The World’s Most Interesting Man

In one of my interdisciplinary classes we are in the transition between Ancient Greece and Rome. Which means we’re in the world of Alexander the Great. As I listened to my history colleague’s excellent introductory lecture to the Hellenistic world the other day, my thoughts drifted to someone else who, as Alexander was in his day, is simply the best at everything . . .

His words carry weight that would break a less interesting man’s jaw

Every once in a while, Madison Avenue gets it right and an advertising campaign takes on a life of its own. When I was in my late twenties and early thirties, Miller Lite’s “Tastes Great . . . Less Filling” campaign went viral. This simple disagreement about what was more remarkable about Miller Lite—that it tasted more like real beer than expected or that its reduced calories made it possible to drink more of it without feeling bloated—started showing up in the strangest places. During the campaign’s heyday, I was studying for my Master’s degree at the University of Wyoming and never missed a UW Cowboys’ basketball game. During time-outs, the student section behind the basket at one end of the arena would stand as if on cue, point threateningly at the student section behind the other basket, and scream TASTES GREAT!!! at the top of its lungs. In response the opposite section would rise as one, point back and scream LESS FILLING!!! Back and forth the challenge would go, louder and louder, soon involving every one of the several thousand fans in a competition that for the moment was more intense than the game on the court.

When opportunity knocks and he’s not home, opportunity waits.

Jeanne’s favorite current ad campaign is the talking baby on E-trade ads—“I guess that riding the dog like a small horse is frowned upon in this establishment!”—who never fails to cause her to laugh uproariously. I find these ads occasionally amusing, but personally find talking babies somewhat creepy. My own favorite campaign, one that unfortunately seems to have almost run its course, is Dos Equis’ “The World’s Most Interesting Man.”

In a past life, he was himself.

The picture of suaveness and refinement, perfectly dressed for every occasion, sporting the perfectly groomed salt-and-pepper beard I wish I could grow, surrounded by gorgeous women, various ads show The World’s Most Interesting Man saving babies from fires, playing polo or cricket, and generally excelling at everything he does, as the voice over reveals various remarkable facts about him.

His mother has a tattoo that says “son.”

Some ads include life advice from The World’s Most Interesting Man.

The World’s Most Interesting Man on Skateboarding: “No”

Or

The World’s Most Interesting Man on Boxers or Briefs: “What comes between a man and his pants is his own business”

Each ad concludes with The World’s Most Interesting Man at table in a mahogany-paneled room, flanked by beautiful people, lifting a glass of beer toward the viewer. “I don’t always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis. Stay thirsty, my friend.”

The World’s Most Interesting Man is every man’s best imagined self, the man who he would like to bring into the world every day but who is never available. Napoleon is a central character in War and Peace; he is one of the few human beings ever—along, perhaps, with Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and a few others—who actually was able to for a number of years to not only believe that he was The World’s Most Interesting Man but also to have millions of people agree with him and to see events bear their collective opinion out. One of my favorite chapters in Tolstoy’s novel is at the Battle of Borodino , where Tolstoy gives the reader access to Napoleon’s inner dialogue as he slowly realizes that, on this day at least, he is not The World’s Most Interesting Man. There is a Napoleon in each of us convinced that we are the center of the universe and undoubtedly the world’s most interesting and important human being. It’s just that for most of us this inner World’s Most Interesting Person never seems to show up except when we are alone.

He once had an awkward moment, just to see what it felt like.

My position directing a large academic program often requires me to act as if I have more confidence than I actually do, as if I am The World’s Most Effective and Intimidating Director. Sometimes props help. My favorite coffee cup at work, a cup that I paid forty dollars for because a monk made it, was shattered a few weeks ago when I dropped it on a particularly stressful day. So I’m considering which coffee cup to bring from home in the fall as my replacement Director’s coffee cup to break in the new Ruane Center for the Humanities, the beautiful new digs that we will be moving into over the summer. The top candidate for new Director’s coffee cup at the moment is one that my son gave me last year for Father’s Day, a cup large enough to take a bath in.

Maybe it will do double duty as the Development of Western Civilization version of a speaking staff, and I’ll allow each faculty member at meetings to hold it as they speak. It seems that I come closest to letting my internal “Most Interesting Man” out at work. On the door of my philosophy department office is a take-off on “The World’s Most Interesting Man” that I found on-line. There he is, perfectly coiffed, manicured and dressed, holding a glass of beer and saying

I don’t always hear from God, but when I do, He sounds like me

            What I suspect makes this ad campaign so amusing to me and many others is that it actually hits very close to home. We really do frequently believe and act as if we are the world’s most interesting human, usually to discover in short order that not only are we not that interesting, we’re not even that important in the larger scheme of things. The Psalms are particularly effective at pricking balloons of self-importance. As I have developed the habit of reading the assigned Liturgy of the Hours psalms every weekday morning, I have been treated to regular reminders that I’m not so great. This morning at Vigils, the assigned psalm-reading monk read Psalm 62:

Common folk are only a breath,

The great are an illusion.

Placed in the scales they rise;

They weigh less than a breath.

“Placed in the scales they rise”—as my friend Ivan once commented, that’s the ultimate description of a lightweight. Coupled with such deflating put downs from the Psalmist, of course, are lines similar to those that close Psalm 62:

For God has said only one thing;

Only two do I know:

That to God alone belongs power,

And to you Lord, love;

And that you repay us all

According to our deeds.

God’s coffee cup, which I’m sure is as vast as the Pacific Ocean outside my retreat room, undoubtedly says

I AM a BIG fucking deal . . . and you’re not

Good to keep in mind. And yet . . . this is the same God who invites me to intimacy and friendship. It is probably best to keep my inner “World’s Most Interesting Man” to myself—except on those rare occasions when I just have to let him briefly see the light of day.

He wouldn’t be afraid to show his feminine side—if he had one.