Take a bright, talented Baby Boomer, give him a couple of college degrees, a set of overprotective parents and a fear of success, and you`ve got a Hamlet.
Hamlets are overthinkers who underachieve, and you probably know at least one.
They are the ultimate anti-yuppies. You`ll find them in the slow lane, in coffee shops and bookstores and hiding out in graduate school.
At the workplace you`ll most likely find them in low-stress jobs and
”anyplace without a dress code,” says Andrew Goldblatt, a former Hamlet who used to wear running shoes and jeans to work when he was an undergraduate assistant at the University of California at Berkeley-a job for which he was overqualified.
”Now I`ve written a book,” says Goldblatt, 32. ”This was my own personal escape from the Hamlet syndrome.”
Written with Adrienne Miller, a lecturer in the rhetoric department at UC Berkeley, ”The Hamlet Syndrome” (William Morrow, $17.95) will be published later this month.
A non-practicing lawyer
”What got us started was a 1987 study about Berkeley grads,” says Miller, 36, a classic Hamlet who got her law degree but never practiced, choosing a part-time, nontenured teaching career instead.
”We found out that 38 percent of them wound up in downwardly mobile jobs or unemployed. And this was Berkeley, one of the best schools in the country.”
Miller and Goldblatt thought about the people they socialize with.
Torn between idealism and monetary success, they either stayed in low-paying jobs or shifted gears so often they lost sight of their goals.
”Hamlets are generally not fulfilled by their work, but considering the alternatives-which is to join mainstream society-they stay put,” Goldblatt says.
”We knew so many people like this that we knew we were onto something, but we didn`t have a clever name for it.”
They thought about the prince of Denmark. ”It made sense. Like Shakespeare`s character, our Hamlets couldn`t decide what to do, and so they did nothing,” he says.
They`ll talk . . . later
Getting Hamlets to talk about themselves was not easy. They are procrastinators.
”They were difficult to pin down; they didn`t return phone calls,” says Miller, who finally interviewed 150 men and women either in person or through mail-in questionnaires.
”The thing that drove me nuts was when someone would agree to an interview and then give one-word answers, or agree and then renege. But once we gained their trust, they opened up.”
More or less. When asked what they do for a living, Hamlets usually shrug and mumble something vague.
”One of our subjects was so defensive, he mumbled his way through the entire interview; we transcribed the tape for him and asked him to fill in the blanks . . . he never did return the transcript to us,” Goldblatt recalls.
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Given a choice between ”fight, flight and negotiation, the Hamlet flees,” he says.
That seems to hold true in the romance department as well.
Shakespeare`s Hamlet had his Ophelia-a rocky relationship at best-and modern-day Hamlets also tend to have trouble with love.
Soliloquies preferred
”They`re good lovers, but they have trouble finding that special person because they are solitary people by and large,” Goldblatt says.
”Of the six Hamlets we feature prominently in the book, only one has had a long-term relationship.”
Based on 150 interviews with men and women across the country, the authors say there are five types of Hamlets:
– The Hippie: ”He wishes he were still in the `60s. One of our subjects was a very successful attorney and now he plays banjo in a country-western band,” Miller says.
– The ”I Have Not Yet Begun to Fight” Type: ”He`s the one who says,
`If I wanted to I could be a success, but I don`t really want to, but on the other hand, I`ve never really tried,` ” Miller says.
– The Artist: ”He takes a menial job, but his identity is really in his art-like the cabdriver who writes plays based on the kinds of people he picks up,” Miller says.
– The Perpetual Student: ”He stays in grad school forever,” says Goldblatt.
Ex-monk, ex-etc.
Of all the Hamlets they met, the authors` favorite is Antonio, a Panamanian-born ex-monk, ex-accountant harpsichord player who is in graduate school in the San Francisco Bay area earning his degree in music.
”He was totally confused about his life,” says Miller.
”He was 40 and not in the mainstream. But did he want to be? He said it was tempting, but he couldn`t make up his mind.”
There is Maxine, now in library school, who spent the better part of her 20s trying to avoid a career.
”She traveled, she worked at a string of classic Hamlet-type clerical jobs and wound up going back to grad school,” Goldblatt says.
There is Jessica, B.A., M.A., Ph.D., who has spent most of her adulthood studying ancient Chinese philosophy.
Until two years ago, she wasn`t at all sure where her extensive education would lead her.
”But she has become one of our success stories. She found a tenure-track position at a Midwestern university,” Goldblatt says.
To thine own self
Hamlets have their reasons for avoiding the real world. ”They won`t accept the package that society has to offer,” Miller says.
”Society needs to integrate them into the system with more job sharing, flextime and part-time work.”
At this point, you might be wondering what`s going on here. Who are these people? Why don`t they grow up?
The book offers no miracle cure.
”Once a Hamlet, Always a Hamlet” is the title of a chapter in the final section of the book.
”But,” says Goldblatt, ”Hamlets can be happier with themselves if they learn to accept their choice to follow their hearts instead of chasing the dollar.” –