One More Theory About Happiness By Paul Guest Essay

In his memoir, One More Theory About Happiness, Paul Guest seems to gain little to no personal fulfillment from his interactions with other disabled individuals in his life. Oftentimes it seems that Guest is simply trying to pave his way through life as an author, and, ultimately, he views other writers as the basis for a community he can actively participate in. Guest’s interactions with other disabled folk shines a light on this reluctance to associate with other disabled individuals on an intimate level, something that can particularly be seen during his run-in with Joni Eareckson Tada. Being forced into attending one of Tada’s events by his mother, Guest states that he “had no desire to go, [and no desire] to participate in or be defined …show more content…
This trend continues as Guest mentions other individuals in wheelchairs throughout the memoir. Another example lies in the previous tenant in one of Guest’s apartments, a “drunk, combative quadriplegic” who had a tendency to leave his colostomy bag out in the open (153). Aware of this tenant’s existence, Guest makes a comment about how he “only hoped [his] neighbors [would bother] to tell [them] apart” (153). Though this comment is most likely some sort of scathing commentary on individuals’ refusal to look past disability, it also functions as another instance when Guest is actively separating himself from such a community. This separation occurs once more at the end of the text as Guest sits beside another man in a wheelchair. Despite speaking with him offhandedly, “he never [gave] his name,” and Guest doesn’t “offer [his]” (189). Continuing on, Guest expresses some form of a bond with the man, but even this bond sours. “He doesn’t feel like a stranger,” Guest writes, “I see him often, his type, his lonely, addled type, and have, for more than twenty years, feared that I could somehow become him someday”