Lying Down the Psychological Groundwork for Back in the World by Tobias Wolff
Part I What are the 10 Obstacles of Going “Back in the World”?
1. Naïveté or innocence like the wife in “Say Yes” or Krystal in “Desert Breakdown”
2. Egotistical blindness that results in a refusal of accountability, self-introspection and creates an inflamed sense of entitlement like Peter in “The Rich Brother.”
3. Narcissism, which results in delusions of grandeur like Mark in “Desert Breakdown.”
4. Misguided good intentions—perhaps the wife in “Say Yes” thought she could “reform” her husband.
5. Misguided ambition—Leo in the “Missing Person” aspires to a “spiritual life” for which he has no aptitude.
6. Unconscious fear—Leo withdrawals into the church because of his fear of women, heartbreak, intimacy and in a general sense a fear of the world. In many ways the story “The Missing Person” is about the power of corruption for transforming our lives for the better—if we react to corruption in a way that makes us stronger, not weaker. To borrow a clichéd quote from Nietzsche, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
7. Wishful thinking—it’s human nature to want to believe that things aren’t as bad as we suspect they are. Perhaps this is the case of the wife in “Say Yes” and Krystal in “Desert Breakdown.”
8. Oversimplistic view of the world that causes us to look at the surface without peeling the outer layer and seeing the complexities, contradictions, paradoxes, and enigmas that lie underneath.
9. Having parents, a spouse, a boyfriend, a girlfriend or other enablers who bail us out every time we sink so that we develop a false sense of security and feel free to pursue our delusions with impunity like Mark in “Desert Breakdown.”
10. Money can give us a false sense of security and invincibility so that we can assert our most destructive, grotesque aspects of our personality and think we can get away with it—like Peter in “The Rich Brother.” Also take a look at Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears.
Part II: “Back in the World” Moments:
Hopefully, all of us will have a “back in the world” moment, that defining instance in which we take our heads out of our proverbial butts and see reality for what it really is:
1. You wake up one morning and realize your boyfriend or girlfriend is the devil and you can’t believe you spent all these months, maybe even years, jumping through hoops to stay in the relationship.
2. You wake up one morning and realize you need to move out of your parents’ house.
3. You realize that if you continue hanging out with your loser friends, you’ll never make it through college and you’ll end up like them, living paycheck to paycheck and hanging out doing nothing for the rest of your life.
4. You realize you have crappy study habits and that if you don’t achieve more consistency in your homework, you’re going to be a failure or at best a mediocrity.
5. You realize that a clique or social circle that you thought you were part of wants nothing to do with you.
6. You realize that you have grotesque table manners and that you slurp and inhale your food in such a way that grosses everyone out.
7. You realize you have poor personal hygiene and you realize that if you don’t clean your teeth and wash your armpits, no one is going to want to be around you.
8. Your messy room and your dirty car reflect on something deeper inside your personality that points to chaos, lack of focus, and general disarray.
9. All the time you spend on the Internet is a reflection of how you have failed to maintain real human relationships and how you use this fantasy Internet life to compensate for your emotional retardation.
10. You realize a supposed friend or even family member has back-stabbed you all your life and there’s nothing left for you to do but break all ties with this individual.
11. You realize that you and your wife can only buy so many toys and organically baked treats for your dog and that it’s time to have a real child.
12. You realize that it’s you alone who’s responsible for your road rage and that if you don’t do something about your anger issues you’re going to kill someone or yourself.
13. You realize that you alone are responsible for all your failures and that you can no longer afford to blame your parents for your dissatisfaction in life.
14. You realize that you’re majoring in a college subject to please your parents and other family members but that deep inside you despise your major with every fiber of your being.
15. You realize that you’re fiancé who is beloved by all your friends and family is someone whom deep down you’re just not really into or worse is someone whom you truly despise.
16. You realize that you’re so emotionally needy that you spend your credit cards on garbage you don’t need and that if you continue with this compulsive spending you’re going to spend the rest of your life getting pimped by the credit card companies.
17. You realize that all the promising diets you spend so much time and money on give you a phony short-term weight-loss that always ends up with you gaining all your weight back and hundreds if not thousands of dollars poorer for your vain efforts.
18. You realize that paying thirty dollars a month to be a member of 24 Hour Fitness or Balley’s or Gold’s Gym isn’t sufficient motivation to get you off your butt because you’re essentially a lazy person.
19. You realize that paying a personal trainer sixty dollars a month isn’t sufficient to get you off your butt because no one but yourself will give you the motivation you need to be successful in life.
20. You realize after going on American Idol that you can’t sing. That’s pathetic. It took you the experience of going on American Idol and being laughed at by Simon Cowell and millions of others before you realized you couldn’t sing.
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