Skip to main content

The Iceberg

I’m going to assume you know about the Titanic, the colossal boat that sank in the North Atlantic, not the 1997 film about the two lovers on the colossal boat that… well, I won’t spoil it for you.  You may not know that the Night Captain who spotted the iceberg was inexperienced and thought putting the engines in reverse would help; instead, the swirling water created a vacuum, pulling frozen doom even closer.  Still, the luxury liner was engineered to withstand a head-on collision with an iceberg. There would have been damage of course, but the ship, 1,503 people and that enormous diamond would not have been lost. However, the newby Night Captain thought it wise to turn the ship, trying to avoid a collision.  In so doing, the iceberg caught the side of the hull, where the ship was weakest, fastened together with cheap rivets to save money. As a result, water flooded areas no engineer imagined it could reach and, after a harrowing struggle, the ship was swallowed by the icy, black sea.
Ernest Hemingway loved the iceberg as a metaphor for his writing, probably because it conjured images of the Titanic and thus depressed people.  Making people feel sad was a huge aspect of Hemingway’s work. (See: Anything he ever wrote). But Hemingway also liked the iceberg metaphor because it described the style of his minimalist, athletic prose.  He believed if a writer were writing truly enough, the writer could leave out huge parts of the story and the reader would still understand them; these omissions, in fact, strengthened the story, in Hemingway’s mind.  There is some speculation and evidence to suggest Ernest Hemingway may have lived his life the same way, showing the world a rough, masculine facade while enormous personal issues of self-doubt, depression, and closeted homosexuality remained hidden, just under the surface.  He blew his brains out shortly before his 62nd birthday.
To live with mental illness is to live life on a collision course with an iceberg.  For the first 31 years of my life, I didn’t know how to handle living with my iceberg; in fact, I probably would've told you I didn't have an iceberg.  I threw my engines in reverse, tried to run from it with distractions like shopping or drinks, drugs, food or gambling.  But I only brought the iceberg closer. I tried to avoid it and pretend it wasn’t there, and it ripped me apart at my weak points and sank me in ways I didn’t expect: I shirked my responsibilities, took risky actions, lashed out at people and alienated those who were just trying to help. I’ve come to understand the only way to live with an iceberg is to ram it head on with talk therapy, rigorous self-assessment, meditation and reflection. Ernest Hemingway preferred hunting lions and summiting mountains to confronting his own inner coldness, and in the end his iceberg sunk him. Kurt Cobain, Robin Williams, Kate Spade, Anthony Bourdain, my aunt, my uncle - icebergs got 'em all. And I get it!  It’s a challenging course to stay, steering into my iceberg. Plowing headlong through the frigid darkness, I sustain damages in the form of relationships, narcissistic delusions and egomaniacal aspirations which drift away into the cold black night. But there’s no other way through to warmer seas.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

More Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dad...

Solitary Man (and also two other people, I guess)

As a man, I value my alone time; as an academic, solitude is integral to my scholarship; and as a writer, you can’t be in here right now, I’m closing the door and putting a 25lb kettlebell in front of it, I’ll be out in a couple hours, bye!  There’s a Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee on which Jerry Seinfeld jokes his first words weren’t “mama” or “dada;’ rather, they were, “leave me alone!” I’ve never agreed with another human being more.  When I say, “I want to be left alone,” it’s a cry for help, and the help I need is for you to get lost. It’s a miracle I ever found a partner who understands. Thankfully, my wife values the work I produce in my alone time, so she's as understanding as a person can be when i tell her to scram. My isolation solution has been hampered considerably by the addition of baby. My baby is a brand new person who requires constant attention; more than that, she’s reliant on my wife and me to teach her everything. Since she would not exist on thi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hop on Pop as Queer Children's Lit

Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss has been delighting children for generations and my daughter is no exception. I've probably read it to her 100 times by now.  Unlike many children's books, each new reading of Hop on Pop reveals something new in the text.  Buried in the subversive narrative, I think I've found evidence which can prove Hop on Pop is an early example of Queer Children's Literature.   First, let's consider the title.  The idea of 'Hopping' on pop is subversive as it suggests leaping atop conventional symbols of power, in this instance "Pop."  The title also connotes "Daddy" imagery which is popular in gay culture.   In further examining Hop on Pop's homosexual connotations, we come to Red, Ned, Ted and Ed, four males seen here sharing a bed.  It's possible this image is just a rendering of young boys at a sleepover, perhaps there's nothing sexual or gay about it.  However, considered in the larger context of the na...
Post a Comment
Read more

The United States Human Resources Department

A huge plank of current Republican political ideology is the idea government should be run like a business.  Let’s call it USA, Inc. The philosophy is that areas of fiscal waste should be tightened, businesses should be allowed to thrive, our defense should be strong and our international posture should be aggressive. These are corporate virtues, these are right-wing American virtues. Thinking of a government this way has led to decades of US economic and military dominance.  But amidst all this growth, a basic aspect of corporate structure has been omitted from USA, Inc. and as a result, morale among its employees is very low. We’re angry. We’re mistrustful. We’re worried about the future. It feels like nobody’s looking after We The People. USA, Inc.  doesn’t need tough leadership and a swift kick in the ass to solve these issues of morale. We’re already doing great in terms of performance and productivity, which a firm hand encourages. We now need someone in gove...
Post a Comment
Read more

The American Media and the Rise of American Authoritarianism

Advocates of a free and open American society who cry “Fake News” are right to distrust the media, though their logic for doing so is severely flawed.  It’s difficult to blame these people, however, as they are products of a society in which the American media has been misrepresenting reality since its inception.   The media over simplifies serious political issues.  Due to limited space in publications and limited airtime on networks or cable channels, news outlets are forced to truncate and simplify stories.  Long speeches are reduced to two line quotes or 10 second sound bites . Thus, it becomes difficult to provide full context for stories or accurately convey the spirit and experience of an event.   In their oversimplified coverage of politicians and serious political issues, the media tends to frame politics as a sport, focusing on the horse race aspects of elections and on keeping score of what bills have the votes to pass rather than focusing o...
Post a Comment
Read more