Something To Do With Paying Attention

I like David Foster Wallace because he is honest, intelligent, and observant. He articulates ideas that many people likely have a vague sense of being true, but are unable to express it in ways that others would understand.

There is a part of the novel where the main character's father passes away in a horrific train accident. DFW describes the legal process: "--that is, that the entire process was about numbers and money rather than anything like justice, responsibility, and the prevention of further wrongful, public, and totally undignified and pointless deaths." (72). Numbers elevated above ideals that our society proclaims are the foundation of our justice system. We want to believe in the ideals, but it is impossible to ignore what various systems actually look like in practice if you forcibly get sucked into legal, medical, or financial unintelligible, bureaucratic monoliths.

Modern life is often dehumanizing. Our worth is measured in dollars. Access, status, prestige-it's a fool's pursuit. Chasing worldly validation, though, can fill a lifetime if you never catch it. How many restaurants across the world can you try before it becomes a chore? The pleasures of the flesh inevitably leave a hole in our souls because the cravings are never satisfied.

As a result, if you reject hedonism, it's easy to conclude that nothing matters. Especially for an intellectual type. If you look at the brain objectively, or scientifically, you know that someone's emotions, personality, and desires are directly tied to various regions of their brain. The entire human experience can be explained in a textbook. To believe in a soul is an act of faith. It's romantic. It's unfounded.

Yet David Foster Wallace, an intellectual, observes something akin to a soul, "I'm not the smartest person, but even during that whole pathetic, directionless period, I think that deep down I knew that there was more to my life and to myself than just the ordinary psychological impulses for pleasure and vanity that I let drive me. That there were depths to me that were not bullshit or childish but profound, and were not abstract but actually much realer than my clothes or self-image, and that blazed in an almost sacred way[...]" (48). For DFW, or his protagonist (who I am arguing contains his POV), there is something 'sacred' within him. DFW's diction is intentional: Sacred connotes religiosity or holiness. There is something beyond the material world, inexplicable, that exists within all of us. And anyone who takes the time to be alone in silence for long enough will recognize this is true.

Perhaps I like this book because it aligns with an interpretation I already hold for the world. I do think that the answer has something to do with paying attention. However, this book is obviously not a Christian book. There is a section, though, where he is very critical of a sort of stereotypical, shallow coming to Jesus moment that one of his characters experiences. Upon reflection he writes: "In hindsight, it seems obvious that I actually liked despising the Christian because I could pretend that the evangelicals' smugness and self-righteousness were the only real antithesis or alternative to the cynical, nihilistically wastoid attitude I was starting to cultivate in myself." (80). When I was in high school and college, I also embodied a kind of smug, arrogant attitude about religion, and thought I knew more than I did because of what I thought I understood about science. "It's true that her story was stupid and dishonest, but that doesn't mean the experience she had in the church that day didn't happen, or that its effects on her weren't real. I'm not putting it very well, but I was both right and wrong about her little story. I think the truth is probably that enormous, sudden, dramatic, unexpected, life-changing experiences are not translatable or explainable to anyone else, and this is because they really are unique and particular--though not unique in the way the Christian girl believed." (85). DFW's protagonist reflects on this particular story because later he has his own quasi-spiritual moment (not at church) that gives him empathy for the transformation that the 'Christian girl' had told him about.

Throughout the novel, the main character is searching for something (justification of his life and inherent worthiness) he knows to be true from paying attention to his own existence. He accidentally stumbles into an Advanced Tax final lecture with a substitute teacher who is the "first genuine authority figure I ever met" (102) and who delivers a message of how to live a meaningful life: "This may be the first time you've heard the truth put plainly, starkly. Effacement. Sacrifice. Service. To give oneself to the care of others' money--this is effacement, perdurance, sacrifice, honor, doughtiness, valor. [...] Routine, repetition, tedium, monotony, ephemeracy, inconsequence, abstraction, disorder, boredom, angst, ennui--these are the true hero's enemies, and make no mistake, they are fearsome indeed. For they are real." (108). Although this speech is literally about working in the IRS, its higher-level meaning is about life. Sacrifice. Sacrifice is mentioned twice by this authoritative figure. Namely, to put others before yourself is what is most meaningful. That is true heroism.

This moment is the climax of the novel and serves as the catalyst for the main character to shed his 'wastoid' attitude and begin taking things seriously. He is given a mission that he is convinced is worthy of his sacrifice.