{"id":150980,"date":"2014-03-10T12:03:45","date_gmt":"2014-03-10T10:03:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/espirited.com\/tennessee-williams-purity-of-heart-is-the-only-success-worth-achieving\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T16:43:55","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T14:43:55","slug":"tennessee-williams-purity-of-heart-is-the-only-success-worth-achieving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/espirited.com\/en\/tennessee-williams-purity-of-heart-is-the-only-success-worth-achieving\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennessee Williams: Purity of Heart Is the Only Success Worth Achieving"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article is far too good not to be shared. It is titled \u201cThe Catastrophe Called Success,\u201d<\/strong><\/a> written by Tennessee Williams<\/span><\/span><\/strong>, and it exists in Bulgarian translation thanks to the creator of the website librev.com, Zlatko Enev. I have now decided to \u201cpass it on,\u201d because I see it as a continuation of the theme explored in the previous article, \u201cSchool for Parents \u2014 A Spiritual Perspective.\u201d<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Thus, Tennessee Williams calls a \u201ccatastrophe called success\u201d<\/em> the unexpected and overwhelming success that his play The Glass Menagerie<\/span><\/span><\/strong> brought him, catapulting him from the \u201cprecarious tenancy of furnished rooms scattered across the country\u201d<\/em> into an apartment in a first-class Manhattan hotel. This tearing away from \u201cliteral obscurity and hurling into sudden fame\u201d<\/em> is an example of the American Dream fulfilled. The problem is that for a person like Tennessee, this success turns into his greatest nightmare when, against the backdrop of hotel luxury and enthusiastic reviews of his play, he falls into deep depression, inner emptiness, and a spiritual crisis.<\/p>\n

Tennessee\u2019s agony lasts about three months, ending with eye surgery and a subsequent departure for Mexico. There, living close to nature, he finds refuge from fame and firm ground beneath his feet:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cMy public personality, this little gadget made of mirrors, did not exist here, and thus my natural existence was restored\u2026 Ask anyone who has experienced the kind of success I am talking about here\u2014What good is it? Perhaps, in order to get an honest answer, you would have to inject them with a truth serum, but the word they would finally mutter is not suitable for general publication.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

If there is anything good in Tennessee\u2019s success, it is the opportunity it gave him to experience what \u201csuccess\u201d<\/em> looks like when it does not make one happy\u2014and to ask the question, \u201cWhat, then, is the true good?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cAn absorbing interest in human affairs, plus a certain amount of compassion and moral conviction, which first created some kind of experience that has to be turned into paints or music or bodily movement or poetry or prose or whatever else is sufficiently dynamic and expressive\u2014this is what is good for you, if you take your aims seriously at all. William Saroyan<\/span><\/span> has written a magnificent play on this theme\u2014that purity of heart is the only success worth achieving. \u2018In the time of your life\u2014live!\u2019 That time is short and it never returns. It slips away while I am writing this and while you are reading it, and the monosyllabic word of the clock says Loss, loss, loss, unless you devote your heart to its opposite.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

We usually associate success with becoming Someone<\/em>, but Someone<\/em> is a worldly category which, in the face of death, inevitably turns into No One<\/em>. As it is written on the column left by Omurtag<\/span><\/span><\/strong>, \u201cEven if a person lives well, they die and another is born.\u201d<\/em> Security is a satisfying goal only for mediocre minds. Others would fall ill from it. Therefore:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201c\u2026the public Someone you become when you \u2018make a name\u2019 is a fiction made of mirrors, and the only someone worth being is the lonely and unseen you who has existed since your first breath, and who is the sum of your actions\u2014thereby constantly at risk of being profaned by yourself\u2014and knowing these things, you may even survive the catastrophe of Success!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u2014 Tennessee Williams, \u201cThe Catastrophe Called Success\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Success and the good are closely connected\u2014success is that which is good for us. It is another matter that, in order to understand what that is, we first have to live through a few \u201ccatastrophes.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Kameliya Hadzhiyska<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article is far too good not to be shared. It is titled \u201cThe Catastrophe Called Success,\u201d written by Tennessee Williams, and it exists in Bulgarian translation thanks to the creator of the website librev.com, Zlatko Enev. I have now decided to \u201cpass it on,\u201d because I see it as a continuation of the theme […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":152777,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[646],"tags":[679],"class_list":["post-150980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spiritual-intelligence","tag-success-in-life"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t