I guess I kind of love David Foster Wallace. I know he did some really awful things and transmitted a lot of hurt to his loved ones and I understand that this detracts from his message (reasonably so) for a lot of people, but it doesn’t for me. For some people, he might have been a hero and a voice in the dark and I know how hard it is to let heroes fall and how angry and betrayed it can make you feel, but David Foster Wallace never seemed like a voice who spoke from outside the dark, but from within it. He was never heroic to me, nor did I feel like he classified or codified himself as one. He was didactic, maybe, and acted the part of the teacher sometimes, but I don’t think he had enough self-esteem or self-belief to write himself the hero. To me, he’s always been a person, and he’s really, really good at being a person and part of being really good at being a person is also being generally awful sometimes. And he’s good at talking about that stuff. About being a person and being hurt and hurting other people.
But so he did some really awful things to those who were close to him and it seems pretty clear that those things came from places of deep, emotional torment and it’s sad and it’s sad for the people who had to be around him but I think that’s universal in life and it’s okay to say that without also excusing his or anyone’s actions. I think a lot of us are hurting in a lot of different ways and we’re just trying to get through this thing and be loved and love others and also try to hurt as few people as possible. It’s kind of like a juggling act where there’s always a lot going on and because we’re all a little imperfect, sometimes we miss stuff. Sometimes things break.
So yeah, I guess I kind of love David Foster Wallace.
