Enlightenment... for Sale?

Today, I was introduced to a truly marvelous term that gives voice to a deep feeling of discomfort I have experienced in response to reading Gretchen Rubin's book, The Happiness Project: "Priv-Lit." That's right, priv-lit, as in privilege-literature. Maybe I am the last person to get to the party and hit upon this apt term that describes a new-ish genre of non-fiction that has emerged and become hyper-glamorized over the last few years. But today I found out that our culture's glorification of these types of narratives is making others uncomfortable, too.

In the article "Eat, Pray, Spend," Joshuanda Sanders and Diana Barnes-Brown totally nail the unease I have been feeling in the run up to this Friday's release of Eat, Pray, Love, the movie, starring America's sweetheart, Julia Roberts. I should preface my thoughts by admitting that I enjoyed reading the book. I also sort of enjoyed Rubin's Happiness Project. And, I do think that the core message of both authors and others in the priv-lit arena is this: take the time to invest in self-improvement. That is totally a gospel I can preach.

But what makes me wildly uncomfortable is the medium through which these authors preach the message of self-worth, improvement, and the search for meaning: money. Sanders and Barnes-Brown sum this up pretty directly, by claiming that Eat, Pray, Love could be retitled, "Wealthy, Whiny, White." While I am sure Elizabeth Gilbert would argue, if confronted, that her message goes beyond her wealth and privileged place in American society and calls women to recognize their own worth, but how can they really? How can that message be seen through the fog of wild spending, career suicide, and complete self-indulgence the protagonist deals in during her journey across three countries over the course of a year? What percentage of women who have read Eat, Pray, Love (note: there are 5 million copies currently in print) can afford to take a full year away from home, their lives and families to go on a journey of self-enlightenment that would cost tens of thousands of dollars?

My guess is not many, and that is what makes me squirm the most. And not because I think every woman walks away from the book feeling as though she has to do yoga on a mountaintop in India in order to be "whole." But because I worry that in reading priv-lit, in pondering the extraordinary journeys of their wealthy female protagonists, readers may not gauge the value of the many millions of little things one can do to be happier, healthier, and more fulfilled.

The lives of these authors are not comparable to the lives of the average reader. I thought this constantly while reading The Happiness Project because often it was very difficult for me to hear the core message over the visual of Yale-educated, best-selling author Rubin sitting in her luxe New York City apartment, offering me kernels of wisdom about how to better organize my closets. I cannot empathize with Gilbert, even though I have suffered my share of loneliness, self-loathing and heartache, as she takes a year away from work to travel the world in search of, well, herself. These women are not kindred spirits to me, simply because we are light years apart on the social and financial hierarchy.

I am glad to have stumbled across Sanders and Barnes-Brown because their discussion of priv-lit gives context the creepy-crawley sensation I sometimes felt reading each book; the insidious message that the road to being "whole," independent and content comes only through rampant spending and worship at the altar of materialism. Scarier yet to me is that even if more people were able to embark on a pricey search for self, my guess is many would come to a painful conclusion. Trips, food, yoga class and lavish vacations can be bought. Happiness and contentment cannot.

My Endless Love

Tonight, after taking in a movie, I spent a bit of time wandering around my new town and stumbled into a Barnes and Noble. For me, bookstores and libraries have always retained magical qualities, a sort of gravitational pull that I am rarely capable of resisting. Even though I have shelves of unread, perfectly wonderful books of all kinds, I cannot keep myself out of the stacks, touching the unbroken spines, the sometimes textured covers, thrumming my fingers over the pages.

This love affair of course did not develop all on its own. It was nurtured from the time I was tiny, as my mother packed my childhood nursery, then bedroom with literally hundreds of books, asked friends and family to give me more, and religiously (often, more religiously than our actual religious practice), she took me to the library. Summer wasn't a time for t.v. watching, or camp, or exotic trips for me- it was a time to see how many books I could fill the pages of the Summer Reading program's tracking list I got each year.

The librarian didn't know what to do with me. The goal for the summer in the reading program was to amass about 10 or 15 books for elementary and middle school kids. I would return after a week or two with a list filled front and back with dozens, literally dozens of books I'd documented, read, re-read. My 4 foot self would drag an old bookbag as big as me through the library doors after my Mom picked me up from the babysitter to drop off my conquests and to get more. I was insatiable.

Now, of course some of this love- borderline obsession- was a product of my childhood. My mother worked a lot and I spent mornings before and after school. as well as all summer, with an elderly, uber-Catholic disciplinarian of a woman who allowed no television, no loud games, and did not have much in the way of toys. It seemed like a curse at the time, delving out all those hours at her house, but what I realize now, having spent a sublimely pleasurable 20 minutes just wandering the stacks is how lucky I am.

At the risk of sounding old, kids today don't know what they are missing. Sure, they have video games that make them feel as though they are in a war-torn third-world country fighting for freedom, and DVR so that while playing, they don't miss their favorite shows. They've got Justin Bieber and Twilight premieres and texting. They are more worldly than I ever was. But it makes me sad sometimes that the bookstores and libraries of the world are not getting the respect and gratification they deserve. These places taught me to seek, to question, to write, and to think. They were windows to the world when mine was so closed and small. Their books gave me inspiration, imagination, hope for more and better things to come. And no matter how many tech devices come out to replace them, for me nothing will ever be as rewarding as turning the last page of a truly great novel, or dusting off a copy of an old favorite to begin it again. No cold, cool piece of machinery will be able to replace the weight of a book in my hand, the flutter of the pages, the smell of the binding, the image of the cover. I worry future generations won't share this same feeling, as many in my own may already have moved beyond it into the digital age. I, however, am happy right where I am.