The people I know who are rebelling meaningfully, you know, don't buy a lot of stuff. And uh um and don't don't get their view of the world from television and are willing to spend four or five hours researching an election rather than going by commercials.The thing about it is that in America, we think of rebellion as this very sexy thing and it involves action and force and looks good. My guess is the forms of rebellion that will end up changing anything meaningfully here will be very quiet and very individual and probably not all that interesting to look at from the outside.I'm now hoping for less interesting than more interesting. Violence is interesting. Horrible corruption and scandals, rattling sabers and talking about war and demonizing a billion people of a different faith in the world- those are all interesting.Sitting in a chair and really thinking about what this means and why the fact that what I drive might have something to do with how other people in parts of the world feel about me isn't interesting to anybody else.That was very close to the truth, but I don't think it's going to make much sense. And plus, I mean I'm a writer, not a politician or a political thinker or anything. Just a scared little American... living in California.
David Foster Wallace in a long ranging 2003 interview for German television.
I find this interview extremely interesting, not just because Wallace is one of my favorite writers, but that you can see the man behind the work he's created. Two things that I immediately recognize in him is how his long battle with depression has worn him, and his brilliance. He's clearly the smartest person in the room and he's also terribly self-conscious. He is extremely uncomfortable throughout the interview, perhaps not just with the idea of the interview itself (which is clear) but with the way in which his intellect is being put on display. The man is incredibly complex. Full of contradictions. By his reactions to the dialogue with the woman interviewing him, you can see how blazingly fast his mind works. And his extreme humanness.
Someone could write a behavioral thesis just on the interplay between the characters in this interview.
