Half Empty

Collections of Essays are something special, and you usually can’t get

at the heart of what is special, unless you read yourself through the

whole thing. It is really no different than reading the chapters of a

book of fiction, although you may get more leeway in reading the

chapters (essays) not in any chronological order. I happened upon a

shiny accolade, written by the Elliott Bay Book Company staff, that

sold me on Half Empty, the last collection of essays written by David

Rakoff, who died of cancer last summer. David may be best known as

part of the This American Life troupe with Ira Glass and David

Sedaris. He also acted on the side.

   In my soul-creative-crushing frustration with staying on top of a

wave of academic studies, and not letting that same wave crash on my

life, Half Empty, a book whose subject matter seems bleak, given hints

from the title, and cover artwork filled with blissfully happy

creatures amidst ominous situations looming around the corner (a gun

pointing at a happy rabbit, or a guy waving at the reader from a canoe

that is about to go over a waterfall) brightened up my life. Or

brightened is kind of cliché.

   I read it at work, and I had to hold back tears. My favorite kind of

tears. Not tears of rage or tears of frustration, but the kind that

only great writing can tap into. Okay, okay, so what is great writing?

Books you have to get into. The same can be said for collections of

essays. The title or the art or the literary celebrity cred or what

have you, will only get you so far. You have to get to know the body

of work, and this involves taking a risk. Getting something good out

of what you read takes commitment.

   David Rakoff, for me, unapologetically, is my most favorite, most

relatable, kind of writer: A gay, middle aged Canadian American, who

grew up with a un(healthy) dose of pop culture. Overeducated. Spent

years ambling around in a existential vacuum, and wrote essays about

that same vacuum. The Chekhov-ian dilemma of living with the mundane,

daily grind of consumer laden culture in America. And, just

desperately trying to find meaning in the whole damn thing. Yeah, this

book touched me, because I can relate. Because I just graduated from

college, even though I really didn’t just yet, and sat with a deflated

feeling after the ceremony where Sherman Alexie spoke and everyone was

high off the contagious fear and joy of having big goals either come

true or fail terribly. I sat and watched the school crew take away

chairs, and thought to myself, this is never going to happen again,

And. I wish, if I could go back, I wish I could have just enjoyed it a

bit more, and I don’t want to arrive at death, having expected

something in the end, and saying to myself, I wish I just enjoyed the

journey more. (Rakoff would definitely appreciate this rant.)

   There is an essay within, cryptically called All The Time We Have,

which is a literary technique imposed by Rakoff that I feel is very

playful and effective. Again, no skimming the non-committal surface

here. You have to read the essay to understand what the title implies,

and, just like some burning bush in the desert, there is the meaning

of the title! Tied in brilliantly with the subject matter of the

essay, and the overall theme of the essays when they create a whole.

All the Time We have is about a life long relationship with his

therapist, at first, a relationship, existing within the appropriately

dry perimeters between client and therapist, then, eventually evolving

into a more personal and intimate friendship, Rakoff accompanying said

therapist, as he died of cancer. There was one section in this essay,

that changed the course of my day, and it has more to do with just

finding someone who is relatable, than it does with any literary

finesse or esoteric prestige.

   Rakoff recalls visiting his therapist at Beth Israel Medical Center

in New York, “Del had been my therapist. His efforts in my behalf were

Herculean; he earned every dollar I ever paid him. I had been a chilly

and resistant analysand from the start, although I stayed with him for

ten years…”  In minds eye, at least for those of us anxious or

dispossessed, who spend a weekly allowance on therapy, the closeness

of their relationship is a bit intimidating. As rakoff explains later

in the story, Therapist and client never maintain a relationship

outside of a clinical setting, but the chance encounter is likely to

happen, in which casual words are exchanged, but nothing more. But

what this essay really helped me with was the amount of time. I stayed

with him for ten years. I was finding myself embarrassed for going to

therapy, and I was steadily frustrated with the results, and fearful

that, like many endeavors in my life, this was a process that just

wouldn’t work out. 6 months? Have I been doing this for six months? My

god, when will I ever feel better? Some say the process takes years.

But ten years? It’s really as simple as that. The writing becomes

relatable. Here is a man who went to therapy for ten years. I

seriously went into the thing with a sunnier outlook.

   To reiterate, you really have to sit down and digest a collection of

essays to find a theme, and this theme doesn’t always stick out. It’s

not something that is too literal. You notice it. It shines. Maybe it

makes you smile when you find subtleties in the text that weave all of

the essays together. At the beginning of the collection Rakoff sets up

a thesis, and uses a split narrative of his time spent interviewing a

group of young millennial internent-boom-millionaires (“This was

typical Dawn of the New Millennium denigration of print, which always

seemed to lead to the faulty logic that it was not just the delivery

system that was outmoded but such underlying practices as

authoritative voice and credibility, fact-checking, editing, and

impartiality that need throwing out too.”) to demonstrate a general

piss poor attitude about life, what he refers to as “ann-randish”

selfishness and as he says, a group of young people harboring in the

era of print media that led to a general deluge of shit. It’s a

personal narrative and you’re not entirely sure what he is getting at

unless you read the complete piece. We learn that, around this time he

also interviews a psychologist from Wellesley College named Julie

Norem, who wrote a book called The Positive Power of Negative

Thinking. We learn about something called “defensive pessimism,”

Rakoff explaing that “this mental preperation [that of the defensive

pessimist] is just an alternate means of coping with a world where –in

the pessimist’s view of reality –there is often little difference

between “worse possible outcome,” and “outcome.” A world seen as worse

than it actually is.”

   Its hard at first to understand, but Rakoff is making a case for

pessimism. To boil it down, he’s more or less calling out a culture

that is obsessed with its own pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstrap

optimism and manifest destiny and all that American bull sh** and

saying that some of the less than savory mind sets like anxiety and

depression, when balanced with other state of minds, serve an

important purpose.

   And then there is that direct statement, as if he is looking at you

in the eyes.

“There will be peaks of great joy from which to crow and vales of

tears out of which to climb. When and why they will happen, no one can

say, but they will happen. To all of us. We will all go back and forth

from one to the other countless times during a lifetime. This is not

some call to bipartisanship between inimical sides. The happy and the

sad are the same population.”

   Rejoice! Rejoice for the honesty in that statement! Likewise, you can

read this without having read any of the rest of the book, and it

would be just as mentally soothing and motivating. Sigh, it’s okay if

things are hard and I’m not happy. I guess I’m not alone. And here,

this good literature reminds me that. Thanks for keeping me alive.

   Lastly, as I’m sure we’ll encounter often in the future here. The

element that allows any good writer to talk about the intense subject

matter of lost love or cancer or suicide is a good helping of humor,

and Rakoff does this brilliantly. In the same essay, he tells us about

a friend who waited in line for hours just to get a hug from Amma, an

Indian mystic whose hugs are a “dose of extra-strength sympathy and

benevolence.” Herein is laugh out loud humor. The kind where your

coworkers wonder what you’re not telling them:

“Being touched can be lovely, transcendent even, but a hug is almost

deeper than eye contact, as meaningful as a kiss. A hug that one waits

in line for from a woman who wouldn’t know me if I stood in her soup

would be like reading a piece of direct mail and being warmed by its

repeated use of my name (“and if you act now, DAVID RAKOFF, we’ll send

you…”) I would feel duped and even lonelier than before, like stuffing

the other side of the bed with clothes and making like it’s a

boyfriend.”

Thanks David Rakoff for writing to us, and helping us to feel less

alone in our own  heads.