Misanthropy 101 and Loving Life, Including (Some) People

  

I’m feeling helpless and I’d bet a lot of others feel the same way.  But in my case that helplessness, at least as far as this pandemic is concerned, doesn’t feel so bad.

We’re going on two years of a deadly, sometimes debilitating disease.  I feel for those who have suffered, whether that be from the disease or its consequences.  If your livelihood has depended on being in the world and the world you need has “gone away,” I am genuinely sorry.

Those who think that being a college professor is about engaging young people and talking in public usually don’t realize that getting this job involves a solitary, deeply private obsession and a lifestyle that is, at least quantitatively, more isolating than social.  At least this is the way it is in the humanities.  Ironic, no?

The humanist writes his books and papers usually without collaboration, with little need or recourse to socializing events.  There are conferences, sure.  But the honest ones will tell you that at the actual delivery points we talk at each other.  I don’t have a lot of academic friends, though that is my profession, so I don’t go to conferences to hang out.  

This humanities academic is pretty much a yer on yer own gig and that’s how I have tolerated it.  Those who conjure panels, collaborative books, social gatherings---I am happy for them.  I don’t have to attend these sorts of events any longer and, well, don't.   When I am supposed to be the engaging, personable, nice guy who appears to love his students and respect his colleagues it’s not that that is not me.  It’s that that is the me I need to be in order to be this me: the one sitting here writing in solitude, at peace and in the quiet of my study.

 

Pandemic has no end in sight.  I can’t be the only one who doesn’t hate the fact that it leaves me mostly at home.  Some are getting claustrophobic.  Not me.  My concern is that this may be producing even more agoraphobia than is, you know, healthy.  I would consider myself the healthy agoraphobic.  I think there is good reason to fear leaving the house and I couldn’t be happier about that.

Don’t mistake me: I like being outside, especially out there in nature. I also would love a solitary bike ride every day or so in some decent weather (and there’s far too little of that around here), but I especially don’t mind a ride that has no social contact.  I’m not likely riding the bike to the ice cream store.  If I do, it’s not to “see people.”

 

I prefer just to be out where you and your bike are so quiet you actually sneak up on the turkeys.  But not on purpose because being by yourself isn’t about being mean to turkeys or anyone else.  I don’t mind people riding to get ice cream: that’s their business, that’s their preference.  Good for them.  I’ll ride by if there is any line even if I thought I wanted ice cream.

Of course, you can come over for a ride, if you like to ride too.  I might like talking with you on the ride.  I would prefer we not gab away all the day long.  That’d be entirely too much talking.  Please, no.  I’m merely pointing out that a reclusive life is one in which you never really mind being at home, holed up in your Hōjōkī, that is, yer 10’ square hut.

I might be listening to music---all of which was made with other people around.  I might be sitting quietly reading a book written by another human who actually loved a public, social life.  And I tell you, I don’t mind being out with you, so long as there’s plenty of room and a lot less unnecessary noise.  Talking is sometimes noise.  Okay? I don’t mean to hurt any feelings.

We’ve not only been encouraged not to go “out” for the past two years, we’ve been positively even obligatorily commanded to stay home, keep a distance, and generally not get involved.  Sigh.  Sounds like paradise to me.

Preferring the solitary life is not about introversion.  I’m not an introvert.  I can do perfectly fine with people, express myself without inhibition, and not be the least bit uncomfortable being with others---when that’s what I need to do.  I have lots of opinions I would happily express publicly and I like to perform, be it talking or music or even theatre though that’s a distant memory.

My version of solitary life too might include you.  And it certainly includes my wife and our pup.  I need quite a bit of alone time but so does my wife.  The dog wants mostly to sit on anyone’s lap when she can and I have never been so in love with a creature before.  I love the company around here.  And yeah, sometimes I think my wife needs to go out or just get away from me, but isn’t that normal?  Is it really abnormal that I don’t mind one way or the other?  A reclusive life is mostly solitary whether or not you live with people you love or a wonderful dog. 

The world remains genuinely dangerous because breathing air with any other people within one’s vicinity can result in illness or death.  This used to be reason enough to be called an honest germaphobe.  I remember seeing people in airports with masks on well before pandemic.  I appreciate that they don’t want to make me sick or get sick from me.  But it used to be a lot less okay to prefer not to be in the world or to wear a mask in public.  Nowadays it’s a positive virtue.  I am not out there exposing or spreading disease because I would prefer for the most part not to be out there at all.

Okay so this omicron variant may not be delta dangerous but getting sick to not get sick is no way to live.  Culture, even if it’s banality of evil is merely a bad burger at the local joint, may just not be worth it to me.  It depends.  Sometimes I want that burger more than I want to be left to my own devices.  In case you also didn’t know, I don’t personally care about vacation, I don’t really like it, but that should be another topic.

The point is that pandemic means we make no plans, go nowhere, do nothing but stay home.  My most honest misanthropic self is nothing less than ecstatic about this.

I would not resume in-the-classroom teaching if I could stay home, go pureZoom, and I promise you that I would accomplish as much or better when is all said and done.  I tell students that I want to see them live but I don’t really. I tell them that because it seems unkind to say otherwise, to admit that this misanthropy is my preferred life.  I don’t want to be unkind or hurtful.  I don’t want others to think that I don’t like them.  If there were the option to teach from this quarantine foreva’and from now on, I would be all in. 

 

I wonder if misanthropy is a problem, a disorder or dysfunction or if it just a way we are or a way we prefer to be.  I’m not anti-social inasmuch as I don’t want to take out my misanthropy on others.  So maybe misanthropy is the wrong word.  I don’t think I really dislike or hate people.  Well, until I am around them.  But what I mean is that I just like things quiet, mostly by myself.  Is that so wrong?

Sometimes I’m angry about being around people who aren’t close friends or very good acquaintances because where I live so many people will be unvaccinated, which also means that they are likely Trumpers.  Is that enough said?  Nothing about them appeals.  So much about them I don’t want to have to tolerate.  Okay, I’ll be honest: I want nothing to do with them and I am embarrassed and ashamed to be an American amongst these fellow Americans.  As a mere neighbor I will build innocent, non-threatening fences and not have to engage them more than is absolutely necessary.  I didn’t like calling them them but what to do? It’s just true.

 

I don’t feel this asocial or let’s be honest anti-social around people I would find more “like minded.”  By that I mean merely those sane enough to have done what needs be done because a worldwide pandemic has killed millions and made millions more sick, and left many in lifetime morbidities.

 

You would like to think that it’s common sense to have been vaccinated, boosted, done the obvious thing.  That some significant population can’t find this obvious is disheartening, infuriating, frustrating, and, well, it makes me even more inclined to indulge the misanthropy that seemingly comes so naturally.

I love life, it’s people I’m not sure I want to stand.  I love art and human creativity---all of which depends on culture, social contracts, functioning commercial worlds of exchange and human relationships---but it’s the company of people who I do not choose to be with that makes so very happy that my closest neighbors are literally 10+ acres away from our house.

I still want to see great art in the world’s great museums.  Can we go when there is almost no one there?  I love Wegmans and I try to imagine the complex of human contact, supply chains, and all it takes to make this grocery store work.  But I am glad that all I have to do is go shop there once in the rare while.  We stock up so we don’t have to go out.

 

You might think that it can get claustrophobic even for a recluse.  But that’s not really a problem.  I have you, right here.  I’ve not posted this but I am talking with you and chances are if you are reading this---since so few are likely reading this---that I would love your company.  For awhile at least.  You understand.  Everyone needs to go home before it’s too much company (*invoke three days and fish here) but I am not inclined to need company.  I miss my friends and that includes my beloved daughters who are among my best company because they don’t really care for me to be any way but how I like when I’m with them.  I can’t be the only one like this.

 

I miss nature but I’ve misgivings about all it takes to get out there: the travel, the food, the whole cultural responsibility it invokes---for the most part, I’m an inside kid anyways.  I got thrown out of the house in a good way as a child, sent to the park, with my friends or alone.  I played outside everyday till it was dark.  I played on teams once upon a time and did lots of camping in the wild---but I thought the best part was being away from the world.  I love NYC because you can be with millions of people largely by yourself.  I’m never really lonely but more likely annoyed that I have to deal with people.

 

All of this might lead you to believe that I don’t want or enjoy your company but I hope you truly believe me when I say that I would love to see you, hang out, be your pal.  Clear boundaries, no limits.

Remember the Monster on the Bugs Bunny cartoons?  His name is actually Gossamer. I had to look that up.  Wiki says that he is “a large, hairy, orange monster.”   That would actually be Trump.  So apologies to the real Gossamer.

Gossamer strikes me as a fellow misanthrope because once he finds out that he’s being watched by a whole audience of people---when Bugs breaks the fourth wall, points out into the audience and says, people—he flees into the literal scenery and it’s scenery after scenery until the credits roll.

Unlike Gos, I’m not particularly running away from people nor am I scared---after all I speak in front of people for a living and, if I may be so lacking in humility?  I’m not half bad at it.  But like ol’Gos, I think I prefer the company of very few, like my friends and other mad scientists.