When faced by another’s success, why do we often hear a scratchy inner voice hissing, “Does he really deserve that?” Is it just envy that makes us feel that way? Or is there something more sophisticated, darker, more complex, more intricate, woven into this design?
Probably not. It’s probably envy. And it isn’t pretty.
The wish to have achieved, accomplished, or owned something of similar illustriousness and slightly more fabulousness to that which has been achieved, accomplished, or owned by our friends isn’t the most adorable part of ourselves, even if it is the most universal.
Isn’t there somewhere inside of us where we all wonder, “Why did she get this and I didn’t? Why does he like her better than he likes me? How come she got a raise? Why did she get a grant, he get a promotion, they get books with Oxford/Harvard/Norton/Chicago/Routledge? And why didn’t I find that dress on sale?”
Certainly this is true in our academic lives. Be honest now. Don’t you want to feel just a little smug by the time you finish reading this? Aren’t you hoping to find a few faults (or continental divides) with my argument?
Every writer I know is secretly miserable when faced with a glowing review of another writer’s work, especially if that other writer is an acquaintance (defined as someone you have met at perhaps three events during, say, the past 17 years). One friend who would set me on fire if I used his name put it succinctly: “I can’t read the New York Times Book Review section anymore. I have to have my wife remove it from the paper before I can pick it up and read other sections. Even when there’s nothing of mine to be reviewed, it irritates me that these pages are filled with praise for somebody else.”
Let’s face it: it remains unsatisfactory when a colleague who is more prominent, although less talented, offers by way of reassurance the pre-fab remark “Oh, I just got lucky.” In such cases, it is almost impossible to resist blurting out, “Damn, you’re right. It should have been me, not you.” Since the expression of passionate emotion is frowned upon, especially before tenure, we bottle it up inside.
But emotion, like nuclear waste, doesn’t disappear even when you bury it. It can poison and contaminate even more effectively when it’s hidden.
So what can we do? Simply hope that the unfairness of life will occasionally swing in our direction?
(And if there’s somebody out there snickering, “You’re such a lucky smartypants, you tell me”? Yeah, well, maybe you didn’t notice that on the initial first page of The Chronicle’s Daily Report, when Brainstorm was announced as a feature, I was listed as “and others.” In other words, I was listed sort of the way “The Professor and Mary Ann” were listed during the first seasons of Gilligan’s Island. I hear from the editors that they’re rotating the names in order to be fair. I’m still a little bitter.)
