David Herbert Lawrence, popularly known as D.H. Lawrence, famously penned a poem entitled “Self-Pity.” Published in 1929, it reads:
I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.
The poem is short, but it captures so much truth about the natural world and ourselves. What is it about human beings that we sometimes feel self-pity? We bemoan our lot and fixate on how the universe must be conspiring against us. Not so with a wild thing. A bird. A bunny. A trout. A deer. Self-pity never seems to be in order.
I am fascinated by this poem because Lawrence is making a comment on both human tendency and human potential. On one hand, he acknowledges the proclivity in our species to retreat into a woe-is-me posture; however, on the other hand, he seems to be issuing a challenge to his readers to, in effect, be a wild thing. Embrace it. Live it out. Shun the temptation to pity oneself and, instead, live more boldly.
As I look around society today with so many inclined to claim victim status or even special status – look no further than a job application to see what boxes they ask an applicant to check at the end – I wonder if we have built up a culture of self-pity. Another way to look at it is that, perhaps, we have leaned so far into the phenomenon of putting everybody and everything into distinct social or cultural or political silos that self-pity has become the default way of seeing oneself in the world. I need special favor because of X. I should have special accommodations because of Y. The immutable characteristics about myself are no fault of my own and, therefore, I am powerless. Deserving of some unique arrangement. And pity. Yours and mine.
D.H. Lawrence likely wrote this well-known poem at a time when the decadence of the 1920s was at its peak: booze and sex, revelry and thumbing noses at the authorities, which, arguably also suggested that it was a time of spiritual bankruptcy. Many were trying to fill the God-shaped hole inside with the wrong things, and the outcome was a disaster. One might even claim that Lawrence’s challenge was to embrace what scripture says about each of us – that we were fearfully and wonderfully made. God, in other words, made us for so much more than just parties and debauchery. Self-pity is effectively not a part of our design. We are stronger than we realize. We are more capable than we realize. Who is telling us the lie that we are not? The answer is clear. The evil one, of course. Who but the devil would insist that we are weak and ill-equipped for this life? To be sure, how would we all act differently if we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that our very Creator had endowed each one of us with the grit and the tools to live life to the fullest and be content, dare I say happy?
If we take the position that self-pity is actually a form of pride in that it is fundamentally inward-looking then like any other form of pride, it should be avoided. But the question remains: how should the wild get on with the domesticated when the world is built for the latter? Perhaps, like the bird in the poem, we must simply bide our time for another fall.
