Dear James: I Miss Playing the Banjo
Editor's Note: Is anything ailing, torturing, or nagging at you? Are you beset by existential worries? Every Tuesday, James Parker tackles readers' questions. Tell him about your lifelong or in-the-moment problems at dearjames@theatlantic.com.
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Dear James,
I have one of those eternal questions, the kind that is difficult to answer no matter how much you ruminate on it: How exactly is one supposed to work hard enough to put food on the table and also not work so hard as to abhor your day-to-day existence?
What I'm getting at is, I used to play the banjo. I used to be pretty good, too: I'd go down to the local bar every month or so, sit around with the others, and make some real music for hours at a time. The average passerby might not have paid to hear it (the tip jar, labeled TIPS in huge block letters, was always conspicuously empty). But we always had a good crowd in the place— sometimes they'd even sing along—and I have only fond memories of the whole thing.
But alas, I'm a student, and I have a couple of licensing exams coming up that I can't afford to fail. Of course, if I had my ducks in a row I could contrive to both study for my licensing exams and play my banjo. People do harder things. But I don't have my ducks in a row, so it's one or the other.
Is there a light at the end of the tunnel? Does careerism require the soul in exchange for success? Maybe I just need to get those ducks in a row.
Dear Reader,
Dude (if I may), play your banjo. Nothing is more important than playing your banjo. There are plenty of hours in the day. Get your ducks in a row and then behead the ducks.
Play your banjo!
James
Dear James,
I recently got into a university, but it's not the one I had hoped for. I qualified for a program in one of its departments, but it's not the one I had hoped for. I was rejected by every other university I applied to—which I also hadn't hoped for.
In the past, I've failed countless times, and not only was I able to jump back up, but I was also able to tell myself, This failure was necessary. But I can't seem to do it this time—maybe because this is my life and future we're talking about, and one wrong move feels like it will affect all the rest. (It seems different from failing in a relationship, where one wrong man won't necessarily spoil my experience with the rest.)
Perhaps it's easier to accept anticipated failure. Who anticipates failure? Well, I do, when I know I haven't planned well enough. But in this case I did plan: I worked hard, or so I thought. I don't understand where it all went wrong.
Making things worse: I don't have a backup. I haven't been flexible; I haven't been open to other ideas. Throughout high school, I felt the need to talk about one plan and one plan only. I worried that if I talked about anything else, it might convey that I lacked confidence in myself, and might give others the privilege of belittling me.
Now I'm stuck in uncharted territory. And it's my fault. Do you see a way out?
Dear Reader,
Well, it's definitely your fault, insofar as we are all responsible for the way we think, and you have thought yourself into a real brain trap here—a real spiked chamber of mental confinement. I feel for you. How do you know you're in a brain trap? There's no room. You go in tiny circles, bumping the walls. Language begins to perish: The same words recur, deadeningly.
You have to get out!
So let's go, Houdini. Let's spring ourselves from this airless box. This concept of 'failure' with which you are belaboring yourself—you might want to start by having a good look at that. From somewhere you have inherited a punishing set of standards, and they are not working for you. I'm trying to restrain myself from typing 'Failure is a part of life,' but it really is. It's built in. Since we were lumps of protein quaking, Jell-O-like, on the primeval shore, we've been failing steadily, over and over. I failed yesterday, and a couple of times in the night. No Plan B? Welcome to the human race.
An exercise for you: Visualize failure. Visualize it maybe as a hovering black tumor or a bearded, bloodsucking marsupial—or as somebody's face, telling you that you've failed. And then visualize zapping this face/tumor/marsupial with golden phasers, thought torpedoes, celestial disintegrators, the full arsenal of your mega-mind. Zap it until it's gone. Destroy failure!
I don't want to discount external pressure here. Jobs are real; college degrees are real; money is real. But they're not that real. And I'll tell you what isn't real at all: the expectations of the people around you. Don't let 'em drive you crazy.
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The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Is anything ailing, torturing, or nagging at you? Are you beset by existential worries? Every Tuesday, James Parker tackles readers' questions. Tell him about your lifelong or in-the-moment problems at dearjames@ Don't want to miss a single column? Sign up to get 'Dear James' in your inbox. Dear James, In the second half of last year, I went to a naturist beach for the first time. I was afraid on my whole walk there that I would chicken out. But there was nobody around for miles—so I stripped. Since then, I've done it five more times, at various beaches, with growing confidence, in front of other people who have and have not been clothed. I've found great peace in lying naked on the sand, listening to the waves. But: Over the winter I started to get these feelings of shame and guilt. I was raised a very strict Catholic. And although my mother has been dead for a decade, I can suddenly feel her strong disapproval from beyond the grave. It's a conundrum. How would you handle it? Dear Reader, Well, I was in church on Sunday morning for the Feast of Pentecost, celebrating the wacky mandate of the Holy Spirit to go where it pleases—to land, if it likes, right on top of somebody's head (your head, my head, anybody's head) and nest there in a throbbing bolus of flame. So yup, I'm ready to get Catholic about this. I'm ready to get dogmatic. Your body is a gift from God. In the appropriate place (such as a naturist beach), you should be able to go as naked as Adam in the garden and feel not a twinge-let of shame. You should be like the primal newborns in the Doors' 'Waiting for the Sun': 'At first flash of Eden / We raced down to the sea / Standing there on freedom's shore.' (Who dares to say Jim Morrison isn't a great American poet?) Isn't that the true spirit of nudism? They don't call it a birthday suit for nothing. Shed your clothes; shed everything that cramps or abashes you. Air out those musty parts. Unshadow yourself. Let it all flap. Be a real American. Scamper shoeless across the sand into liberty's gold-green sunrise. Me, I'm not great at being naked. It makes me feel too … naked. So I know where you're coming from. But you've done so well, made such strides in self-development. The confidence, the peace, the waves: Keep going! Of course—as at any breakthrough moment, any evolutionary threshold of the psyche—you're being swarmed by the old demons, now at extra strength: guilt, disgrace, an image of your mother scolding you. They are to be stoutly resisted. Imagine instead your mother's delight in you as a baby, in all your sweet-smelling, roly-poly nudeness. Imagine reality taking pleasure in itself across the surface of your skin. Last word here goes to Gerard Manley Hopkins, great Catholic sensualist, nudist in his heart: 'The Holy Ghost over the bent / World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.' Safe in my trousers, James By submitting a letter, you are agreeing to let The Atlantic use it in part or in full, and we may edit it for length and/or clarity. Article originally published at The Atlantic
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