Bree Stilwell

I too was charmed by Alcott’s combination of humility, self-mastery, honesty and magnanimity, but there was something else that caught my attention—a glimmer of a different magic entirely.

Who was this young LMA wannabe, and how completely bold was she for asking one of the most famed and popular authors alive, female or otherwise, for advice? For help??

I pretty immediately thought about another piece I recently read about the advantage, both to the intellect and to the soul, in writing ‘fan letters’ to folks who’s work you admire and aspire to. Was it you ? ?! (Ermph. Can’t find it for the life of me. If anyone can take credit or triangulate toward, coffee’s on me.)

The mechanism of the fan letter in this particular case was one by which the fan-writer connects in gratitude with the admired-writer, in a kind of good-karma-chain-letter situation (if I’m remembering it correctly, which I’m probably not, likely leading to the exact opposite result of what I’m describing here).

I’ve written to a personal hero or several in my time, and I can attest to the deeper value of the fan letter exercise. And it’s a potential two-parter; one being the clarity one gains around why something or someone hits in a big way for you, and second, creating the possibility of a longer conversation, some level of partnership or collaboration, or, as with the LMA/Young Writer Lass exchange, a professional networking perk. Perhaps even a career-changing one.

I reconnected with that concept for a beat and then came back around to what I felt was really the most fascinating bit of Elif’s original piece, subliminal and hiding beneath a few of the more obvious (and still insightful, of course) layers.

The thing that really impressed me, and continues to as I write this, is that this young lady asked for help. Not only, actually… she also went so far as to ask for help from a renowned authority and likely someone she revered a great deal.

It wasn’t particularly surprising to me that Alcott would respond to any promising young writer the way in which she did in this example, particularly one who seemed ‘to have got on well so far,’ and who’s stories were ‘better than many.’

By all accounts, Louisa was both tender-hearted and fiercely industrious, a rebel and a homebody.

In “Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father”, biographer John Matteson described Louisa May this way:

“Though she craved success and adulation, she also spurned the fawning attentions of celebrity seekers, preferring the company of nature and her close-knit family.”

It tracks that she would share a vulnerability with this young woman, as well as whatever objective instruction she believed would prove helpful.

But what about the younger, not yet famed, not yet established writer who shelved her insecurities in order to reap only potential, and highly improbable, benefits?

There’s of course so much we don’t know about Young Writer Lass; she could’ve had some direct party line to Alcott, assuaging any fears of hardcore rejection; maybe the general public knew more about LMA’s generosities with the younger generation of writers than we do. Maybe that was her thing.

Maybe. But likely not.

What IS clear is that our aspiring writer asked for help, something we modern Americans completely suck at doing. And it’s our own damn fault.

Our democracy is literally borne from exploratory cravings for independence, autonomy and individualism. Our common cultural identity is deeply rooted in both the escape from authority and the claiming of self-determination.

Whether or not you regularly connect with your own internal jingoist, deeply feel and/or exercise patriotism toward these united states and their history, or eschew altogether, as an American citizen living in 2024 (or a global one, really) you’re likely just as influenced by what the writer Brad Stuhlberg has named heroic individualism. 1

In his (highly recommended) book The Practice of Groundedness, Stuhlberg gives definition to our collective penchant for going-it-alone, explaining it as an

‘ongoing game of oneupmanship against both self and others, where measurable achievement is the main arbiter of success and self-worth.’

In other words, and pursuant to my point here, we’ve been ingrained, encouraged over generations, continually rewarded for this dedication to individual achievement, and, while we’re at it, refusing to ask anyone else for help in getting there.

There are exceptions of course, always; I’m painting in broad strokes to make a point. But think about it. If you’re at all inclined toward making good on a greater purpose, or have goals of any size and shape really, you’ve likely tried to do so without the request of assistance, and/or only eventually relented to ask for help but under duress, perhaps accompanied by feelings of shame, embarrassment, reluctance… as a last and non-ideal resort.

Ironic this. How completely together we are in our aloneness.

I’m as guilty of this as anyone, a recidivist offender. I hate, HATE, asking for help. Literally detest the concept and the action; the latent meaning assumed by the helper, the emotional implications in being the one helped. I’ve got some early learned experience to thank for this, in addition to what I’ve picked up through societal norms, but I’d argue we all do.

There’s a regurgitation at work here, and it’s not helping us help ourselves.

Let’s be inspired by Louisa May Alcott’s generosity of spirit then, and also, by the temerity, the chutzpah, of our young writer. It seems to me that she was vibrating at a higher frequency of self-determination than is our average these days—a leveling-up in historical reverse, from our current reliance only our ourselves when there is so much more to be gained from going at it together.

I’ll be doing some homework on this, and would love a little company. Who can and will you ask for help? With the dishes, with the career change you’ve been avoiding for years (once nagging, now screaming), with getting out of your house/routine/doldrums, with your marriage, your creative ideas, that lamp you love that remains unwired and unusable?

We can still be individuals, on our own paths and powered by our own ambitions. We can even be heroic.

But let’s be heroes both for and WITH each other, and by asking for the help we need and deserve.