain and error\u201d and stings with the reminder that eventually \u201cone will oneself become as irrecoverable as all the days that have passed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Art by Marianne Dubuc from The Lion and the Bird<\/em><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There is, therefore, no mightier spell against unhappiness than moving through the present in a way that preempts regret in the future \u2014 with integrity, with humility, with wholeheartedness. <\/p>\n

That is what George Saunders<\/a> reckons with in some lovely passages from his prophetic<\/a> 2007 essay collection The Braindead Megaphone<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (public library<\/em><\/a>). <\/p>\n

In one of those tangents that give the essay form its fractal splendor, he writes:<\/p>\n

\n

You know that feeling at the end of the day, when the anxiety of that-which-I-must-do falls away\u2026 That moment when you think, Oh God, what have I done with this day? And what am I doing with my life? And how must I change to avoid catastrophic end-of-life regrets?<\/p>\n

[\u2026]<\/p>\n

At the end of my life, I know I won\u2019t be wishing I\u2019d held more back, been less effusive, more often stood on ceremony, forgiven less, spent more days oblivious to the secret wishes and fears of the people around me.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In a sentiment he would later deepen in his moving 2013 Syracuse commencement address<\/a>, he adds:<\/p>\n

\n

So what is stopping me from stepping outside my habitual crap? <\/p>\n

My mind, my limited mind. <\/p>\n

The story of life is the story of the same basic mind readdressing the same problems in the same already discredited ways.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In a wonderful aside from another essay, he offers what may be the best recipe for breaking out of the mind\u2019s recursive and limiting stories:<\/p>\n

\n

Don\u2019t be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible. Stay open, forever, so open it hurts, and then open up some more, until the day you die, world without end, amen.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Couple with artist Maira Kalman\u2019s illustrated meditation on how to find joy on the other side of remorse<\/a> and Ellen Bass\u2019s superb poem \u201cHow to Apologize,\u201d<\/a> then revisit George Saunders on the courage of uncertainty<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Profit<\/a>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The price we pay for being children of chance, born of a billion bright improbabilities that prevailed over the staggering odds of nothingness and eternal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-purpose"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}