Last summer, the cover of one of my favorite weekly magazines featured an illustration I instantly recognized as the work of a young artist I have met and admired. The drawing was so beautifully conceived and rendered that I'd have lingered over it even had I not known the artist. It was luscious. I wanted to own it, to eat it, to study the marks with a magnifying glass.
I also wanted to tear it to pieces.
It murdered my soul. Somehow the drawing had managed to be created without me. It had been drawn, truthfully, by someone with better chops than mine.
At times like these, my mind flies into melodramatic overdrive. Why do I even exist in this world if someone else gets to make beautiful work like that for a publication like this? Who is THAT ARTIST to be living MY DREAM? That's MY magazine!
Eeesh.
Envy.
I want to talk about envy.
I want to talk about envy because it matters in work, in family, in romance, and absolutely in politics. Have we any doubt that wars are perpetrated by powerful men feeling supremely envious and entitled, and having the means to act on those feelings?
Mostly, though, I want to talk about envy because it's the herpes virus of the human soul; it's almost impossible to kill but pretty simple to drive into remission if we can summon the will to do it. Over and over again, I need that reminder about the terrible Fourth Deadly Sin. Maybe you do, too. It's fraught and monstrous and hard to confess to, but sunshine is the disinfectant, right?
So let's start by admitting that envy is unseemly. Pride, greed, lust, gluttony, anger and sloth: Popular culture has neutralized those sins to the point where admitting to them can almost make us seem virtuous. We commonly regard these deficits as part of normal, human experience for which we are obligated to feel a little shame, but, you know — not too much. Have a little therapy, do a little 12-step, and get on with life.
Envy, though — oof. That one is still taboo. It's gross. Getting caught feeling envious is like being seen drunk-crying on the ladies room floor or berating a child in the frozen foods. It's classless and embarrassing. People who nod with empathy when you talk about your little problem with slot machines will flee like bats from a cave if you start spilling your soul about how YOU were the person who deserved that promotion and the company car, not that terrible Gen Z upstart who hits reply-all on every email.
Kudos, then, to Rick Springfield for tackling envy in "Jesse's Girl," for facing down the ugly and setting it to an up-tempo melody in D major. It hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, by the way, and some of you still have it on your play lists — don't lie.
Plenty of tunes have been written about romantic jealousy — losing one's love to another, or feeling fearful of that happening. But envy per se goes less remarked upon. It's an important distinction that the protagonist in "Jesse's Girl" never HAD Jesse's girl; he just wants her and thinks he deserves her. Springfield nailed that noxious brew of covetousness, entitlement and obsession that distinguishes envy from its bunny-boiling cousin, jealousy. (All right, all right — Glenn Close was probably both jealous AND envious in "Fatal Attraction.")
As someone who has spent an entire career doing more or less creative work, I suspect that envy might be a little more viral and transmissible among my people than in the general population. The arts are transcendental, but they supply many opportunities for artists to feel bad, starting with the Great Unfairness — the presence of others' superior gifts and technical skills and je ne sais quoi. That alone can nearly kill you, and especially so if you have good taste.
On top of that, add the harmful brooding some of us do about the opportunities afforded to other artists in the form of money, critical acclaim, security, fame and even the promise of being remembered after death.
All of this was exquisitely expressed in "Amadeus," the Peter Shaffer play and film that is nominally about Mozart but critically about the composer and teacher Antonio Salieri (1750-1825). A long-held myth asserted that Mozart died from being poisoned by Salieri — a theory based on facts not in evidence. Regardless, the idea made for a worthwhile exploration of envy run amok.
We witness Salieri admiring Mozart's music. He feels loving toward the work and fascinated by his rival even as he is tormented by anguish that he himself has not been the vessel for such music.
This is made all the worse because Salieri is reverent and devoted to God, while Mozart is crass and impulsive. That such sublime compositions should be made by that person is, to our fictionalized Salieri, an insufferable injustice. Masterfully portrayed by F. Murray Abraham, our film version of Salieri gives voice to the unfathomable mystery: "Why would God choose an obscene child to be His instrument?"
Because He just wasn't that into us? We will never know. Worse yet, it's none of our beeswax.
As an occasional tourist in the dystopia of envy, I love "Amadeus" for its exquisite articulation of these feelings. In his misery, our fictionalized Salieri leaps off the deep end, which allows us as the audience to sit in judgment of his bad acts even as we recognize his emotions in ourselves.
Have I simultaneously loved and loathed in the name of envy? I have, but have always stopped well short of ordering strychnine on Amazon. No, I brood alone, taking occasional breaks to hate myself for my own feelings.
Yet there's no virtue in wallowing in our wretchedness. When envy taps us on the shoulder, the point is to recognize it, then make a beeline for the antidotes.
As far as I have figured, the antidotes number only two.
The first is to practice radical gratitude. It won't be enough to quickly mutter "I'm grateful for my dog.” We really have to spend some time reflecting on the astonishing bounty of gifts we've been given, until thought becomes feeling. The emotion matters, because it is impossible to feel envious and grateful at the same time. We must crowd out the ugly with the beautiful.
The second antidote is to do the work. The work is whatever we do that brings our life value. If we're envious of other writers because we wish we had their skill or vision or accolades, the cure is to dig in and write what only we can write. Write more, write fiercely, write at unreasonable hours and hold ourselves to unreasonable standards of quality. If there's some skill another writer has that we covet, sure, figure it out, but don't dwell. Crack the how-did-she-do-that code (or not), then decide if it has a place in our toolbox.
The work makes envy slink into the wings.
If we're envious of others' money or lifestyle, then maybe the work is around shoring up our own financial wellbeing. Or maybe it's something else, I don't know. I just know that the presence of envy means there's stuff we need to be doing. We figure out what that stuff is, then do it.
The mischievous universe never runs out of ways to test our progress with these trials. Even before our little gratitude exercises and revamped work routines start to take hold, another magazine with someone else's beautiful drawing will be on its way to keep us humbly in touch with our envious side. We will, once again, feel outrage. Probably extra outrage. Whatever it is will seem worse than whatever we were asked to suffer the last time. It cannot be borne!
The strategy remains the same.
We take a deep breath. Play a little "Jesse's Girl." Dip into the gratitude well once more.
Then we put shoulder to grindstone and get back to work.