Do you know what your great question is?

 Here is a remarkable statement from Peter Matthiessen:

“My great question, I would say, comes from Turgenev, from Virgin Soil. One of the characters kills himself, but he leaves a note, and the note says, ‘I could not simplify myself.” … It’s been my great, great aim in life, simplification. Total failure.”

In Samuel Johnson’s little book Prayers & Meditations, there’s an entry in which Johnson is gloomy at his lack of self-improvement. The idea that a human being can find out what he’s supposed to be doing and do it is just too much.

But Matthiessen’s statement suggests that we all have a great question, rather than a purpose. It also suggests that he, at least, knew what his great question was.

The failure seems to me to be only human. It’s the not knowing and not trying that smells like wasted life, unexamined life.

• Source: Jonathan Meiburg, “An Interview with Peter Matthiessen”; Believer, June 1, 2014; Issue 108. You can find it here:

https://believermag.com/an-interview-with-peter-matthiessen/

Matthiessen gave this interview about a month before his death at 86. Interviews work best when the subject engages with the questions, and Meiburg’s questions clearly energized Matthiessen. Thanks to my friend Christopher for sending a link.