Sorry to read about your friend. Life is. Sometimes it comes with two ffs. I remember the good times. It is too late to correct the bad for the dead friend.
To quote you back at yourself: ‘As a child, I used my imagination to create worlds where I could be all powerful and where I was admired and even worshipped. In those worlds I could find happiness and self-esteem, a relief from the reality of the impotent, uncool, nerdy teenager that I was.’
I wonder if our attitudes and the childhood worlds we escaped to are more a reflection of our environments than ourselves? Me. I escaped to being a London Transport bus driver, alone in my cab, waiting for passengers, trying to stay on time, all on the routes I knew well in Wembley, where I grew up in the 40s and 50s.
It remained an ambition, but you had to be 23 back then before you could drive a bus, but by then I was married, had a good job by working class standards and wanted to be a city councillor, which I became two years later. But I did have a Nottingham City Transport bus named after me in recognition of my work as a local historian and only love beats that. As always a good read, seeing life as it is as the other end of the rainbow. Regards 🐰
These memories and images are fun to read and your point is powerfully made. I love Kendall as a foil—I’ll think of him now as someone stuttering through life the rest of us. I hadn’t found him nearly so relatable until now. I hope time offers you greater intimacy with your friend in the funny way death can and in the meantime, I wish you solace. Thanks for showing up here generously despite.
My brother was a lonely little boy who invented a whole set of animal friends with whom he invented a complex life. At some point, our mother became worried about his sense of reality and told him he needed to send them away. He continued to talk to them and she asked what was going on. He said he sent them to North Carolina and was talking to them on the telephone. Since she was permanently on the phone, she could hardly argue. Here’s to the ingenuity of lonely little boys.
There is a younger guy who joined the middling ranks of the TPA where I work. After noticing him struggling with his work I’d taken to spending time before and after work to coach him. Over time, through subtle asides, I learned he owned property in Miami and a place well beyond his means in Palm Beach. Seeing me look at a picture of an older man at a golf course sitting by his desk, “my father has won amateur tournaments— great golfer.” Later that day I connect my coworker’s surname to an executive of this billion dollar company. He was the son.
Now, unless my coworker and now friend, brought it up, I won’t ask. This nervous and fragile guy is trying to make his own way. We are all just playing the cards we are dealt. Though, if it came up, I might joke with him about being kind to me when becomes my boss.
What stands out to me about rewatching Succession is not simply the “escape from reality,” but why the refuge is a world you have already watched three times—a world where you already know what comes next. You wrote one particularly important line: “Newness breaks the spell.”
The loss of your friend cannot be changed, and the grief has already entered. In that state, a familiar and predictable fictional world reduces new uncertainty and temporarily reduces the imbalance that reality continues to produce. Rewatching, then, is not merely entertainment, nor merely escape. It becomes an action: when reality itself cannot be changed, life changes the environment in which attention is placed, allowing the current state to move back toward stability.
This is the process described by the Life Operating Mechanism: a state emerges, the system loses stability, action occurs, and stability is restored.
Sorry about the loss of your friend. Reality is so hard to deal with, what with possibly so abruptly losing good friends and making one's way in life. The clip of the rap song to the dad is sort of funny but very disturbing. I think we make our own way as best we can but fictional heros or flawed fictional heros and the villains they face help us or jar us awake about the cold realities and treacherousness of others we may face that Fitzgerald even wrote about concerning his alter ego, Gatsby. You seem to take that all in stride in this post. Sometimes our fictional heros help us with thinking we are going in the right direction even with our awkwardness. The best example of fictional awkwardness and fictional harshness I have seen is in the fictional crime thriller series Reacher. Alan Ritchson plays Jack Reacher who is over six feet tall, with huge muscles who can fight his way out of anything. And the way he walks should be confident and assured but at least in the series, it is anything but. In fact it is the most awkward fictional sort of walk I have ever seen. And Reacher in this fictional story, although incredibly smart, yet he is also incredibly awkward when he tries to convince a terrified Asian woman to not take her life while riding in an almost empty subway car. He fails, but decides he will overcome all mistakes and awkwardness and find her tormentors and make sure they are punished. Our lives, unlike those of fictional characters are never quite that straightforward (or usually aren't). But I like in this post and other posts how you indicate how one can transcend awkwardness and go in the right direction and help people and do well no matter if one is wealthy or not.
I’m very sorry you lost a friend. Your grief is underneath this essay and it makes your point well.
I am sorry for your loss, yet befriended by your vulnerability.
I’m so sorry that you lost your friend. Grief is something that unites all wealth classes. Agree with your final paragraph.
Sorry to read about your friend. Life is. Sometimes it comes with two ffs. I remember the good times. It is too late to correct the bad for the dead friend.
To quote you back at yourself: ‘As a child, I used my imagination to create worlds where I could be all powerful and where I was admired and even worshipped. In those worlds I could find happiness and self-esteem, a relief from the reality of the impotent, uncool, nerdy teenager that I was.’
I wonder if our attitudes and the childhood worlds we escaped to are more a reflection of our environments than ourselves? Me. I escaped to being a London Transport bus driver, alone in my cab, waiting for passengers, trying to stay on time, all on the routes I knew well in Wembley, where I grew up in the 40s and 50s.
It remained an ambition, but you had to be 23 back then before you could drive a bus, but by then I was married, had a good job by working class standards and wanted to be a city councillor, which I became two years later. But I did have a Nottingham City Transport bus named after me in recognition of my work as a local historian and only love beats that. As always a good read, seeing life as it is as the other end of the rainbow. Regards 🐰
Sorry to hear about your loss David. Thanks as always for sharing.
These memories and images are fun to read and your point is powerfully made. I love Kendall as a foil—I’ll think of him now as someone stuttering through life the rest of us. I hadn’t found him nearly so relatable until now. I hope time offers you greater intimacy with your friend in the funny way death can and in the meantime, I wish you solace. Thanks for showing up here generously despite.
I am of course sorry to hear about your friend.
My brother was a lonely little boy who invented a whole set of animal friends with whom he invented a complex life. At some point, our mother became worried about his sense of reality and told him he needed to send them away. He continued to talk to them and she asked what was going on. He said he sent them to North Carolina and was talking to them on the telephone. Since she was permanently on the phone, she could hardly argue. Here’s to the ingenuity of lonely little boys.
That rap performance being so cringe will never not make me laugh 😂
There is a younger guy who joined the middling ranks of the TPA where I work. After noticing him struggling with his work I’d taken to spending time before and after work to coach him. Over time, through subtle asides, I learned he owned property in Miami and a place well beyond his means in Palm Beach. Seeing me look at a picture of an older man at a golf course sitting by his desk, “my father has won amateur tournaments— great golfer.” Later that day I connect my coworker’s surname to an executive of this billion dollar company. He was the son.
Now, unless my coworker and now friend, brought it up, I won’t ask. This nervous and fragile guy is trying to make his own way. We are all just playing the cards we are dealt. Though, if it came up, I might joke with him about being kind to me when becomes my boss.
Sorry to hear about your friend.
What stands out to me about rewatching Succession is not simply the “escape from reality,” but why the refuge is a world you have already watched three times—a world where you already know what comes next. You wrote one particularly important line: “Newness breaks the spell.”
The loss of your friend cannot be changed, and the grief has already entered. In that state, a familiar and predictable fictional world reduces new uncertainty and temporarily reduces the imbalance that reality continues to produce. Rewatching, then, is not merely entertainment, nor merely escape. It becomes an action: when reality itself cannot be changed, life changes the environment in which attention is placed, allowing the current state to move back toward stability.
This is the process described by the Life Operating Mechanism: a state emerges, the system loses stability, action occurs, and stability is restored.
Sorry about the loss of your friend. Reality is so hard to deal with, what with possibly so abruptly losing good friends and making one's way in life. The clip of the rap song to the dad is sort of funny but very disturbing. I think we make our own way as best we can but fictional heros or flawed fictional heros and the villains they face help us or jar us awake about the cold realities and treacherousness of others we may face that Fitzgerald even wrote about concerning his alter ego, Gatsby. You seem to take that all in stride in this post. Sometimes our fictional heros help us with thinking we are going in the right direction even with our awkwardness. The best example of fictional awkwardness and fictional harshness I have seen is in the fictional crime thriller series Reacher. Alan Ritchson plays Jack Reacher who is over six feet tall, with huge muscles who can fight his way out of anything. And the way he walks should be confident and assured but at least in the series, it is anything but. In fact it is the most awkward fictional sort of walk I have ever seen. And Reacher in this fictional story, although incredibly smart, yet he is also incredibly awkward when he tries to convince a terrified Asian woman to not take her life while riding in an almost empty subway car. He fails, but decides he will overcome all mistakes and awkwardness and find her tormentors and make sure they are punished. Our lives, unlike those of fictional characters are never quite that straightforward (or usually aren't). But I like in this post and other posts how you indicate how one can transcend awkwardness and go in the right direction and help people and do well no matter if one is wealthy or not.