Despite being a psychology and sociology major, I was an English major in another life. I just can’t get enough when it comes to books and literature. I’ve always loved reading, and dissecting the intricacies of authors’ writing styles and picking apart meaningful quotes is one of my favorite pastimes. When I first read one of Joan Didion’s pieces, I immediately fell in love. I started scouring the internet for sketchy PDF uploads of her essays and searching Barnes & Noble for her novels. Her writing quickly became a comfort of mine as I navigated my 20s. Thanks to her brutal honesty of the human experience, it feels like Didion is taking a look into thoughts you didn’t even realize you have had; or maybe, she dissects complex emotions into tangible lifelines that prove to you that you aren’t so alone after all.
“On Self Respect”
Though it’s hard to pick just a couple of her pieces of writing, arguably one of her most famous, and one of my personal favorites, is “On Self Respect.” Originally published in Vogue in 1961 as “Self-respect: Its Source, Its Power,” Didion then re-published this essay in her book, Slouching Towards Bethlehem as “On Self Respect.” Opening with an anecdote about her rejection from an academic honor society, she notes that “innocence ends when one is stripped of the delusion that one likes oneself.” Everyone, especially people in their twenties navigating adulthood for the first time, can relate to Didion’s description of her first real rejection. Not being accepted into society seemingly marked the end of her innocence, as she “lost the conviction that lights would always turn green for [her]…” She notes the devastating, yet universal, sense of failure one inevitably feels and how this simultaneously signifies the beginning of developing real self-respect.
Didion learns that true self-respect is not dependent on the approval of others, “who are, after all, deceived easily enough.” She learns that outside voices aren’t the source of respecting oneself, and it isn’t just a superficial act, but rather a “private reconciliation.” Everyone is vulnerable to the judgment and approval of others, and saying ‘no’ when needed is an essential component of self-respect. Honoring one’s wishes above the opinions of others builds the confidence and dignity of the self, rather than based on others. As Didion writes, “To assign unanswered letters their proper weight, to free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves—there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect.”
“Goodbye to All That”
My personal favorite of Joan Didion’s work is “Goodbye to All That,” an essay detailing her move to New York City as a young adult and navigating a new city on her own. This essay means so much to me that I wear a ring daily with the title engraved on it – I’ll truly never stop re-reading this piece of writing.
Didion captures the naivety of being twenty years old and learning to live independently for the first time as she arrived at the terminal “in a new dress which had seemed very smart in Sacramento but seemed less smart already.” Similar to “On Self Respect,” she perfectly describes the experience of trial and error in one’s twenties, as well as the realization that “it would never be quite the same again.” Leaving one’s childhood behind and starting adulthood means there’s no going back, no matter how hard you try. Life will never be the same, and you must keep moving forward despite this tragic fact. Didion writes about how late at night, she would reminisce on the person she used to be, but now realizing that every person has this same experience: “One of the mixed blessings of being twenty and twenty-one and even twenty-three is the conviction that nothing like this, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, has ever happened to anyone before.” The complex, and at times isolating, emotions that come with navigating adulthood are not so unique after all.
One of my favorite parts of Didion’s writing is her ability to create such a meaningful interpretation of seemingly simple situations. When recovering from sickness in a hotel room set to 35 degrees, she demonstrates the innocence of coming-of-age: “Although it did occur to me to call the desk and ask that the air conditioner be turned off, I never called, because I did not know how much to tip whoever might come—was anyone ever so young? I am here to tell you that someone was.” Despite this timid view of the world, there is still a unique sense of optimism in most twenty-year-olds that Didion also possessed, as “[she] still believed in possibilities then, still had the sense, so peculiar to New York, that something extraordinary would happen any minute, any day, any month.” Though eventually outgrown once experiencing the hardness of the world, the concurrent innocence and idealism of people in their twenties is a beautiful affair that Didion epitomizes through her writing. In her journey through her 20s, she includes the grim realization that she reaches at twenty-eight, where she discovered that “not all of the promises would be kept, that some things are irrevocable.” Didion’s dichotomy of young adulthood provides a stark insight into feelings that most others hide from.
Although based on her own experience in New York, her sentiments are relevant to any young adults finding their way in the world. Whether that’s in a new bustling city or a rural college town, any person can find comfort in Didion’s prose. As someone with a love for New York City, her experiences are even more intriguing to me, especially her descriptions of the city as “an infinitely romantic notion, the mysterious nexus of all love and money and power, the shining and perishable dream itself.” Despite being centered around New York, her ‘rose-colored glasses’ view of the city is a perspective many twenty-year-olds hold.
I could write so much more and include so many more of Didion’s quotes, but I highly encourage you to read her writing for yourself and find your interpretations of her work. Her writing is captivating for any age, but reading her essays while in my twenties has been the ultimate comfort. A focus of many of her pieces not included here is grief, which she captures achingly well through her own experiences — again, I could not recommend her writing enough.
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