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| Charlotte Day(www.calmmoment.com) |
Question: Is self-promotion a healthy way to cope with sadness?
First sadness. I mean the kind of sadness that can become despair. The kind a parent might feel about their child who spends more time in the hospital than out. Or a young person might feel who won't live to raise their child. Grief that comes by bayonet.
Perhaps we cannot each think of those kind of sadnesses, but it is more likely that we can. This week we have the horror of the shooting at the school in Florida. Our flags again are at half-mast.
Now coping. Coping is accepting care from friends and family and even strangers. What happens in hospital waiting rooms in the dark when strangers under blankets share their reasons for spending the night. What happens when family comes every weekend, then begins to take time off work, and finally moves in.
What happens when friends bring food and offer rides and lie in bed with you to talk when you can't get up. What happens when your father dies and you hold his dead hand and call your brother and he says a prayer over the phone for the three of you.
John Crowe Ransom (1888-1974) wrote an elegy when his friend's daughter died, "Bells for John Whiteside's Daughter." Joan Dideon (b. 1934) wrote The Year of Magical Thinking (2005) after her husband died and Blue Nights (2011) after the death of their daughter.
All these creative endeavors are coping strategies. We set up scholarships, begin foundations, plant memorial gardens, donate "in memory of," and find ways to incorporate our grief into a life that is still well-lived. If we are the one facing death we do the same. As a medical malpractice attorney I have seen this many times. A young mother writes a diary for the son she won't raise, or secretes away years' worth of gifts for him.
What has this to do with self-promotion? Usually nothing. Usually our consolations do not involve promoting ourselves. Until recently I had not seen marketing one's self in circumstances where we might not expect it. Now I have. Quote: "Because I am sick I know the ten things sick people want to hear and the ten things they don't want to hear. Buy my book to read more." Or, "Share my book on your web site for a chance to receive an autographed copy." Followed by, "If you missed my interview--ah, what an opportunity--here is the link."
When we face difficulties we must choose our way. I knew the wife of a dying man who decided he would wear only cashmere. Cashmere robes, blankets, sweaters, even pajamas. He found comfort in these soft, expensive things. His wife worried because they were too poor for luxuries. She wished he would find consolation in her and the children.
If one's health is tenuous, a success in another area of life may be of great comfort. Everyone loves my song, or book, or painting, (or blog) may translate into everyone loves me. Perhaps a solace when the flip side is uncertainty or what is worse: certainty.
But still I wonder whether marketing one's personal struggles for commercial success or a modicum of fame is the healthiest consolation. Not the writing itself, which is known to bring peace and clarity, but the marketing. Could that be the antithesis of healthy? Does wrapping the story in spirituality make it better or worse?
I don't have the answer. But I do have the question.
