“The only joy in the world is to begin. It is good to be alive because living is beginning, always, every moment. When this sensation is lacking—as when one is in prison, or ill, or stupid, or when living has become a habit—one might as well be dead.” – Cesare Pavese.

This by the Italian writer Pavese was one of the playwright Tennessee Williams’ favorite quotes. “It was a quote that got him up and working,” it is said. Work Williams did, no matter what he was up to the bright before, he would awaken, go to his typewriter and write for hours each morning. It is fitting to be accompanied by the famous remark delivered a century earlier of English playwright George Bernard Shaw:

“This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. Being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

I am not sure which part of this immortal statement impacts me the most. Maybe it is, “Life is no brief candle for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment.”

But then there is this, “The true joy of life (is) in being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, being a force of nature.”

Or, “My life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can.”

Or, “I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live.”

Or, that it stands for all of this by contrast to, “A feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”

If there is anything the world needs at this point as we face the daunting task of ridding ourselves of the menace of putrid Trumpism, it is words and sentiments such as Mr. Shaw has presented here.

I suggest that at the root of this Trumpism is a sickness which has always been around but which entered the mainstream of our discourse and culture with the so-called Reagan Revolution of the 1980s, taking the form of a popularized radically selfish form of entitlement, something entirely counter to and devoid of the national spirit of social camaraderie and common purpose that thrived and dominated following the Second World War.

Nothing was a purer form of this sickness than the January 6 insurrection, which had no content other than the groundless “Stop the Steal” in the name of violently raping and pillaging the very roots of our democracy. Clearly, much of our society did not learn from that obscenity, but has allowed it to continue to fester like a foul puss staining our social fabric.

There is no doubt that all the enemies of democracy, foreign and domestic, are doing all they can to foment this continued ill, either.

While the forces of good are striving to overcome it, they too often address only the symptoms and not the core problem, which is so well addressed by Shaw’s words above, about both the good and the bad.
I am not sure what the best approach is, or if there is any single one, to redress this, except that it must become the subject of all our conversations and discourses, like when actor Jeff Goldblum recited it from memory on The Colbert Show recently.