The agony of watching friends succeed

I’ve just had the first sign that things are going back to normal — and that I’m going back to normal, too. I was suddenly struck by a feeling I’ve not had since the first lockdown last March; a feeling writers and journalists know all too well. Literary envy.

Whatever your profession, envy is something we all know. A colleague’s promotion or a friend’s pay increase prompts that inner voice of brattish resentment. Envy is the herpes of competitive capitalism — it disappears from view and just when you think it’s gone for good, up it pops.

But envy hasn’t had much of a chance to surface during lockdown. Everyone’s career in the so-called creative industries has been put on hold. And we’ve been too worried about the state of the world to talk about that most beloved topic of creative people: our careers.

So I was surprised by my sudden attack of envy.