Pedro Almodóvar’s brilliant Pain and Glory got me thinking about grudges. To call an Almodóvar movie brilliant is a tautology. Google reports he has a cult following – sign me up.
Grudge is an old word meaning grumbling; it comes from the French, though how the French got it who knows. Grouch is a first cousin. I used to lug around a sack full. I envied, resented others’ successes, brooded on perceived slights, nursed vengeance fantasies. I never admitted this of course – real men don’t wince – but that was from shame not chivalry. To confess a grudge is to acknowledge defeat; my pride couldn’t handle it.
Shakespeare, a fellow sufferer, had more guts:
When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least…
I remember blushing reading that sonnet. How could the greatest practitioner in my line admit to such feelings! I wanted to tap him on the shoulder, “Hey Will, you’ve won the jackpot – greatest scribbler ever – no close competitor – so dry your tears – buck up.” Only defeat is a feeling not a fact. It is so if you let it be. Dog-pal Henry, while often thwarted, is never defeated, he just moves on. Makes you think.
Grudges are the flipside of ambition. The higher you aim, the more exasperating your result. Shakespeare – and the filmmaker in Pain and Glory – aim for the stars and blame others for their shortfall. Hurt wants to hurt back, kick the cat, anything to offload responsibility for our disgrace. Humans, unlike dogs, cannot tolerate ourselves as we are, always yearning to be more. I am better than these paragraphs – more charming, eloquent, incisive – trust me!
Somehow, in my antiquity, I’ve graduated from grudges. It feels grand. I forgive everybody – well, almost everybody. The way things were is the way things were, why waste zest pouting. Forgiving transforms defeat into victory, for only winners can forgive – a neat mind-trick.
Grudges are boasts in disguise: we deserved better than we got: we were cheated of deference – payback time! Whiny Trump vows vengeance as if it were manly. Why so many applaud his puerile petulance is beyond me.
Rome’s saints helped cure me of grudge-keeping. Martyrs and mendicants had plenty to beef about but died, we’re assured, smiling. And they were worshipped centuries after while their foes were forgotten. How’s that for payback!
Grudges can’t be willed away; you can’t reason yourself out of them. Shakespeare was trying to. Can’t you feel him mocking himself – poor liddl me – alone – unappreciated – inadequate – unloved! What rescues Shakespeare – and Almodóvar’s filmmaker – or any of us is the luck of love.
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Love is the great anodyne, the gift beyond price, the grace that vanquishes disgrace. Love causes my soul to rise like a lark at daybreak and sing “hymns at heaven’s gate” (among the most potent metaphors ever). Love kisses our bruised ego and makes it feel better. Love laughs at grudges.
Those who do not love decry love as weakness. Pity their blindness. Such weakness is strength.