Warmest Regards
Vol. 3, Issue 12
D id you ever read the George Saunders essay "Congratulations, By The Way," the one he read at Syracuse University's graduation ceremony in 2013? The New York Times snagged the transcription and published it and the internet got gushy for a minute or two about it before it went back to eating its own face.
id you ever read the George Saunders essay "Congratulations, By The Way," the one he read at Syracuse University's graduation ceremony in 2013? The New York Times snagged the transcription and published it and the internet got gushy for a minute or two about it before it went back to eating its own face.
It’s truly wonderful, but here's a confession: I've tried to read George Saunders’s other work - his short stories, mostly – but they were … not for me. He's a beautiful writer, for sure, but he’s one of those people who writes too well. His writing makes me feel not just uneducated – but uninvited.
This isn’t a critique. It’s mostly an admission of my own failure. George Saunders is magnificent and I hope to enjoy more of his work someday when I grow less stupid. (Also on the when-I'm-less-stupid list: Thomas Pynchon, Zadie Smith, Charlotte Bronte. Shakespeare? Sure, Shakespeare, why not.)
But “Congratulations by the Way” is different. It’s still ornately crafted and full of side-arm literary wizardry but it’s definitely more radio-friendly than, say, Lincoln in the Bardo.
And what did George Saunders, a truly wise man whose cognitive horsepower is capable of uniquely original thoughts, bestow upon these hungry young literary minds?
Be kinder.
Because his biggest regrets in life were moments he calls “failures of kindness":
Those moments when another human was there, in front of me, and I responded … sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.
So he was never outwardly mean – he just did the bare minimum to not be an asshole.
I bring this essay up because after I cleaned up I was still a real A-plus asshole: Unreliable. Untruthful. And fiendishly unkind.
I had my moments of kindness – mild, at best – but they were probably transactional and manipulative. That’s still tough for me to write and even tougher to accept, but this is the way.
Early on in recovery, I certainly received kindness from others, kindness I did not possess. For example, in August of 2016 Hulk Hogan’s lawyers put a lien on my meager checking account for hundreds of millions of dollars. I was already broke, and now I was more broke, because a professional wrestler and his gang of Florida shit-kicking lawyers were having some fun picking their teeth with me. They just wanted to wail on me.
All of these filings were public so the reporters covering the trial wrote about this extra demoralizing plot point. Twitter had its fun with how broke and pathetic I was and then, when it felt like no more cosmic pranks were left to be had, Gawker’s lawyers dropped me. “Conflicts,” they said.
It was a truly awful time for me. I’d just reset my sobriety day count about a month before, too.
Friends began to look after me closely. Lots of them wired me cash, some sent groceries. I received emails from people I hadn’t heard from in a while who were deeply concerned, but there were others who just wanted to rubberneck. I never heard from some friends and colleagues at all. Maybe they thought the kindest thing they could do for me at that point was to say nothing.
On August 20, 2016, I received an email from a man named Jeff MacGregor, a sportswriter I barely knew, and one I had definitely forgotten. I think he wrote a book about NASCAR and we excerpted it on Deadspin in 2009 or 2010. I didn’t interview him for the site because I thought NASCAR was incredibly boring, but I liked his editor so we ran an excerpt anyway.
This was the email he sent:
Hi AJ -
I got your email address from Tommy.
Just wanted to check in and see if I could help with anything.
If you ever need a few bucks to make the rent or buy some food, please let me know.
In the meantime, I enclose warm regards.
I responded graciously, but I was suspicious and a little annoyed. This guy doesn’t know me. He probably wants something.
What else could it be? He didn’t even have my email address.
Either way, it was nice of this person to drop me a line. He had clearly taken some of the “most efficacious anti-selfishness medicines” that Saunders encourages the class of 2013 to seek out. Good on you, Jeff.
He emailed me again – 22 more times, to be exact. Nothing ever too pushy or intrusive, most under 30 words with subject lines like “MacGregor checks in" and the sign-off would be some variation of “enclosing warmest thoughts of the MacGregor household,” which sounded a little too earnest and kooky to me.
The last time he emailed me was in November 2019 – more than three years after his initial email. Here’s what it said:
Thought of you this morning and wanted to say hello.
All well here - happy and healthy and busy.
Everything OK?
I enclose warmest thoughts of the household.
By then I don’t think Jeff MacGregor was too concerned about whether or not I had someone to talk to, or if he was volunteering to be that guy, but he wanted to make sure, which, man, what kindness level is that? Send one email, yeah, okay, you’re what most people would consider a “good guy,” but 22 times over the next three years? That’s extra kind. Definitely not mild nor reserved.
I haven’t thought about Jeff MacGregor since about a few hours before I wrote this. I knew I wanted to write about kindness and the Saunders essay because I wanted to fully process and remember the last time I was ever truly unkind. That was a couple of years ago in October of 2019. My father was in town, his dementia was in full bloom, but so was his anger. I knew he was sick, but I pretended he was not just so I could say hurtful things and not feel guilty about it. It didn’t matter that he was ill-equipped to fight back – I wanted to wail on him.
I regret doing it. Especially now that he's deteriorated so much since then. What would kindness have brought to that moment?
But I should definitely email Jeff MacGregor back, just to check-in, and send warmest regards from the Daulerio household. I Googled him to see what he’s been up to and, wow, he was nominated for a National Magazine Award in 2019. Turns out he’s been nominated like six times. Huh. I never knew that.
Edited email: Warmest thoughts of the Daulerio household … and congratulations, by the way. – AJD
