Overcoming Discomfort
Kim John Un, the ruler of North Korea, has not been seen publicly recently. There has been speculation about the reason. The explanation was finally forthcoming. He has been made uncomfortable by something. There was a moving report today of his persevering in his endeavor to serve his country despite suffering this “discomfort.” I quote: “The wealth and prosperity of our socialism is thanks to the painstaking efforts of our marshal, who keeps lighting the path for the people, like the flicker of a flame, despite suffering discomfort.”
I can appreciate his achievement because I, too, have suffered “discomfort” in my time. In fact, some of my earliest memories are having been discomforted. I remember my family holding me up to ridicule for being “too skinny.” I remember the time I was performing on the piano live on the radio when I was eight—or not performing, more accurately—since I forgot how to start the piece. There was the time I came to a costume party without a costume. Speaking of costumes, there was the time when I served as a captain in the army and forgot to put on any of my insignia, and was sent back to the barracks in disgrace. Talk about discomfort, try sitting through three lectures in a row of why the unconscious is the opposite of the conscious.
But when I think of being uncomfortable, I think especially of those desperate times when I was forced to wear wool clothes. I know most people cannot appreciate the awful, scratchy way wool feels to me. That is the way of the world: everyone thinks the other guy’s problems are trivial compared to his own. But to be hot, itchy, squirmy and sticky on my legs and feet and suddenly all over….well, I cannot say I considered suicide, but I used to think of ripping off my clothes and running around naked. This happened mostly on the High Holidays when I was forced to sit in a hot basement in a wool suit listening to people pray in a language I did not understand.
“Dad,” I whispered to my father, “I’m really very uncomfortable sitting here.”
“Shaddup,” he replied.
I do not think that my father’s purpose was to steel me against the discomforts that would come some day when I would inherit his country, like Kim John Un would inherit North Korea one day from his father and have to put up with one discomfort after another, such as chilly weather. My father did not own a country. He was a bank manager, and he made plain to me that I could not simply take over the bank by virtue of being his son. I would have to earn it. But he wasn’t thinking of that either when he scolded me. Actually, I do not really know what he was thinking of. He rarely explained anything to me, including the prayers I was listening to.
When I was drafted into the army, I had to face that time that I had always dreaded—when I had to wear a wool uniform day after day. I was a very scrupulous young man so running off to Canada to avoid the draft was not feasible. I had to make do. My wife suggested the solution my mother had used finally to insure I became religiously observant, at least on the High Holidays. She sewed flannel pajamas inside my wool pants. And now my wife, dutiful and considerate as she was, did the same thing with all my uniforms.
In such a way, I discovered that I could deal with the discomforts of life, mostly by evading them. Of course, I did not have to put up with the awful responsibilities of being dictator to an entire nation of starving and disgruntled citizens. Despite the adoration that they are said to feel for him, I suspect that deep down he is discomforted by the idea that they do not love him as much as they profess. Perhaps that is the reason he has evaded them recently by not showing up at state dinners. Previously, when someone annoyed him, even a close relative, he had that person executed—which is an over the top reaction, in my opinion, to being discomforted. (c) Fredric Neuman Author of “The Wicked Son.”