Embracing Illusions

I’ve just returned from Las Vegas, where I saw Dead & Co. at The Sphere. Although I grew up when The Grateful Dead were in their heyday, I was never into them, being more of a British rock and then New Wave kid. In 2020, however, I found the Dead to be the perfect music to while away a pandemic and now listen to them more than any other artist.

John Mayer shredding at The Sphere

While the current lineup is more of a cover band, since only two original members survive, it’s the closest I can get to the Grateful Dead concert experience I never had. As for The Sphere itself, it’s amazing. In fact, Vegas is now another Omaha for me: a city with only one attraction, since I don’t gamble (I’ve traded Russian stocks for a living, so betting in my free time always seemed a busman’s holiday). In Vegas the one attraction is The Sphere, and in Omaha — well, it’s not the food.

Dead & Co. weekend happened to coincide with Wrestlemania, and the city was crawling with both fan contingents, who are equally enthusiastic for a lifestyle but present quite differently. It was tattoos vs. tie dye, leather pants vs. peasant skirts, steroid muscles vs. white beards. The two groups also share that both embrace an illusion: the music lovers pretend that the band they are seeing is the real Grateful Dead, and the wrestling fans pretend that the victories and defeats aren’t preplanned.

How we protect our objects of devotion, making accommodations and looking away from things that could shatter the illusion, reminded me of one of my first Substacks, inspired by the breakup of a friend’s long marriage. It’s reprinted below.

The Way the World Is (Baby)

Carrie Fisher once commented on the song Hearts and Bones, which Paul Simon wrote about their one-year marriage. She said that her gut wrenched when she heard the lyrics:

“She said … Tell me why won't you love me
For who I am
Where I am

He said
'Cause that's not the way the world is baby”

(In her memoir, Fisher said that when Simon wrote songs about her, “Even when he’s insulting me, I like it very much.”)

I was talking the other day with a friend whose marriage is on the rocks. In couples therapy, his wife has asked him to change certain behaviors, but his problem is knowing which ones are changeable and which are not behaviors at all but fundamental aspects of his character. While most people are willing to make some adjustments for their mate, most are also comfortable with their whole selves and want to be accepted as they are, “warts and all”.

A couple of hours after this talk, in a proud flex of its AI capabilities, Meta popped a Guardian story into my Facebook feed entitled, “The secret to good relationships? Accept family and friends for who they really are”. The author writes that part of growing up is recognizing that the world will never meet your exact requirements and accepting reality. This means giving up the idea of perfection in a friend or mate and focusing on the positives; to acknowledge the individuality of others and choose to build a relationship above and around them is liberating for the one who chooses.

I would go even farther and argue that some qualities that can become irritating over a long relationship are the very ones that attracted you in the first place. Let’s say very hypothetically that you married a salty person, who excited you more than sweeter sorts you had dated previously. You might find yourself at some point in the marriage thinking, “Why does she have to be so salty?” It is at this point that you should check for hypocrisy and remember that this may have been one of the key traits that you specifically liked.

Acceptance, as the Guardian author advises, seems easy enough when it comes to a friendship. “Okay, he never calls, I’m always the one who makes plans – still, it’s worth it because we have so much fun.” Or “She’s a gossip, so I won’t tell her my biggest secrets (and I do enjoy her gossip about others’).” In some cases, the compromises become too hard and giving up the friendship seems the only way, but these would be the rarer ones.

Unlike friendship, however, marriage is a 24/7 marathon encounter in which the irritations and required accommodations can become continual. In addition, our mate’s behavior reflects on us more than our friends’, impacting how both spouses are perceived by the world. Pile on the stresses of career, family, and the thousand natural shocks of incorrect insurance bills and broken appliances, and “getting on with it” starts to look daunting. Complete acceptance from a mate would be nice, but as Paul Simon wrote, that’s not the way the world is.

There may be a way out of the dilemma, especially for longer-term couples who’ve had years to learn about each other and their relationship. Each spouse probably knows which of their behaviors are most liked and most disliked by the other; to put it another way, in which situations they get along the best and in which the worst. My wife and I probably get along best when we go to good movies together, and worst when I watch “Mad Money” on CNBC while she is trying to tell me something over Jim Cramer’s braying. Each spouse then emphasizes the preferred behaviors and de-emphasizes the unwanted ones, at least in the presence of the other. And together, in full awareness, they do their best to create the positive situations in which the marriage flourishes.

See you at the movies.