April 19, 2006

• Topic: They call me David Sedaris

  When I first moved back home and began working in NYC, I wasn’t sure if it was ok to carry my lunch in a plastic bag to work. My closet has one suit, and my job allows me to wear virtually anything (I’m wearing my Arsenal jersey today in honor of our semi-final Champsions League match against Villareal this afternoon!). Every image I had of what I’d look like when I got older, was “guy in a suit,” and “guy with nice briefcase” and “guy w/ expensive imported watch.”

  Turns out, I didn’t know my future-self as futurisitically as I anticipated. No suit, no briefcase, not even a mickey mouse watch, for this Dan. I pack my gym clothes in a school bookbag, and plastic bag the lunch and old-school cd player (yup…no i-pod yet).

  The other week, I found myself lugging around my library book. Without any kind of interesting man handbag to put it in, and not wanting to leave it for the weekend, I was forced to carry David Sedaris’ “Me Talk Pretty One Day” around. Now, most of my bar encounters are pretty simple, grab a beer and some conversation type things, so I can get away w/ holding the book the whole time. But…this quickly landed me the nickname David Sedaris, at least for a few minutes of tepid laughter.

  I’m reading another Sedaris book now, “dress your family in corduroy and denim,” and I must say he is quite the comic storyteller. I am enjoying his ability to capture the absurd logic that drives human thought. For example, as a kid David pittied his neighbors who didn’t watch tv, and though that his pity was an example of him doing his good in the world. This view changed rapidly, however, when the neighbors arrived for Halloween a day late, November 1st, because they’d been away for the actual holiday. With no candy left, the mother was forced to raid David’s own “winnings.” He reflects on the foolishness on giving his pity to such candy thieves. “When you ask for candy on Haloween, it’s called trick-or-treating. When you ask for candy on March 1st, it’s called begging.”

  Recently, life has given me the feeling that all is fine. At least in my life, all is fine, and that is most important. I have in the past brooded heavily about ideas and small sets of people in a billion-person world. The poor, Africans, the depressed, the Mets. Maybe it’s the Mets 10-3 start that has me feeling chipper. But…I think it’s my discovery of the wonders of selfishness. Put another way, the benefits of taking care of number one before anyone else.

  My idea of selfishness does not reflect the callous characterization of the word, as a person who would dismiss the needs of another if it meant giving up some of his own. Rather, it comes from the logic that unless I have taken care of my own pleasures, I won’t be much good to others. Sure, this is nothing new in the world of mental health and psychology, but I think i’ve finally found a way to embrace it in my own personal way. Sure, some guy over 50 years ago called what i’m describing “self-actualization,” but that doesn’t ring as true as “I’m selfish and I’m happy.”

  • 12:11 pm
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