The Great Derangement - Matt Taibbi [105]
I could scarcely even start my rap with half of these people before they started reading back to me the transcripts from their latest group therapy sessions. It was like none of these people had ever had a friend before. No creature on earth is more inclined to public verbal diarrhea than a modern American; whether it’s the AA culture, or the post–Me Generation emphasis on “finding yourself,” or all those neo–Woody Allens confessing to their therapists, or just too many damn people fantasizing about telling the audience of Oprah what influenced their latest album (“In the fourth track, I’m trying to share the sacred message of His Holiness the Dalai Lama…”), we live in a country where people believe implicitly in their right to bore the living shit out of absolutely everybody within haranguing distance with tales of their miserable, lonely, and inevitably self-deluding searches for personal fulfillment in the emotional desert that is our crass commercial culture.
It’s like a sacrament in the American religion of the Self—the seminal post-Oscar Charlie Rose interview where you talk about Truffaut and your battle to overcome your glue addiction. You know the one I’m talking about—since in the national fantasy we’re all celebrities, we all get to have our Cuba Gooding/Rod Tidwell moment tearfully confessing our love for Jerry Maguire to ESPN’s Roy Firestone after we sign our inevitable $11 million deals (nirvana, in the American religion). That’s why it’s always dangerous to ask a stranger in America about himself, because the likelihood is that he’s been practicing his “Ralph Knobshlutz Reveals All!” interview in his head for years.
When I asked one gothed-out girl in front of Java Jo’z whether she thought she was a good person or not, she immediately confessed to me that she’d been on Paxil and that it was “helping with her impulse control,” which was great because before she started on the drug, she’d just say anything that came into her head, which affected her relationship with her mom, which on the other hand was actually getting better lately, etc., etc. A youngish housewife then told me she had trouble forgiving people because she had been abused (“I have triggers that make the bad thoughts come back”), and that although she was “in a good place right now” she’d like to see some literature because she liked to “work on herself.” None of these people had a discernible filter. The few men I approached were even quicker to tell all.
“You’re absolutely right,” said one older man in a PING golfer’s hat. “I’ve got to start getting back to church. I’ve been backsliding since my divorce.”
“Well, this is your opportunity to get right with the L—”
“And then I started drinking, too,” he said. “I never used to drink that much before. But at least I know I have a problem now, you know what I mean? But I’m beating it now, God willing, so long as I go to my meetings.”
I stepped back a little. “Um,” I said.
“I tried to blame everyone in my family for my drinking but me,” he went on. “Everyone was responsible but me. I’d tell myself that it was my wife’s fault for not giving me my space after work. Then I’d tell myself I was okay because I’d like give up vodka for beer for a few weeks…”
This guy was like a walking ONE DAY AT A TIME bumper sticker. I frowned. “Yeah, I hear you—”
“The thing is, I went through all the steps, I admitted that a higher power can help me, and I accepted God’s power over me,” he said. “Anyway, I may not come to your church, but I appreciate what you’re doing, it’s important. People need to know they can’t do it alone.”
My God’s OK, your God’s OK. As long as his name is Jesus. I sighed, spotted an oldish Hispanic woman, and walked over, deciding to make one last try.