Terkel's
Working
and Rachel Carson's
Silent Spring.
Lara tells me that the project is a brilliant one and she has worked countless hours transcribing my interviews and editing video. Yet, she is an optimistic woman—the sort of person who ends a phone call with the phrase
Make it a great day
—and her one complaint is that my questions often steer the conversations off into depressing places. Well, of course they do! She feels that perhaps it is I, the anonymous interviewer, who might be convincing my subjects of their unhappiness. Of course! I know that happens! But there is no malice at work here. It is more like Michelangelo, I tell her, when he was asked how he managed to carve the beautiful figure of David from a towering piece of marble over eighteen feet high.
It was already there,
he said.
I just chipped away the excess.
Yes! It is already there, so much woe. I want to distill it for the world to see.
Why are you so unhappy?
That is the simple question I ask after a very brief introduction. And certainly some people say, "I'm not." Or "What do you mean?" Or "I gotta get back to work." But so many people, triggered by such a direct and probing question, tell me everything.
Some recent responses:
Abigail H., 41, medical software trainer, Verona, WI:
Unhappy? Well, I suppose I am. I suppose it has something to do with, well, work. Actually, in all seriousness, I've been unhappy since I was about nine. One day, this gray, damp January day, I remember waking up and getting upset because I had to go to fourth grade that day. And then, in one of those
bizarre
flash-forward moments you sometimes get as a kid, I saw the older version of myself, me, now, and I thought, there I am, getting up for work, going somewhere I don't want to go. And at that moment I realized that there was my life, all of it, and almost every day of my life I would have to get up and go somewhere I didn't really want to go. And now, the other morning, I was dropping off my daughter, Zoe, she's four, at preschool, and I was like, oh, look at this, here we go again, her too. God.
Seth S., 30, bike messenger, New York, NY:
Cars, the great American automobile, pal, that's what has me down. Not only do I come close to getting clipped once an hour by some cell-phone-talking prick in a Land Rover, but I have to breathe all that shit we put into the air. When my son Silver inherits this earth, it's gonna be totally fucked. There. Sorry you asked?
[Interviewer: No. No it's okay]
You said this is going to be on NPR?
[
Interviewer: Perhaps. I said perhaps
]
All right. Cool. Check this: www.cararmageddon.org !
Simms P., 39, retail clerk, Cleveland, OH:
Well, if you mean, why am I so depressed, look around you. Food courts. Shitty fast-food places posing as Asian-fusion and Latin-fusion bistros. ATM surcharges. That rent-a-cop hitting on that high school girl. The Pretzel Peddler, where I just had lunch. Think of it: I'm almost forty, I'm on my lunch break from a place called Famous Footwear. And where did I eat lunch? The fucking Pretzel Peddler, man? I eat pretzels with fake cheese dip for lunch. And you want to know what makes me unhappy? Me. I make me miserable.
Josh F., 45, government analyst, Washington, DC:
I'm wondering if you have any idea how much federal money goes into this project, which, in my view, is a deliberate attempt to
cynicize
the nation?
And so on.
5. Zeke Pappas is Bloody Married.
L APTOP SLUNG OVER my shoulder, I slip out to lunch a bit early, around eleven, for an omelet and a Bloody Mary or two at Nick's. George and Gus throw in a third Bloody Mary on the house, as Gus remarks that I look "weary with the weight of the world." How perceptive good bartenders can be! How they know exactly what a regular client needs! I work away on my laptop at the bar, firing off e-mails, then I change my Facebook status, pay the tab, tipping generously, and walk back to the office, abuzz and enlivened.
Having spent much of the morning,
Working
and Rachel Carson's
Silent Spring.
Lara tells me that the project is a brilliant one and she has worked countless hours transcribing my interviews and editing video. Yet, she is an optimistic woman—the sort of person who ends a phone call with the phrase
Make it a great day
—and her one complaint is that my questions often steer the conversations off into depressing places. Well, of course they do! She feels that perhaps it is I, the anonymous interviewer, who might be convincing my subjects of their unhappiness. Of course! I know that happens! But there is no malice at work here. It is more like Michelangelo, I tell her, when he was asked how he managed to carve the beautiful figure of David from a towering piece of marble over eighteen feet high.
It was already there,
he said.
I just chipped away the excess.
Yes! It is already there, so much woe. I want to distill it for the world to see.
Why are you so unhappy?
That is the simple question I ask after a very brief introduction. And certainly some people say, "I'm not." Or "What do you mean?" Or "I gotta get back to work." But so many people, triggered by such a direct and probing question, tell me everything.
Some recent responses:
Abigail H., 41, medical software trainer, Verona, WI:
Unhappy? Well, I suppose I am. I suppose it has something to do with, well, work. Actually, in all seriousness, I've been unhappy since I was about nine. One day, this gray, damp January day, I remember waking up and getting upset because I had to go to fourth grade that day. And then, in one of those
bizarre
flash-forward moments you sometimes get as a kid, I saw the older version of myself, me, now, and I thought, there I am, getting up for work, going somewhere I don't want to go. And at that moment I realized that there was my life, all of it, and almost every day of my life I would have to get up and go somewhere I didn't really want to go. And now, the other morning, I was dropping off my daughter, Zoe, she's four, at preschool, and I was like, oh, look at this, here we go again, her too. God.
Seth S., 30, bike messenger, New York, NY:
Cars, the great American automobile, pal, that's what has me down. Not only do I come close to getting clipped once an hour by some cell-phone-talking prick in a Land Rover, but I have to breathe all that shit we put into the air. When my son Silver inherits this earth, it's gonna be totally fucked. There. Sorry you asked?
[Interviewer: No. No it's okay]
You said this is going to be on NPR?
[
Interviewer: Perhaps. I said perhaps
]
All right. Cool. Check this: www.cararmageddon.org !
Simms P., 39, retail clerk, Cleveland, OH:
Well, if you mean, why am I so depressed, look around you. Food courts. Shitty fast-food places posing as Asian-fusion and Latin-fusion bistros. ATM surcharges. That rent-a-cop hitting on that high school girl. The Pretzel Peddler, where I just had lunch. Think of it: I'm almost forty, I'm on my lunch break from a place called Famous Footwear. And where did I eat lunch? The fucking Pretzel Peddler, man? I eat pretzels with fake cheese dip for lunch. And you want to know what makes me unhappy? Me. I make me miserable.
Josh F., 45, government analyst, Washington, DC:
I'm wondering if you have any idea how much federal money goes into this project, which, in my view, is a deliberate attempt to
cynicize
the nation?
And so on.
5. Zeke Pappas is Bloody Married.
L APTOP SLUNG OVER my shoulder, I slip out to lunch a bit early, around eleven, for an omelet and a Bloody Mary or two at Nick's. George and Gus throw in a third Bloody Mary on the house, as Gus remarks that I look "weary with the weight of the world." How perceptive good bartenders can be! How they know exactly what a regular client needs! I work away on my laptop at the bar, firing off e-mails, then I change my Facebook status, pay the tab, tipping generously, and walk back to the office, abuzz and enlivened.
Having spent much of the morning,
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