Patient Urgency: Reading “The Immortalists” During the Pandemic

The pandemic has amped up my sense of urgency, my desire to make good use of my time. One new action I took was to start a Zoom book club for Mount Mercy English students and faculty this summer.

1. I figured the pandemic would leave many students at loose ends, unable to travel or work, so I wanted to offer them an activity.
2. The clubs would be a fun way for all of us to connect and stay social.
3. Bibliotherapy! As I said in an earlier post titled “Reading is Everything,” “If you read often and attentively, literature…will offer you the timely reminders, insights, company, and courage you need.”

Our first novel, Chloe Benjamin’s The Immortalists (2018) offered all of that. Thanks to Ally Killen (’21) for recommending it! And thanks to the book club participants!

The Immortalists is a perfect book club novel, one that takes on added resonance when you discuss it during a pandemic. The book is a beautiful vehicle for considering the nature of urgency.  

When the four Gold siblings are children, they visit a fortune teller who reveals the death date for each of them, and the rest of the novel reveals the impact of this prophecy on their lives. As my fellow Shakespearean, Joy Ochs, observed, The Immortalists is like Macbeth: it shows how prophecies or predictions can shape our choices and lives. It explores the power of beliefs.

The novel also explores other Shakespearean themes:

• How do our thoughts shape us? Our fears?
• How much control do we have over our lives? How much freedom? What is the source of each?
• What is real? How do we know?
• What kind of risks should we take?

And these themes:

• How are beliefs legitimized? Why are some beliefs characterized as religious faith and others as magic or stories—or delusion?
• How are our identities shaped by our jobs and careers? Our romantic relationships? Our birth order and family history? Our guilt—especially survivor’s guilt?
• What does it mean to be healthy? At what cost, longevity?

Of course, The Immortalists asks this question, the one that almost all great literature asks: What Makes Life Worth Living?

In The Immortalists, Benjamin explores this big question in conjunction with a cluster of questions about time. These questions have also been on my mind and heart, and I raised them in a recent post about scriptotherapy and the pandemic:

• How do we make best use of our allotted time? How should we conceive of our time?
• To what extent should we dwell on precarity? On our own mortality? What should we make of these truths? What should we do with these concepts?

In Benjamin’s novel, the youngest and oldest Gold siblings provide—or seem to provide—polar responses to these questions.

The Gold Siblings and Time

The oldest two (Varya and Daniel, who are predicted to live longest) value safety and security. They lead fairly mainstream lives and seem to possess mainstream ideas about what constitutes adulthood and success. Both are college educated. Both put parts of their lives on hold to tend their widowed mother. Both are scientists concerned with protecting and extending human life. Varya researches longevity, and Daniel is a medical examiner at a Military Entrance Processing Station—one who in the opinion of his commander awards too many medical waivers.

The two youngest Golds, Klara and Simon, stand in stark contrast. Predicted to die young, they value freedom and authenticity. Neither has an interest in attending college, and neither places their mother’s happiness above their own. Together, they move from NYC to San Francisco and lead “alternative” lives. Simon is a gay dancer, and Klara is a magician. *

(It would be interesting to discuss the siblings in conjunction with concepts of queer time, and because they’re Jewish, I also wonder if the novel incorporates Jewish concepts of time.)

The two oldest Golds are all about the future, delayed gratification, and playing it safe. The youngest two are all about the present, seizing the day, and taking risks.

Simon

As nearly any reader can predict, given the novel’s premise and the time frame of Simon’s section (1978-1982), Simon dies of AIDS. Even though he has a devoted partner and a fulfilling job, and even though he has watched several of his friends die of “gay cancer,” Simon seems driven to ruin his life and kill himself by having lots of anonymous and unprotected sex. It’s as if he is compelled to make the fortune teller’s prediction come true.

Yet instead of blaming her for his early death, Simon is grateful. He says that if it weren’t for her, he wouldn’t have moved across the country. He wouldn’t have his partner or his dancing career. If it weren’t for her, he would still be at home, waiting for his life to begin.

Simon refused to wait. His section of the novel reminds me of the final song in RENT, “No Day But Today.”

Like RENT, The Immortalists celebrates the power of love and the importance of embracing the present.

Yet it doesn’t wholeheartedly celebrate Simon and his sense of urgency. His early choices seem fearless, but all his risk-taking is driven, at least in part, by fear of his own early death. He lives each day as if it may be his last because he believes—he fears—that it soon will be.  His early risks enrich his life, but his later ones destroy it.

Right now, many of us are feeling—or struggling against—a Simon-like fear. The pandemic puts our mortality at the front of our minds. Yet, as I said to my fellow book club members, it’s not sustainable to live each day as if it’s your last. You would burn out, or, like Simon near the end of his life, you might take needless risks that hurt others.

So although Simon’s authenticity is attractive, his attitude toward his own mortality is not. He fears that his happiness—his life—cannot last, so he ruins it. His desire to seize the day ultimately becomes obsessive—like his sister Varya’s OCD.

Varya

No reader, of course, would choose Varya’s fear-filled life. Because of her OCD (and the deaths in her family), she is constantly performing rituals to save others. She is driven to extend life at all costs. She tells a visitor to her lab that there are two theories about how to best prolong life: suppressing the reproductive system (which is obviously not sustainable) and severely reducing caloric intake. As she researches the impact of hunger on primates, one monkey becomes so distressed that it starts eating its own hand. Varya is also starving herself, and she does not have her first orgasm until she is 26. Her life is governed entirely by fear. When she refuses to be with her brother Daniel on the date he is predicted to die, her thoughts call to mind our current pandemic: “…if she were there, she would feel responsible. She still feared she might catch or transmit something terrible, as though her bad luck was both bad and contagious” (297).

By the end of the novel, however, Varya manages to shed some of her fear: “…what she really wanted was not to live forever, but to stop worrying” (335).

I, too, would like to stop worrying. Or to stop worrying so much. I would like to be less fearful, less focused on precarity and death. I’d like to better regulate my sense of urgency.

Simon and Varya

And here it is helpful to elaborate on the similarities between Varya and Simon. Although they live very different lives, they both hurt themselves by focusing too much on their own mortality. In different ways, both live their lives with an extreme sense of urgency. Neither feels free: both are driven and compelled. Simon strives to have as many (sexual) experiences as he can before he dies, and Varya sacrifices nearly everything in order to delay death—her own and that of others.

These two siblings remind me of my own bleakest, most desperate thoughts during this pandemic. Sometimes, like Simon, I wonder if our lives—or at least our way of life—will soon end. And if so, shouldn’t I just have fun? Shouldn’t I just spend my remaining time savoring the great outdoors and connecting with people I love?

Other times I feel like Varya. Like I need to use each moment to make the world a better place. I need to learn to be a good online teacher. A better partner, friend, aunt. There are so many things I want to write. There is violent racism that needs to be addressed. Poverty and hunger. The earth itself needs saving.

Panic-induced “pleasure” vs. panic-induced “productivity.” These are clearly not good choices.

You can’t live only for today, nor only for tomorrow. You can’t simply seize the day—savor the day—with no thought of consequences. Nor can you simply use the day only to shape the future (or, in Varya’s case, to atone for the past).

Where is the middle ground? What does it look like? What would a healthy well-calibrated sense of urgency feel like? How can it be cultivated?

Urgency vs. Patience

Thus engaged in midway thinking, I consulted my dear friend, Mr. Google. The solution seems to involve patience and pacing. All types of people have thoughts on how to find the midway point between urgency and patience. Athletes, business leaders, theologians.

Athletes have a particularly valuable perspective. Their playing careers are necessarily short, and therefore, like many of us during a pandemic, athletes tend toward urgency.

One of the most helpful pieces about balancing urgency and patience was a short post on a sports psychology blog:

Long term success requires a balance of patience and urgency. You can’t be too patient, or else you won’t work hard enough to reach your goals. And your sense of urgency can’t be too strong, or else you’ll overdo it, which can lead to injuries and burnout.…

It’s important to remember that it doesn’t always have to be a 50-50 mixture all the time. For a period of time, you can be ultra urgent and work very hard. But you’ll need to balance this out with periods of time where you’re ultra patient and you rest and enjoy the moment. Over your career, these opposite periods of time should be about equal.

Kobe Bryant makes the analogy of balancing on a tight rope. When you lean too far to the right, you balance yourself by leaning to the left, and vice-versa. Instead of just staying in the center, you stay balanced by alternating to each side. This allows each side (patience and urgency) to complement each other so you gain their pros without being hurt by their cons.

Always ask yourself, “Do I need more patience right now, or do I need more urgency right now.” …

That last question is excellent: Right now, do I need more patience or more urgency?

I almost always need more patience. With the pandemic, I think, we all need a patient urgency.

Patient Urgency

In a wonderful Forbes article, Rich Karlgaard quotes F. Scott Fitzgerald: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” Karlgaard goes on to emphasize the importance of operating out of two opposed dispositions: urgency and patience.

Most leaders skew toward urgency. Take, for instance, Catherine McAuley, who founded the Sisters of Mercy, who in turn founded Mount Mercy University, where I teach.

One of McAuley’s most famous sayings is pure urgency: “We can never say ‘it is enough.'”

Her urgency stemmed from her drive to to help the poor, especially women and children. Today, Mercy Sisters, faculty, and students also strive to address Mercy Critical Concerns such as antiracism and care for the earth.

But in order to do any urgently needed work, you have to balance your urgency with patience and trust. You have to believe that if you’re working, your work will be enough. You have to remind yourself that you’re not working alone. If you believe in God, then you can trust that God is working through you and with you. If you struggle with faith in God, then you can rely on your faith in other people. Your efforts will join with the efforts of other people: many people working together will be enough.

A patient urgency is a confident urgency, a trusting urgency, a peaceful urgency.

A hard-to-achieve mindset. Especially as the pandemic lays bare all our problems and injustices.

Right now the pandemic urges me toward panic, toward a scarcity mindset. But I don’t want to be like Simon and Varya and dwell on the fact that my time is limited.

I want to be like my beloved mentor, Sister Marie Brinkman, who passed away on June 17 at the age of 94—after 71 years as a Sister of Charity.

Sister Marie Brinkman

Although I never heard her use the phrase ‘patient urgency,’ Sister Marie lived it and taught it. When she retired, I wrote her a long letter that included this story:

My sophomore year, I met with you about an editorial I had written (pushing the deadline as usual). It was filled with youthful extremism—something about how we should give all our money to the poor—or at least the money that we spent on cigarettes, pop, beer, movies, desserts, paperbacks. You tried to tell me that we all need some creature comforts. I don’t remember your words, but I remember what you did. First of all, you took me to see the part of the convent where you lived (with the novitiate, I believe). It was shockingly middle class—complete with overstuffed furniture and a cake on the kitchen counter. Then you took me shopping. One of the Sisters was having a birthday, and it was your turn to buy the presents (as I recall, you were also pushing the deadline). While we sorted through racks of blouses to find the right color, I thought about your vow of poverty, and I learned a big lesson about moderation.

Well, let’s be honest, I’m still trying to learn it. But as my partner, Ben, pointed out, Sister Marie nurtured my love of midway thinking.

And it is Sister Marie who inspires me to celebrate patient urgency and seek it in my own life.

I’ll likely never have her trust in God (perhaps not many people do), but I intend to focus on the power of that trust. Of trust in general. A steady confidence that all, ultimately, will be well.

I’ll tell myself—and you, if you need to hear it—that although our time is limited, it will be enough. Our time—if we pay attention and act with patient urgency—will be enough. What we do each day—work, rest, play—will be enough.

I intend to live each day not as if it will be my last, but as if it is a model for all my days. Because it is. As Annie Dillard says, “How you spend your days is…how you spend your life.”

I want to spend my days cultivating patient urgency. I want to engage in work that is important to me and the world. I want to write and battle injustice and mentor students. I want to grow as an antiracist and as a teacher. I want to grow closer to my partner and friends and God. I want to savor the earth’s beauty and play with my cats. But I also want to continue binge watching Parks and Rec and scrolling through Facebook.

(Maybe, for a few moments each day, I want to pretend that I have time to waste. And maybe that’s okay.) Maybe, at age 56 in the midst of a pandemic, it’s time to make peace with the fact that my time is limited. Maybe it’s time to feel more peaceful about how I use my time. More peaceful, period.