The Privilege of Understanding Self-Loathing
By David Himmel
In Nick Hornby’s 1995 novel High Fidelity, his main character, Rob Fleming, bemoans: “What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery, and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?”
In the book (or the 2000 movie of the same name starring John Cusack and a host of other great actors) Rob is a 35-year-old white man. A small business owner—a record store called Championship Vinyl. He appears to make a decent living despite having to compete against the Sam Goodys and Tower Records. He employs annoying but enthusiastic guys who, by default, perhaps for the sake of the story and maybe because Rob is a such a loathsome malcontent, become his friends. He spends his days listening to music, discovering new music, cherishing the old music, and helping others find the sound they’re looking for. Yep, he’s a kind of Marvin Berry in that way. (Back to the Future fans get it.) Rob, while just dumped by his live-in girlfriend, seems to do pretty okay for himself in the romance department. Sure, the plot hinges around his failed relationships, but all relationships fail until one of them doesn’t. That’s the whole point of it all.
From the perspective of perspective, Rob is living the dream. While not a billionaire tastemaker with an impervious heart, he spends his days in a world of his own making doing things he loves to do. So why is he so miserable? Why does he sabotage this world of his? Why all the self-loathing? Is he on to something? Is it the pop music? And if so, why are the pop musicians so miserable?
So, why do we hate ourselves?
I’ll start. For one, I hate myself right now because I spent the previous paragraph writing like Carrie fucking Bradshaw. All those questions. Good writing is active, it’s statements. It’s supported by statements. When the questions outweigh the statements, the questions become your statements, which is the literary equivalent of throwing your empty gun at Superman. It shows you’re afraid to say what you want to say. Or, in the case of Tucker Carlson, cover your ass from legal entanglements. No, Tucker’s not a racist, he’s just curious. Bah! He’s spineless. If anyone should champion self-loathing, it should be that man-baby pouting weeknights on the TV for his millions of dedicated simpletons. But I’d bet Tucker feels just fine with who he is and his station in life. As for his taste in pop music, I’d venture a guess that he’s a big Don Henley fan. Loves the work of Dennis DeYoung.
Okay, so now that I’ve forgiven myself and moved on from the earlier Bradshaw-tastic paragraph, let’s address my self-loathing. Thing is, I don’t get it. I mean, I ain’t perfect and I can be hard on myself—too hard, even, at the wrong times. I think I dish out the appropriate shit to stew in when I fuck up, being mindful to have the punishment fit the crime. But even in times of great positivity and big wins, I find myself anchored to the loathing. An example: My wedding day was one of the hardest days of my life because it was one of the greatest. I was so happy and surrounded by more love than I can even begin to describe, which is exactly the point of having a wedding. The problem was that I struggled to process all that good energy. Did I deserve that love? Yeah. But why? Because I’m not Tucker Carlson or Don Henley or Carrie Bradshaw. But still… I’m David Himmel. And I’m not that terrible, even if I can be exhausting.
I’m starting to think self-loathing, like braces, doesn’t look as cute the older you get.
When I was single, I probably joked and self-deprecated myself out of hundreds of romantic flings and partners. Yeah, hundreds. And that, right there, that’s where things get confusing. I loathe myself but have never struggled with confidence or even a strong feeling of self-worth. If only I wasn’t such a putz. Is this astrology? Is this the duality of my Gemini nature at play? Oh, shut the hell up, Carrie… Truth is, there are only two times I can think of when I wasn’t able to push through fear and loathing to confidence.
The first was when I was ten-years-old. The family had drove out to Philadelphia for the Bat Mitzvah of the daughter of one of my dad’s college friends. The bandleader, who in my memory looks like an Anglo Gloria Estefan, was asking me to join her on the dance floor. She and her handheld microphone wiggled and shook to the music, her tractor beam finger trying to pull me over and in as I did my best to hide behind my table napkin. I immediately regretted it when she lost interest. The second time was in college. I was hosting a sorority auction. While I loathed the concept of auctioning off people for charity or beer money or whatever, I figured a gig’s a gig, I like being on stage with a mic in my hand, and I was not one of the meatheads being assigned a monetary value. It was fun. Until the end when the sorority president took the mic to thank everyone and auction off one last hunk of the night: me. Ah, fuck. I tried desperately with humorous wordplay to back out of it, to make her stop, which may be part of why I didn’t bring in a whole lot of money. I’m not the hunk you save to close out your show with. I’m the host, the jester. I get paid and occasionally laid. The meathead mortgage brokers are the ones you want to buy, not the skinny guy with a tight five about his pronounced Jewish nose.
I had a solid upbringing by modern American standards. I was hugged and respected as a kid, never wanted for the necessities, and while I was never the smartest in class or best on the team, I received enough job well dones and high fives to create a positive sense of self-worth. Later sorority auctions be damned. I’ve always felt loved and that I had something to offer the world. I don’t think I ever thought I was going to change the world in any grand way, my sense of self has always been void of delusions of grandeur. I knew I was less than some, better than most. My world-ending problems were no more routine than anything you might find at central casting for youthful angst. And yet… What a fucking tool of a person I was and am. A rube. A chump. A loud mouth with no ability to say the right thing at the right time but an uncanny ability to keep myself out of the kind of trouble a loud mouth can land themselves in permanently. It’s confusing.
And perhaps that’s been the charm of it all this whole time. The self-loathing man avoids becoming the bad guy from every ’80s movie. What was it Daniel Larusso said to Ali Mills in The Karate Kid: “Look, I’m a jerk… so, am I forgiven?” And he was. So, pop music and pop movies made me this way. But as discussed on several episodes of The Literate ApeCast, I find myself siding less with Daniel-san and more with Johnny Lawrence.
I’m starting to think self-loathing, like braces, doesn’t look as cute the older you get. That’s because as you get older—ideally, anyway—you find your station, your purpose. You’ve pruned back the dead branches and settled nicely into the garden you’ve made for yourself. It could be a job, a family, friends, hobbies, passions. You’ve been at this for half your life, you’ve orchestrated all of this, and you don’t hate it. Some of it you actually enjoy. So, why all the self-loathing?
I’m not even sure if it’s self-loathing anymore for me. Just everything-loathing. I’m almost nihilistic when it comes to the self. My kids keep me from going too dark, for managing to sustain some hope in a world that’s increasingly less for me, and more and more annoying. At least, that’s my perspective. But I’ve always been a malcontent, annoyed by so much of everything. Hell, I had a newspaper opinion column in college called The Way it Should Be. But maybe it’s an excuse because I’m accepting that I’m closer to rounding the half-way point in this race than I am to the starting line. And that, well, that sucks. Because despite my self-loathing—or self-nihilism—I still can’t get excited at the prospect of dying.
I don’t want to be done. I don’t want to loathe myself so much. If that’s even what it still is. Because I like my life. Which is making me fucking miserable. And maybe that’s the root cause, right there. I’ve had such a privileged and fortunate life that I’ve had to manufacture my own pains just to fit in. So, I might loathe myself, but at least I’ve got enough self-confidence to face my ugly truth: everything’s fine.
