March 13, 2000

I can’t get published to save my life. I’ve sent examples of what I consider the best of my work to every newspaper and magazine in this city. All of them rejected me. When it comes to being a professional writer, I am a complete failure.

By contrast, many folks my age (and younger) are getting published and making names for themselves in the world of belles lettres. Some of these writers are good, others are not. There’s a girl in New York who writes a very popular column about the pleasures of the back door. Every week, she writes about the same topic. And every week, hundreds of thousands of people read her work, and every week she receives a check in the mail. (I wonder if hers is the bottom box.)

"I absolutely love her writing," a date recently told me. "She’s a genius." I never asked that girl out again.

This constant rejection has born in me a sense of great envy. Envy is not a good thing and I am ashamed that it is what I feel. But what is worse than envy is what the Germans call schadenfreude. It’s a word I just learned, but have known the meaning of for a while now. Schadenfreude, roughly translated, is the joy of seeing others suffer. (Leave it to the Germans to come up with that one.)

An old sergeant in the army once told me that people, though they’ll never admit it, don’t like to see others do well. "In fact," he added, "we love to see folks at the top—even good folks at the top--get knocked down a notch or two." I was only eighteen when he imparted this wisdom to me and I wrote it off then as a cynical remark uttered by a bitter man. But as I get older, the crusty NCO’s words seem to be gaining in truth.

It’s schadenfreude that makes the E! True Hollywood Story such a success. Some teenaged rock star scoffs at all the rules I follow, makes a hit record, earns a zillion dollars, and then throws it all away on heroin and booze. In the end, he’s no better off than me—actually he’s probably worse off. And when the show is over, I am left with the comforting feeling that some universal justice has been served.

Schadenfreude explains a lot. It explains why we like to watch an otherwise accomplished President twist in the wind over a sex scandal. Why we like to see super rich Wall Street suits get hauled off to jail. Why many pundits are anxious to see a crash of the New Economy so that those cocky, flush-with-stock-options, 23-year-old CEOs of Internet start-ups will be put in their place. Why I’d like to see the anal sex queen fall on her ass.

This is not healthy. It is possible to allow others their successes without contrasting them to my own unfulfilled dreams? Is it possible to pity the fallen, rather than wallow in self-righteous satisfaction? Like many of life’s difficult questions, I simply don’t know.

I’d like to rid myself of my schadenfreude. Perhaps it requires completely focusing on my own strivings and ignoring the strivings of others. If success does eventually come, I will try to wear it with humility. And I won’t be surprised when others don’t jump for joy. (Not until I’ve lost it all and am strung out on heroin and hanging with Leif Garrett sucking down sugar packets at the Starbucks across the street from the Betty Ford Center will I expect anyone to dance a jig.)

 

Broadway Jim Sosnicky