"The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling."
- David Foster Wallace, "Infinite Jest"
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David Foster Wallace took his own life 15 years ago today. The rest of the world never got to see his next creative masterstroke (which became the posthumously released "The Pale King") in the way it was intended. He had been working on it for a decade and it became his White Whale. But, if you will allow me the cliche, the work he left behind was truly the stuff of staggering, mesmerizing, heartbreaking genius.
I'm grateful to have absorbed his magnum opus "Infinite Jest" and to have studied and enjoyed his many incredible essays; many of which have made profound impact on the way I looked at the possibiliies of art and, perhaps more importantly, on what kind of creative human being I wanted to be in the world.
For me, his writing was the literary antidote to postmodern cynicism, which, even a decade and a half later, remains utterly rampant and seems to permeate most of the art my generation continues consume. Reflexive naysaying, mean-spirited criticism, rampant cynicism and performative contrarianism are far too common. It has became so normal to weaponize humor, to be cynically detached and uninterested in how your cruelty may effect the mental health of others (see: internet trolls). Incredulity to metanarratives is fine, but writing with love and hope and curiosity is far more courageous to me. Showing the world your soul is much more brave and interesting than being another cynic that cuts people down. Much like my literary hero James Baldwin, DFW struck a blow for vulnerability, tenderness and the notion that there is beauty to mine even in our darkest moments. We are flawed, we are human, we are beautiful.
Clearly, David Foster Wallace summoned as much courage as he could for as long as he could, and then his pain got the best of him. I know the battle all too well. I'm thankful to have glimpsed his enormous talent, which was teeming with the kind of warm-hearted vulnerability that I've long aspired to allow in my own life and art. It was quite a gift to the world, no matter how short. It means so much to me.
With that being said, just so we are clear, I'm not romanticizing his exit. I have tremendous sympathy, in part, because I am no stranger to ideations. Tell your friends you love them. Check in on them. Make it weird. Hopefully, they won't die with their music still in them.
You would have been 61 today, David. Damn, I wish you were still here.
