by Robin Romm
“The notes for the poem are the only poem,” wrote Adrienne Rich. There’s my ambition: Notes.
Oh, but get off your high horse, lady. Fucking relax. You Google yourself on the regular. Whenever you deign to log on to Twitter it’s to roll your eyes, sure, but also—BE HONEST—to type your name into the search box and see if anyone’s talking about you. You don’t even have to type your name in, BE HONEST: it’s already there, in the app’s fucking memory! Hypocrite. A nice notification or something can float you for about three minutes; a shit mention somewhere can feel like a slap in the face, even if it’s barely literate, even if it’s ignorant and hateful and so muddled it’s obviously not about you. And even as you’re skimming it, telling yourself you don’t look at this shit, telling yourself you don’t root around in this shit, you don’t play these games, you don’t care, you don’t care . . . you are looking at it, you are rooting around in it, you are you are you are you so are. Be honest.
The Latin root, by the way, is ambitio, which literally means to go walking, as in canvassing, as with a political candidate. A friend who’s running for city council tells me this, giggling. “I am the definition of ambitious,” she says, incredulous, because she happens to be one of the most unassuming people I’ve ever met. She’s been going door to door for months on end leading up to the election. I hope she wins. She would do a magnificent job, and her corner of the world would be better for it. But she’s not who I have in mind, here. The root bears little resemblance to the plant that shoots up from it. (Reader, she won!)
Last week a younger writer emailed me to ask for advice. How could she get more attention for her book? Where should she send it? The subtext: She wants what (she imagines) I have. It was funny, given that, in truth, I had right at that moment been pouting about my own status (Not Good Enough). I barely know this girl, haven’t read her, she’s a bore on social media, but hell, what does it cost me to be generous? I wrote back right away.
Send it to writers whose work you admire, I told her. Keep your head down. Do your work. Focus on the work at hand, not the work that’s done. Do the work you’re called upon to do. Engage with what moves you. Eventually you’ll get recognition. And if you don’t get recognition? Well then, all the more badass to continue working your butt off in the service of your calling. Recognition has nothing to do with the work, get it? The work is the endeavor. The work is the process. Recognition comes, if/when it does, for work that is already done, work that is over. Recognition can really fuck you up. Remember the famous koan? The day before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water; the day after enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. Substitute recognition for enlightenment, putting aside how ironic that is, and there you have it.
It wasn’t the advice she was hoping for, obviously. She never even wrote back to say thanks (tsk tsk, ambitious girl!). I thought of her a few days ago, when Ani DiFranco sang “Egos Like Hairdos,” a formative favorite: “Everyone loves an underdog / But no one wants to be him . . .”
Here’s what bothers me about conventional ambition, the assumption that we all aspire to the top, the blah blah blah, the winner’s circle, the biggest brightest bestest, and that we will run around and around and around in our little hamster wheels to get there: Most of these goals are standardized. Cartoonish. Cliché. Beware anything standardized, that’s what I would teach my daughter. Health care, ambition, education, diet, culture: Name it, and you will suffer endlessly from any attempt to go about it the same way as some projected Everyone Else. You cannot be standardized. You are a unique flower, daughter. Maybe the Ivy League will be wonderful for you; maybe it will crush your soul. If the former, I will mortgage the house to pay your way; if the latter, give that shit the finger and help me move these peonies, will you? You are not defined by such things, either way. Anyway, let us discuss what we want to whip up for dinner and take turns playing DJ while doing so.
“She can, though every face should scowl / And every windy quarter howl / Or every bellows burst, be happy still.” That was Yeats.
I mean, fuck ambition, that’s where this is going, okay? I don’t buy the idea that acting like the oppressor is a liberation, personal ambition being, in essence, see above, patriarchal. And yeah, about recognition. What about when genius and/or hard work isn’t recognized? Because often it isn’t, and what do we make of that? And what happens when the striving becomes its own end? What’s been accomplished in such cases? You can get pretty far on striving alone, god knows. The striving might get recognized, but what relationship does striving have to mastery? And what’s the cost of the striving? And what if we confuse striving or incidental recognition with mastery? What then!? Then, Jesus, we are so very lost. And we’ll have to acknowledge, yes of course, sure, that we were born at the right time in the right place and we’ve never felt bad about working toward what we want, but want is tricky, so beware that particular sand trap. Right, and okay, be ambitious, whatever that looks like for you, but don’t confuse your own worth with anyone else’s definition of success. And don’t think that if you happen to impress people you must be very impressive indeed. And don’t imagine that if you play by someone else’s rules you can win. Anyway, there is no winning. Anyway, the game is suspect. Anyway, write your own rules! Anyway, WHO HAS TIME FOR GAMES!?
“The highway is full of big cars / going nowhere fast.” Maya Angelou.
There is a way to spin it so that I am a winner, a big success. Six-figure book deals. Media attention galore. Professorships. Invitations to read and lecture and teach and reside. Fan letters. Hate mail. Hollywood knock-knock-knockin’ at the door. Some fossilized nutcase trying to take me down in an op-ed. There is an equally factual way to spin it so that I am a middling mediocre failure, a nonstarter. I’ve been rejected by plenty of highbrow writer shit. I’m no household name. I barely tweet. I get ignored. You can’t buy my books in the airport. It just depends on the story you want to tell, the parts to which you are privy. Be assured, my website lists the hits alone.
“The quality I most abhor in women is humility, which seems like a chickenshit response to the demands of the world, or the marketplace, not that I can tell them apart.” That’s Emily Carter Roiphe, who I really wish would publish her second book already.
It hasn’t helped that I rarely deign to apply for the highbrow writer stuff. Or that when I do, it’s in vaguely mocking tones, as sort of an elaborate joke. I’m pretty terrible at applying for things. I should work on that. The snarling girl resents the expectation that she bow down before some purported authority so they might consider throwing her a bone. If they don’t want her outright, she doesn’t want their farty old bone, anyway. Maybe she’s not so dormant as I like to think. Or maybe my mother was right: Maybe she is just goddamned lazy.
Last thought. I met a celebrated young writer at a party. The finest MFA, flashy blurbage, what have you. I’d heard good things about her first book, and I introduced myself with my first name, told her I was looking forward to reading it.
“Thanks,” she said, looking right through me.
Our mutual friend said, “Oh my god, have you read Elisa’s book? It’s so good.”
The writer could not have been less interested. “What’s it called?” she wondered in monotone. “You’ll have to forgive me, but I really don’t keep up with much contemporary writing.”
The condescension was burlesque. Our friend told her the name of my recent book. The light went on in the writer’s eyes. Ding. “Oh!” she said. “Oh, yes!” Then she looked at me eagerly, hungrily. I excused myself immediately.
It’s creepy that I “matter” to these kinds of people now, that’s all I want to say. I “matter” not because of the books themselves, not because of the work therein, not because of what prompted the work, not because of my actual humanity, but because various and sundry radio programs and magazines and newspapers and podcasts and shares and mentions and likes and dings and dongs and film agents and foreign translations and lists say I matter.
Some supposed authorities have deemed me worthwhile, and so now I “matter.” That is, until these authorities fade away, to be replaced by new authorities. Gawd, I hope they like me. Just kidding. Fuck authority.
Last-last thought. I wish I had gotten some other lessons from my mother. More about what to make for dinner and how to move the peonies and just how tender and trustworthy love can be, for starters. But we get what we get, so I suppose I appreciate her gift (such as it is) of Don’t Fuck With Me. Especially because, have I mentioned? I’m busy channeling it, hard at work. How freaking fortunate is that? (Hashtag blessed. Hashtag grateful. Like? LIKE??)
Last-last-last thought: I showed a draft of this essay to a trusted advisor. He didn’t like it at all. “You sound arrogant,” he said. “You’re not arrogant, so why are you putting on this front?”
“Uhhmmm,” I said. “Fake it till you make it?”
“You sound like you think you’re above all the bullshit, and that’s a real turnoff.”
I was stunned and frustrated. I had expected a nice pat on the head for striking out boldly, taking a stand, engaging the crucial shadow self, whatever.
“I’m trying to articulate something difficult about art and commerce and popularity,” I protested.
“Try and be more vulnerable,” he said. “You’ll come across better.”
Come across? I don’t have time to orchestrate how I come across, dude. My job is to write shit down.
More vulnerable? I feel like I’m walking around without skin most of the time, hello? Anyway, my vulnerability is not for goddamn sale. I’d rather suck a thousand dicks.
I was overcome with weariness, and I thought: Fuck it, I give up. But of course that’s not true either. Nope! Not at all. Onward.
Ambitchin’
JULIE HOLLAND
I was born in 1965 and grew up in the long-haired, bell-bottomed “Let It Be” seventies. But fifties-era gender roles die hard, and I received plenty of messages, overt and covert, instructing me to rein in my delight with, and my drive for, achievement. It simply wasn’t ladylike.
My father would occasionally pull me aside, asking me to “tone it down a little.” I gleaned, painfully, that my youthful confidence was off-putting to others and was particularly intimidating to my sensitive sister. And so I learned early to pepper my speech with “maybe” and “I think,” to begin my sentences as if I were just musing, even when I was sure. I tried to camouflage my ambition, at least sometimes.
Some places felt more free, though, and I’d forget the camouflage. At summer camp color wars, captaining my team like a drill sergeant, I let no laggard lose us the championship. I shouted at the slower girls to keep up as they lasered me with lethal glares. The long footrace culminated in the final contest, a single arrow shot by each captain of the remaining two teams: my boyfriend, the counselor for the oldest boys, and me, the counselor for the oldest girls.
It had grown dark as we gathered at the archery range, the target barely visible, but I was sure, when I heard the fwapp, that I’d bested his shot. He wouldn’t speak to me after the event, appalled at how competitive I’d been.
But we won.
I walked off the field, the mown grass clinging to my sweaty calves, attempting to savor the sweet taste of victory while swallowing the bitter bile of rejection from the sexiest man I’d yet known. I felt powerful. And utterly rejected.
Ambition is a difficult word for women because it forces them to try and square messages—often very subtle—from the outside, patriarchal world with natural, internal drives. But it’s further complicated by the natural flux of women’s cycles and the fact that, at different stages of life, different drives reign supreme. It’s not only nurture, but it’s also nature. In my twenty-plus-year career as a psychiatrist and my lifetime as either a daughter or a mother of a daughter myself, I’ve seen women react to their own natural, biologically based complexities with shame and embarrassment. I encourage the women I work with to let the science of their own bodies help them accept and embrace all the parts of who they are.
Our interior lives are complex and ever changing, and the many phases of our lives echo the natural fluctuations of the hormones underlying many of our basic behaviors. Our estrogen levels rise and fall cyclically for decades, and these shifts and spurts often inform our changing moods. Learning to surf their waves can be challenging, but potentially exhilarating.
Estrogen, testosterone, and oxytocin weave a tapestry of quintessentially female and male behaviors. Estrogen peaks mid-cycle, when we are most alluring, accommodating, and fertile. Testosterone surges in adolescence and early perimenopause, when we are most horny and driven. Oxytocin accompanies orgasm, nursing, and female bonding, encouraging us to mate, nurture, and get by with a little help from our friends.
Estrogen levels rise and fall monthly, if you are not on the pill (I like to call this “free range”) and you are not postmenopausal (the calm after the decade-long storm). In the first half of the cycle, as the egg matures and becomes ready for ovulation, estrogen levels rise. Designed to attract a mate, and then nurture a family, estrogen is all about giving to others: keeping our kids happy and our mates satisfied. In the mating years, it seems as though we live for our family and accommodate them by default. Most of us who choose this life learn to love it, for the most part. We thrive by cultivating relationships and nurturing those around us. Estrogen creates a veil of accommodation.
It also enhances resilience, reacting to stressors by surging when things get tough, so little difficulties slip away like water off a duck’s back. When we have high estrogen levels, we are usually more adaptable—breezy, even. We allow for others’ needs better and can remain more convincingly detached. Estrogen not only helps women feel sexy and nurturing, but it also allows them to be more forgiving and quicker to calm their temper. Evolutionarily, these are all qualities that may help seduce a mate, and they’ve been singled out, praised, and encouraged by patriarchal cultures for obvious reasons.
I had a patient who referred to herself as a “pathological accommodator” when we first met. We were both fascinated as this behavior ebbed away once her periods stopped. Over several years, her responses morphed from cooing, “Sure, I’ll take care of it, honey,” into snapping, “Why don’t you do it yourself?!”
When estrogen levels drop, as happens in PMS, postpartum, or perimenopause, it’s common for moods to plummet as well. Waning levels of estrogen help us to be more emotional, allow us to cry more easily and even to break down when we’re overwhelmed. During these low estrogen states, that veil of accommodation is lifted. We are no longer alluring and fertile; we are no longer so invested in the potential daddy sticking around, because there’s no baby to consider. And so, PMS is the time to clean house. During the rest of the month you put up with all kinds of bull that you wouldn’t tolerate the week before your period. To women who feel sheepish about their behavior during this phase: You are getting upset over real things; it’s just that you usually hide your sadness and anger better. Be authentic, and yes, be a bitch, if that’s what you need to call it to get the job done. You can’t clean if you don’t see where the dirt is.
Perimenopause is PMS for the big girls. It is the ultimate time for pruning. It is our version of the midlife crisis, when we weed out those who are toxic, prioritizing and further honing our mission, whatever it may be. The majority of divorces in America, 60 percent, are initiated by women in their forties, fifties, and sixties. When estrogen levels fall, we start to slowly transition from maternal self-sacrifice to a more assertive “You’re on your own, pal.” Less capitulation isn’t just better for us; it’s probably good for our kids, too. A mother’s perimenopause may occur around the time when children—adolescents, in particular—are ready to take on more responsibility, so perhaps there is a benefit for everyone in changing that family dynamic.
My own mother was a great role model, taking her menopausal symptoms in stride and referring to her hot flashes as “power s
urges.” She made this time of life one of professional ambition; she got another degree and switched careers, which appealed to me as a teenage girl. I saw her rise in power, putting her energy to good use, making changes that were long overdue. In the workplace, perimenopause often coincides with having gathered enough experience to transform yourself into a take-no-prisoners leader. Screw everyone. It’s my turn.
For all of us, there are times when clear-eyed assessment, confrontation, and speaking up for oneself are called for. In other situations, capitulation and accommodation would be wisest. Naturally dipping and rising estrogen levels can actually help balance these behaviors. A major part of my maturation was learning to strike this delicate balance, again and again, to regain harmony with my surroundings and within myself, month after month.
Growing up a girl in America, balance was a fantasy. I was conditioned to assimilate my brassy, bossy stance into something more estrogen-tinged, and subordinate and dithering, in an effort to be better liked. But what about all the other parts of me? And what about authenticity?
Now that I can see this indoctrination more clearly, I can promise you one thing: I will not subject future pledges to this hazing ritual. I will not teach my daughter to tone down her self-confidence or pull back on her ambition. It’s more important for her to trust her gut, to speak firmly and bravely, and know that she deserves to devour the world, her oyster.