Composing a Life

have had periods of concentrated work around the clock, as when Alice and Jack were fighting for survival or when Ellen was an intern; periods of part-time work like Johnnetta’s first years in Pullman or the semester after my daughter was born; even periods of working a single outside shift, always combined with other responsibilities.
    The rhythms vary. My mother used to quote a line in a letter written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, in which she says that she is not getting on very well with her novel “because the baby cries so much.” My mother’s comment was that the reason the novel goes slowly is not because the baby cries so much but because the baby smiles so much. In fact, the baby is engrossing whether she cries or smiles, and a new baby is likely to occupy a large part of one’s attention for a period of years, even with a ready supply of helpers. Certainly one will advance more slowly on the novel, but the novel may differ in important ways. The style of attention that allows a housewife to hold the phone with one hand while she checks the pot with the other and watches the toddler playing across the kitchen may be a genuinely creative model.
    Part of the confusion about whether different activities are competitive or mutually enhancing has to do with the fact that we all necessarily live in two different economies, one an economy of finite resources, the other an economy of flexible and expanding resources. In the economy of finite resources, an arithmetic of addition and subtraction applies, and all games are “zero-sum” games: if you spend time in the office, you are not spending that time at home; the money that goes to Paul cannot also go to Peter; if the father leaves all his land to his oldest son, there will be none for the younger sons. In the economy of expanding resources, the games are “win-win” games: the arithmetic is multiplicative, credit can expand indefinitely; a day of rewarding effort can send you home frisky and exhilarated; a change in technology allows the land to produce more. It is almost impossible to keep these two ways of thinking in focus. Each reflects important truth and dangerous error. Most people have temperamental preferences for one style or the other, but either, by itself, produces nonsense.
    Classical physics has taught us that energy is finite and conserved, but when we use terms like “energy” in speaking about human potential, we are into another area entirely, full of confusion if the physical metaphor is followed too closely. Everything we do is necessarily limited by finite resources of physical energy, but we rarely test those limits, since the capacity to mobilize physical resources depends on psychic “energy,” which might better be called vitality. One person can “energize” or “empower” another without any transfer of physical quantities. The energy to write this page is released by metabolizing food—it comes from my breakfast. But the “energy” to write this page depends on my state of mind, and such “energy” can come from a sunset or a remembered smile. During the worst periods at Amherst, when my day was filled by fresh relays of professors bringing their desires and demands, convinced that they had only to lean on a female dean to get what they wanted, I learned to keep books of art and poetry in my office, giving myself three- and five-minute breaks to look at an African mask or linger over a verse and be refreshed. Most of us run out of “energy” long before we run out of energy, but conversely it is possible to increase “energy” without eating more. An activity that affects vitality is not directly competitive or subtractive from other activities—on the contrary, it may enhance them.
    Both economies are at work at the same time. Both kinds of arithmetic affect the experience of every individual. It is not possible to “have it all” because of the finite economy. There are only so many hours in the day, and no one can be in two places at once. But the potential value of any hour is variable. Sometimes, having more—or giving more—means there is more there. “For unto everv one that hath shall be given and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath” (Matt. 25:29). Fatigue may sometimes be an energy problem, related to biochemical depletion of various kinds; but much fatigue is really a vitality problem. “Supermen” or “super-women” need