In the introduction to his 2004 book Love, Poverty and War, Christopher Hitchens writes that in spite of his cushy, well-fed, First World existence, he wakes up each and every morning with "a sensation of pervading disgust and annoyance."
I feel the same way, but mostly in early January. It is the time of the year that fills me with a terrible and ominous sense of cultural hopelessness and impending environmental disaster, brought on largely by looming Visa bills, champagne-induced glandular puffiness and flashbacks of all the trans fats I ate over Christmas.
It's a relief, this feeling of self-disgust. That sounds strange, but there is a time and a place for loathing oneself, and the first week in January, it seems, is the West's annual holiday of collective self-flagellation. Practising Jews, Christians and Muslims get shame and guilt year-round, while we secularists get one measly month of detox diets, bossy lifestyle gurus and personal training programs.
Given the hopelessly transient, commoditized nature of our resolutions to improve, it's no wonder they never stick. It's crazy: One night, you're drunk and brimming with crème brûlée, watching thousands of other drunks party in Times Square. The next, you're flopped on the sofa, diet ginger ale in hand, silently vowing abstinence from all things dairy, alcoholic, sweet or caffeinated.
Of course, the powers that be try to scare us into action year-round. Take Y ou Are What You Eat, a British show on the W Network that features an extremely bossy nutrition expert lambasting fat people for their unhealthy diets. First, the expert bitchily determines that each member of the McLardy family eats a bag of pork rinds a day. Then, she wheels in six tables heaped with raw pig fat, salt and 50 gallons of oil, representing a year's worth of pork rind munching.
The McLardys start to weep, so horrified are they by the sight of their own stuffing. It's an extraordinary and voyeuristic exercise in self-disgust - and where does it get us? Nowhere. We know that pork rinds are bad for us. So do the McLardys. It's just fun to see them cry, which is disgusting in itself.
Like most, I save my detox for the new year. That is not to say I'm sticking tubes up my bum or eschewing all solids, just that I'm not drinking booze, smoking or eating anything unhealthy or tasty (which we all know is the same thing). In other words, each January I become, temporarily, an alert, clear-skinned, trim-waisted, smug-as-hell bore. It's pure punishment, not only for me, but for my colleagues and loved ones. But the truth is, we deserve to do a little penance. And my liver needs a break.
I'm still closer to Courtney Love than Courteney Cox, but at least I'm trying. Much as I usually hate my own tendency to self-disgust (I beat myself up for being too hard on me all the time), a stiff dose of self-loathing can be a good thing. Just look at the sort of people who lack shame - they're awful! Britney Spears, for instance, and Paris Hilton. Now there's a case of high self-esteem and hemlines run amok.
Many argue that the reason Britney ditches her children for knickerless pole-dancing sessions and Paris persists in being Paris is simply that they are confused, insecure young women with more fame and money than good sense. Personally, I suspect they're quite pleased with themselves and enjoying their pampered lives just fine, thank you very much. Like most self-satisfied dimwits, they are ignorant of their own failings and, thus, unable to address them.
That's the paradox of pure self-confidence: It's usually misplaced. Have you ever noticed that lazy, incompetent people are the first to tell you how "experienced" and "talented" they are, while the truly accomplished and gifted underplay their achievements? That's because self-criticism is the key to meaningful success and, more important, decency. Self-aggrandizement, on the other hand, is a sure sign of poor character.
So perhaps our collective sense of self-disgust at this time is not something to be dismissed with self-help books and crash diets, but examined and embraced. After all, we have grossed ourselves out for good reason. We eat too much, drink too much, spend too much and as a result are lasering away the ozone layer like a bit of dead skin on a cosmetic surgeon's table.
As British writer Hanif Kureishi recently put it in The Guardian: "Our media and our lives are full of stories of obesity and anorexia, of models, mingers and the dietary habits of children. We either consume too much or too little. We can never get it right - the self-disgust of the West conveys a profound confusion about the way we view ourselves now."
According to Kureishi, we're feeling a spiritual hunger fuelled by what Salman Rushdie calls the "God-sized hole" at the centre of our culture. Our self-disgust in what novelists, painters and filmmakers present as "a nihilistic West disappearing into a whirlpool of narcissism, sentimentality and moral emptiness" is not surprising, Kureishi says. "They are saying we have sold our souls for the freedom to shop and screw as and when we wish."
How then to deal with that Jan. 1 self-disgust? Make like Hitchens and embrace it, I say. Write a rant. Run for charity. Go on a detox diet. For God's sake, do something. It's better than nothing. Especially when it involves underwear.
lmclaren@globeandmail.com