One Man's Frivolity

An anniversary essay and an alchemical transmutation of an accusation into an affirmation.

I started No Homework exactly one year ago, publishing something every week, more or less. Having written a lot of fiction, screenplays and poetry, the essay is a different challenge. It’s asked me to be more ruthlessly clear and more personal than other forms.

For me, it’s an experiment testing a hypothesis: I can be an honest person in this world.

Making a living

Meanwhile, life goes on. I work. I raise my kids. I know all kinds of people. We’re all straining, but under different boots.

I think about my fellow dads. To them what I do - as a writer of works that seem to have perpetually uncertain prospects - is strange. To some, it’s laudable, even noble. To others, it’s incomprehensible. To many, it’s frivolous, perhaps self-indulgent.

That last one stings. I think of their seriousness often, probably because it infects me more with each passing year. It’s the knowledge that old age is coming, that safety and happiness depend on money. So what do I think I’m doing?

Getting serious

Essays are more serious than the other genres I’ve worked in. How much more serious? I created a taxonomy (see “Tones of Voice, Types of Talk,” from March) to give a sense of which forms of written communication are the most and least frivolous.

In that chart, the most serious - the death sentence - allows for very little interpretation, very little time, and entails absolute responsibility by the author. The most frivolous - language poetry - allows for absolutely any interpretation, imagines a reader with boundless free time, and doesn’t ask the author to take much responsibility for the syllables they write.

Grow the hell up

When talking about frivolity, so-called serious people like to pull out the old chestnut “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” But I don’t think St. Paul meant it the way a suburban guidance does.

If we were to ask serious people what they’re really after, something funny emerges. They want to sail boats, play games, maybe paint pictures or write stories. If they somehow become incredibly rich, they fantasize such pursuits for their children. If stupendously rich, they might even fantasize such a fate for strangers.

Maybe I’m giving them too much credit. But the final victory of all that thrift, seriousness and focus is the kind of wealth that might permit taking up childish things again.

Defining terms

Frivolous is a judgment I’ve felt most of my life, since eschewing life as a nose tackle to be a poet at 15. But I never much cared about where things fell on the spectrum.

The hard measure of frivolity, however, is all around me. When we accuse ourselves and others of having first-world problems, we’re talking about frivolity, about being out of touch with reality.

But which reality? The reality of cancer? The reality of starvation? The reality of living in a war zone with young children? It’s a tough standard to carry around. And the insistence on carrying it says something about our world and our generally unrealistic hopes for it (see “The Gulf,” this October).

Revenge of austerity

The accusation of frivolity is tempting when you’re having a hard time. I recently had a house fire, and the whole family had to move (see “Belongings,” this November). We’re fine. A few more subscriptions wouldn’t hurt,