You've Summoned the Fail Whale

Stephen Fry on Self-Pity

The quotation below begin at 3:52:

STEPHEN FRY: Certainly the most destructive vice, if you like, that a person can have - more than pride, which is supposedly the number one of the cardinal sins - is self-pity. I think self-pity is the worst possible emotion anyone can have, and the most destructive.

It is, to slightly paraphrase what Wilde said about hatred - and I think actually hatred’s a subset of self-pity, not the other way round - it destroys everything around it except itself. Self-pity will destroy relationships, it will destroy anything that’s good, it will fulfill all the prophesies it makes and leave only itself.

And it’s so simple to imagine that one is hard done by, and that things are unfair, and that one is under-appreciated, and that if only one had had a chance of this or only one had had a chance at that, things would have gone better. You would be happy if only this. That one is unlucky. All those things - and some of them may well even be true - but to pity oneself as a result of them is to do oneself an enormous disservice.

I think it’s one of these things we find unattractive about the American culture, a culture which I find mostly extremely attractive, and I like Americans and I love being in America. But just occasionally there’ll be some example of the absolutely ravening self-pity that they are capable of. And you see it in their talk shows. It’s an appalling spectacle and it’s so self-destructive. I always wanted once to publish a self-help book saying “How to be Happy”, by Stephen Fry. Guaranteed success. And people buy this huge book and it’s all blank pages and the first page would just say, “Stop feeling sorry for yourself and you will be happy. Use the rest of the book to write down your interesting thoughts and drawings.” And that’s what the book would be, and it would be true.

And it sounds like, ‘Oh, that’s so simple.’ Because it’s not simple to stop feeling sorry for yourself. It’s bloody hard. Cause we do feel sorry for ourselves. It’s what Genesis is all about.

MARK LAWSON: The book of the bible, not the rock group?

STEPHEN FRY: Oh yes! Maybe. I don’t know!

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