The essayist Joseph Epstein tells a story about going to his high school reunion. As the participants took their seats at the dinner tables, they each found a note left there anonymously.
The note contained a poem:
“It’s not the world. And what I have to say
to those who don’t fit in is, don’t despair.
The best jock of my time now has a bay
window, an ugly wife, almost no hair
and sells used cars and probably is gay.
So is the cutest girl, that cheerleader.
I do not mock their choice of what lust is
But note only there is some kind of justice.”
The anecdote is from Epstein’s “The Crime of a Happy Childhood,” in his The Middle of My Tether. The picture at right is Gericault’s Envy.
Two observations:
What does it say of someone for whom high school self-doubts and social slights are still so strong decades later? Strong enough that he puts in the effort to write a skillful poem about them, again decades later. And strong enough that he wants to inflict the poem on other people during their celebration. Darkly interesting psychological territory there.
Note the last word of the poem: justice. The loss of hair, the disappointing marriage, the unsavory job, the fading of beauty — those constitute “justice.” “Justice” here means bringing the better down. Darkly interesting (un)ethical territory there.
From my personal experience, high school is nowhere near the level of complete that college is. I worried an awful lot about my grades in high school and put in an overwhelming amount of hours each week doing homework and making sure I had everything I possibly could known. I did so much of this all that it probably reached the point where I did too much because I was often stressed out and too hard on myself. I was not alone in this.
On the other hand, there were the people who seemed to maybe do too little. They hardly put in any time doing homework and studied much less than what was necessary. I noticed a common trait within these sorts of peers, they seemed as though they invested too much time into being concerned with the social affairs of themselves and of other individuals around the school. The drifting off of their minds into such affairs is exactly what may have been a great contributing factor to their lacking academic performances.
From all of this, it seems to me that Epstein could very well indeed still be haunted by the deep shadow cast over him by fellow jocks and cheerleaders in high school, but I don’t think that is what he is truly trying to say. My guess is instead that he is possibly sending a warning message to present day high school students that they need to be careful of how they conduct themselves throughout high school. If they make the wrong choices, like the jock and cheerleader in his poem, the peak of their lifestyles will remain in the past in high school, and they will be haunted in the future with the “some kind of justice” being revenge for making the poor choices.
High school may be a time for fun in the teen years, but it is also an important time to grow as a person in order not to be haunted the rest of your life for failing to do so. To me, that is the message Epstein is trying to convey. What does that say about his character? I don’t think it shows he is necessarily doing so under good morals, but rather trying to prevent harm from being done to others and limit things, such as teenage pregnancy, with today’s youth. Bottom line, you may have been able to make poor judgments in the past in high school and go on to make up for it in college and rebound, but in today’s society it is becoming increasingly difficult.
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Thanks for your comment, Jake. Very thoughtfully written.
I agree that there is a warning one can make to those who, when younger, don’t lay a good foundation for the rest of their lives.
One clarification on my part: Epstein did not write the poem; he is reporting having found it at the reunion, where it was left anonymously.
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What a mean-spirited poem. And the jock is “probably gay”, is he? Well, what the heck is wrong with being gay?
Epstein sounds like a bit of a bitter, bitchy old queen himself. lol
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Epstein wasn’t approving of the poem. He was using it as an example of envy — mean-spirited envy, as you point out.
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