Though I can't really identify with the premise of the article about super-rich people's problems with therapy, I did relate, in a way, to the following quote:
"Dr. Seth Aidinoff, a NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital psychiatrist who practices on the Upper East Side and also consults for hedge funds and Wall Street firms, illustrated the consequences with the Saturday-afternoon choice faced by 'your typical master of the universe,' who can either play outside with his 7-year-old or stay inside to complete a business deal on the phone.
'The phone call might involve the most important and interesting people in the world, being well compensated for his time, and the chance to handle it with A-plus skill,' Dr. Aidinoff said. 'Whereas playing with his 7-year-old might be sort of boring, or unsatisfying; his son might not fully express his appreciation, or the child could even be in a bad mood. So this person might find himself terrified of spending time with his child because it’s not an activity he can control or succeed at the high level of accomplishment to which he is accustomed.'"
Okay, I'm not a brilliant hedge fund analyst, nor terrified of spending time with my three-year olds, but I do sometimes miss using the skills I honed in grad school. I know I check my email too much, blog more than I should during the day, or read too many articles in the NYTimes, when I would otherwise be playing with the kiddos. I've always seen myself primarily as an academic, though my life is far from that now (and I was never a brilliant intellectual to begin with), and the computer is my intellectual outlet right now. And everytime the babysitter is here, I go read at the Starbucks.
Right now, I'm reading a biography on George Eliot, whom I think I have a lot in common with, superficially (I'm not a brilliant hedge fund analyst nor a superlative author). According to the bio by Kathryn Hughes, which I'm not nearly done with yet, Eliot, or early in her life, Mary Ann Evans, gave up on her appearance. She wasn't particularly attractive, but she went out of her way to avoid clothes, fashion, and the like (though, it sounds like she studiously tried to be unattractive at times). I remember deciding as a younger person that, being on the larger side of life, and not particularly pretty, I just wasn't going to bother. I don't wear make-up, I couldn't care less about clothes, indeed I think fashion trends to be just another way the patriarchy asserts its misogynist control over women (yes, my anti-fashion stance has taken on a righteous feminist tone. Convincing ourselves that somehow fashion and beauty and sex are our feminine power is just another way we've internalized the patriarchy. There are other, more important powers. Think I'm exaggerating? Read this.). I think sometimes it's the gauntlet I throw down: love me, love my frumpy/granola/unfashionable appearance. Mind you, I'm (usually) clean (that's a challenge with kids), but that's my only beauty standard.
Instead, like Eliot, I turned to academic pursuits. Now, she was translating German and publishing by her early 20s, and, as many have noted, had one of the keenest self-taught educations of the 19th century, so I am way behind, but the similar impetus is there (I do have that Ph.D., a route not available to her at the time--I wonder if she would have bothered?). She was challenging and escaping the strictures of Victorian women's roles, even with a rise in educated women of the middle classes, more than I have to face in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. And when she was kept from the activities of the mind, like when she nursed her aging and then dying father for a few years as his sole caretaker and housekeeper, she sank into a depression. Now, I'm not clinically depressed, but I do get peevish when I can't get online or read or have coherent thoughts. And I realized yesterday, though it seems obvious now, that I can only happily handle about 4 hours of active, sustained, engaged, entertaining mommyhood before I need a break to do something un-child related. I can't imagine going for months at a time like Eliot must have (though, I think, to save herself, she was also translating another book while nursing her father).
Then there's the religious crisis of conscience. She was an extremely devout Evangelical Anglican, which focused on good works and plain living. But as a late teen, she went through what she termed the "holy war," and decided to leave the church (a much bigger deal in English society then than in American society now), seeing Jesus as no more than a model human, certainly not divine, and the whole premise of the dogma of the church, i.e. its stance on salvation, as misguided. I, of course, had a short but intense stint in the local Southern Baptist church, and became an atheist, recently turning to Unitarian Universalism. Many of Eliot's friends were Unitarians (the religions were separate then) and I can't quite recall why she didn't embrace what would seem to be a religion fit for her (except it was more Christian then than now). I need to re-read the section on religion and I'm looking forward to more information on her social justice and political stances.
Hughes even identifies one of Eliot's relationships with a woman as being beyond the usual close friendships women had at the time. In her correspondence Eliot compares their relationship to having a husband and uses the erotically-charged language of the Song of Songs. Of course, Eliot was known to fall in love with everyone she met (she apparently had several male lovers and numerous unrequited crushes), but it's interesting that "everyone" includes women.
So, I'm not living with a married man, nor taking a male name, nor experiencing what looks likes waves of depression (would we call her bipolar today?), nor publishing some of the most remarkable novels in the English language, but I feel an affinity with this woman, so far, and can't wait to finish the biography.
Which brings me to a question: if George Eliot were alive today, would she have a blog?
You ARE beautiful!
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