My Korean Deli_ Risking It All for a Convenience Store - Ben Ryder Howe [25]
People want to believe the future is important, because that gives the present meaning. But if you do something like stocking shelves every day, you can find that faith in question. It’s like the moment in the movie Groundhog Day when Bill Murray realizes that nothing surprising or momentous will ever happen to him again, which forces him to ask, If you decide that the future isn’t important, how do you find the capacity to care?
What’s interesting to me about this is that the Paks, who from moment to moment have rarely been assured of anything since they came to America (it was only a few years ago that they had the means to buy a house, for instance), are not in the least prone to agonized reflection about the potential significance of every decision. When I think of the word existentialist, I think of beret-wearing, Gauloise-smoking philosophers, which the Paks most definitely aren’t, but existentialists they are. They don’t think about what the moment means, and they tend to live in it fully. (Then again, given the hectic pace of their lives, they don’t have time to do otherwise.)
I, on the other hand, cannot but see cosmic significance in every single decision. Every purchase is a test of moral fiber. Every thread on my body is a statement of character. Nothing can pass my lips—not food going in, not words coming out—without being subject to the strictest scrutiny. There is no such thing as being passive or neutral: we are always revealing ourselves and asking to be judged.
This is undeniably the result of neurotic bourgeois narcissism and overeducation, but it’s also specifically tied to the Brahmin upbringing, which insists that in everyday life there are no unimportant details; in fact, the smallest details are the most important, because they’re the most revealing. “Manners maketh man,” wrote William of Wykeham, but for a Wasp this statement probably does not go far enough. Manners maketh all—from how we judge ourselves to how we judge other people. Everything from the volume of your voice to the size of the logo on your shirt tells a story. And with the sort of constant coding and decoding that goes into, say, walking across a room, it’s a wonder most Wasps aren’t too clogged with instructions to get out of their chairs.
Incidentally, the anti-Wasp revolt led by boomers like my parents didn’t help unclog the program either, because not only did it fail to erase its prime directive (Every decision matters), it added more layers (Have you considered the impact of your toilet paper preference on the the coral reefs?) of introspection.
When my ancestors on the Mayflower came over (there were thirteen of them who survived), they were, in physically separating themselves from the Church of England, doing rather than thinking. However, it’s astonishing how quickly after that one bold act they reverted to being inward-looking. Here was a gigantic, fertile, undeveloped continent teeming all around them, and they decided to stay in Plymouth, banning maypoles, marrying each other and farming the area’s hopelessly scrubby soil (poor even by New England standards). They didn’t want to continue going west. They didn’t want to check out the Great Plains, the Adirondacks or the Okefenokee Swamp. They didn’t even want to go to Boston, which had a better harbor and all the latest styles in buckle shoes. They were so-so at making money, and they weren’t very adept at politics. What they were