One astonishment of retirement has been the intensification of ambition. I’ve always strained for starry goals, goaded by glory-greed. I love working hard and hate when I don’t. Ridiculing my avidity doesn’t quell it: striving for impossibilities has ever been my wont.
My retirement ambition differs from earlier versions. Graduating from career, I quit fretting about career goals: money, status, reputation. Nor did I stew any longer about impressing an audience – of parents, loved ones, contemporaries. Let my obit blaze as inconspicuously as it may – I no longer cared. What obsesses me now is discovery – and conveying my discoveries memorably. I can ‘t wait to wake to work – and resent the limits of my strength and calls on my calendar. That my time is so short crazes me. Many my age celebrate the relaxation of their downward glide: they’ve done their bit, they assure me, now it’s time to kick back. I envy them their good sense. Each dawn, my batteries recharged, I’m almost frantic to recommence my trek to impossible heights. My being quivers like a gambler’s, convinced that today is his day. Hilarious, yes? Also pathetic. Absurd, surely. But so I am. Henry wonders what’s riling me: dogs sensibly don’t fuss this way. I wonder myself.
I’m pretty sure this ambition isn’t personal. I no longer want to silence detractors, settle scores, sashay on the world’s boardwalk. I’ve recovered, I’m convinced, from the anguish of vanity. Would I like to be borne in triumph through the village square? Sure – maybe – not really. It’s not to be known I groan.
It’s beauty that entices – of the sort that shivers the core of my being, causing me to gasp – and weep – and yearn. Reading a great writer at his greatest, or listening to music that defies description, or gulping a transcendent painting, I’m consumed with desire to produce something equivalently fine, knowing I’ll never. My ambition is neither realistic nor temperate, but ludicrous and excessive. I want to affect another human as Thoreau, for example, affected me half a century ago, stung me with a venom that never abates. That the effect is inexplicable to science magnifies instead of dispelling it. Yes, it’s mad – but I prize this insanity more than any comfort. “What is man but his passion?” asked Robert Penn Warren, in a great poem. The few living makers of beauty I’ve known I revere with sacramental awe.
Such intensity, I suspect, while little discussed, is not uncommon. It’s humiliating to harp on one’s inadequacy: we insist we’re “fine,” not crippled by craving. First-time lovers may expostulate wildly, but soon learn to button it, embarrassed by their cliches. Religious converts keep their ecstasies hidden from the throng who’d never understand. Parents of young children may “burst” with a pride that’s not proud. Some folks swoon with patriotism. (I used to; no longer.)
What this beauty looks like, its ingredients, how to define it, exceeds human might. No one can count on it. When makers connect, it feels a divine accident. I try to analyze the sort of literary beauty that moves me – good luck with that! As the judge said of pornography (in inadvertent homage), I know it when I see it.
The splendor of my vision makes me restive, restless, impatient with the mediocre and mundane, disgusted by depravity. Humans can be so grand! – and we settle for (and into) such guck! Me too. I could be so much more than I am, if only!
Why spill my guts this way? Because the topic tugs me – and to reassure you, dear pal, you are not alone.