Seeking Advice from Strangers: All Humans Are Basic Bitches
A reflection on Heather Havrilesky’s ‘Ask Polly’ response that establishes 7 rules for living like an artist.
One of the first things that came up at this “Book” Club meeting was not only why people like to read advice columns, but also why someone would write a letter to a complete stranger in the first place. OK, maybe not a complete stranger. Regular readers of the “Ask Polly” advice column in New York Magazine know the type of advice Polly dishes out. They would also be familiar with Heather Havrilesky, the writer behind the column. And since there are so many other advice columns to choose from—Slate’s “Dear Prudence,” run by Daniel Mallory Ortberg; “Dear Sugar,” which was once a Rumpus column and is now a podcast hosted by Cheryl Strayed and Steve Almond—advice seekers would presumably choose the columnist who speaks most to them.
“Ask Polly” is my advice column of choice. I like how Havrilesky seems to reach out from her letters, put her hands on the shoulders of each anonymous advice seeker, look them in the eyes, and tell it like it is. I get a sense that she never tells people what they want to hear, only what they need to hear.
“I guess both reading advice columns and seeking advice are like therapy,” Suzan, Susanna, and I decided, the only 3 who showed up to this last meeting of 2020. Though Havrilesky, and other columnists, are usually pretty clear upfront that they are not licensed mental health professionals—in fact, Polly often recommends finding a therapist to advice seekers—it’s interesting that we seek out advice columns to help us grapple with things that are bothering us, to get perspective from someone who doesn’t know us and can provide an objective take on a situation.
Unlike therapy, though, unless you participate in group therapy, advice columns offer seekers and readers community. You feel connected to the anonymous people who write in, and you can usually find something in the advice that adds value to your own life (even if you don’t struggle with the same problem). When you’re in a room with only your therapist, it can sometimes feel like you’re alone with your problems, too.
I don’t remember how I found “Ask Polly”—I’m sure it was a recommendation from some newsletter I’m subscribed to—but I have been an avid reader of all these columns that have embraced that humans are fuck-ups since my 20s. “Ask Polly” is part of a canon of advice columns that are anti-Dear Abby. The “Dear Abby” column seems unfeeling. It gives short answers. Clearly the writer spends no time reflecting on the advice seeker’s question or trying to relate.
What I love about Heather Havrilesky’s column is how she tries to give advice that she’s taken herself and impress on seekers and readers (we’re all seekers, really) that it takes a lot of work, it’s never easy. In the piece “How do I live like an artist?”, in which the advice seeker (Aspiring Artist Who Would Like to Live Like an Artist or AHWWLTLLAA) wants to know how to live like an artist despite not being one, Polly explains why she, herself, took on the identity of artist and provides 7 rules for living like one.
“Becoming an artist, owning that title like the pretentious pain in the ass that I am,” Polly writes, “has loosened up some of the hard boundaries in my life and blurred previous principles around How I Should Be and How Other People Should Be.” She goes on to say that as an artist she is only interested in the pursuit of 3 things: “the truth, the joy of creation, and the satisfaction of deep human connections.” Polly is clear upfront that we’re dealing with abstractions; there are no “concrete” steps to living like an artist.
Heather Havrilesky always reads between the lines of an advice seeker’s letter. The question they ask, she knows, is the tip of the iceberg, but there’s so much beneath the surface that she needs to dig into in order to find the real answer to their real question. AHWWLTLLAA (or “Aspiring Human,” as Polly occasionally refers to the letter writer) doesn’t think that what they have to offer the world—strong interpersonal skills—is what an artist should have. Havrilesky squashes this idea with her first rule: “Believe in what you are and what you have.” To live like an artist, you have to know your strengths, the things that make “you a tiny bit different,” and protect them. Develop them. Block out the people in the world who tell you those things are not important.
For Havrilesky, this strength was observing a few things a stranger says or does—on their own or amongst a group of people at a party—and getting a clear impression of who they were beyond the persona they were presenting. And in her younger days, she would use this strength as a drunken party trick, which tended to upset people and didn’t make her any friends. “This was not the best application of my skills,” she writes Aspiring Human. But she came to realize that this strength was vital for her writing: “It still took years to embrace these talents and also to stop wielding them in ways that only upset other people and embarrassed me.”
Since Suzan, Susanna, and I sort of identify as artists (I wouldn’t say that we fully own the title), we really like the reasoning behind Polly’s 6th rule, “Study other artists.” Obviously, it’s important to study other artists to know what’s been done, to learn about their process and worldview. But Polly also says that “it will even help you to notice how GODDAMN BASIC most of their ideas are.” All artists are basic, she writes, because all humans are basic. What we want, what we need, what we do, the outline is pretty much the same. “The human condition is the most basic bitch in the universe.” But that’s why being an artist is about finding your unique perspective of the human condition.
First, everyone will hail it as a revelation. Then, after enough time passes and people have had to sit with your version of humanity for too long, they’ll declare that your revelation is actually fucking boring. “That’s the life of the artist: You’re special, then you’re a meme, and then you feel bad, and then you’re dead.”
It’s a hard truth that Havrilesky believes will enrich your art. You have to work with this darkness, you have to work with the truth. Otherwise, everything you put out in the world will be a lie. That’s why “what matters most is pleasing yourself and impressing yourself and moving yourself,” she writes. And that also leads nicely into Polly’s 7th rule, “Pursue joy at all costs.” If you really want to live like an artist, you have to find your way to joy.