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Quote of the Day: Crying Jag
“Money may not buy happiness, but I’d rather cry in a Jaguar than on a bus.” ― Françoise Sagan
When I first came upon this quote, I had no idea who Francoise Sagan was. I found out that she was a novelist and playwright whose 1954 novel Bonjour Tristesse (Hello, Sadness) brought her international fame at the tender age of 18.
A glamorous life following that early fame was also plagued by gambling, cocaine, and alcohol addictions. When she died in 2004, she was reported to be in debt by more than a million Euros.
So was this French author and amoralist right? Is it better to cry in a Jag? Somewhere I read that the car company used the quote for one of its ads. A Pfizer-sponsored website posts it as an inspirational quote.
But I’m inclined to think Sagan got it wrong. Crying in a Jag indicates that your search for happiness in fast cars has failed. Crying in a bus indicates hope. You can go up from a bus; but unless you’re crying because your Jag is yet again in the shop, you’ve nowhere to go but down.
“Vanity, all is vanity,” says the Preacher (Ecclesiastes 1:2). Perhaps it takes a preacher to help us come to our senses. In the end, whether you’re crying on a bus or in a Jaguar, you’re crying. The point is the tears. And like tears of joy, tears of repentance bless us. I hope Sagan cried those tears, too.
Published in General
Sagan appears to have been very good at spending money if that was her lifestyle and that was how much she ended up in debt when she died. But the others side of the coin from the idea that money alone can’t buy you happiness is that money — either yours, mom and dad’s or someone else’s cash — can bail you out of your worst mistakes. It’s why trust fund babies can indulge in non-productive or decadent lifestyles and still hope to emerge at the other end unscathed, compared to other poorer people for whom those types of lifestyles might be touted by pop culture media, but don’t have the resources to recover when things go wrong, and end up as lifelong wards of the state.
So crying in a Jaguar assumes you still have access to assets to make yourself happy again, in a way crying on a bus does not. But if the person crying on the bus is trying to get away from what caused the crying and start a new life, they may be better off long-term than the crying Jagster, who thinks they can keep making the same mistakes knowing there’s cash on hand to fix the problem (because eventually, the cash runs out, the Jaguar’s repossessed, and you’re crying on the Greyhound).
The novel was later made into a 1958 movie directed by Otto Preminger. As with the “Lost Generation” after WWI, many intellectuals used WWII as the excuse to live in the moment rather than act morally, work hard, and delay gratification.
In the novel, the widower playboy father invites Anne, a cultured, principled, intelligent, hard-working woman friend of his late wife. She becomes his lover and announces their engagement. His former lover moves out, and the daughter tries to prevent the upcoming marriage. Her scheme causes Anne to commit a suspected suicide.
One contemporaneous reviewer said “Bonjour, Tristesse, which has achieved remarkable celebrity by virtue of its subject-matter and its authoress’s age, is a vulgar, sad little book.”
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Money may not buy happiness, but poverty can sure cause unhappiness.
When I was on the edge of poverty, my Ford Escort blew up, leaving me in dire straits. I happen to be somewhat mechanically capable, so I bought a 15 year old Jaguar XJ6 for a couple thousand dollars, and kept it running with bailing wire and ingenuity for years.
It was easier being poor and near bankruptcy in a jag, even an old and ragged one. Just for the record!
Yes, I believe money issues are one of the biggest stressors in a marriage.
If you are looking for happiness through the pursuit of money and stuff, you will fail. But if you are already happy, money makes things easier (at least a certain level of financial security). I am currently out of work. In many ways I am blessed (faith, family, etc.) but I will be much happier once I land my next job and have a steady flow of income again.
Money can’t buy happiness, but I’m reminded of one of my favorite sayings (I’m substituting the “s” word with more COC compliant one):
“Life is like a caca sandwich. The more bread you got, the less caca you eat.”
Increased income does increase happiness up to a point. After that it does not.
Basically, when you are able to afford the basics and can manage typical emergency stuff, you stop getting more happy with more money.
It is better to cry in your own car.
Perhaps Sagan’s problem was the age at which fame and money arrived. On the other hand, although I’m sure there are legions of examples of old fools and their money, being struck with sudden wealth in old age strikes me as a very nice thing.
I suppose it depends on why you’re crying.
If you’re crying because you thought material things like the Jaguar would bring you happiness, you may not be any better off crying your tears in the Jag than the person crying in the bus because he can’t afford a car.
But, if you’re crying because of some tragedy in your life, crying in the Jag means that you have a comfortable, quiet, relatively private place to experience your grief, which probably is better than doing so in a noisy public setting like a bus. As others have said, money does provide options for dealing with what comes as part of life.
Keeping an older Jaguar XJ6 running does take a considerable amount of baling wire and ingenuity (part of why used jaguars of the day were so inexpensive to buy). My first luxury car was a 1986 Series III XJ6 that I bought in the early 1990’s. But since I am not mechanically capable, I had to pay for its maintenance and repairs, which is why I didn’t keep it long. Boy was it a blast to drive, though.
A friend who also had a Series III XJ6 and was somewhat more mechanically capable than I was sometimes used my car as a reference when he was trying to figure something out on his. We would have quite the symphony going when we had both of them purring away in the driveway, both emitting the unique engine sounds that Jaguars of that era did.
Yeah, starting with that jag (83) I went on to buy three others, two more Xj6 ( one vandan plas) and one XJS my daughter drove in college. But now I’m a bit too old to climb under a 4000 Lb Kitty, so I don’t have any Jags now.
I never took any to a mechanic for repairs except the XJS, and it was sickening what it cost. I never understood that because parts were not so expensive, and repairs were generally easier than on the various Detroit metal I have tinkered with, but you pay for the name, I guess.
A friend asked me if he should get a used Jag. I said, only if you are going to fix it yourself.
He didn’t.
Better still to be laughing on a bus than crying in a Jag.
I love the demotivational posters from Despair, Inc! There are so many I like, but my personal favorite:
HA!
My personal favorite is “ Government: If you think the problems we created are bad, just wait until you see our solutions .”
Here are the ones I’ve previously uploaded to Ricochet …