In one episode of The Simpsons, a missile with a nuclear warhead attached is accidentally fired at Springfield. The missile heads down Main Street, and we get a missile’s eye view of its path. We see the Comic Book Guy crossing the street with an armful of – what else? – comic books. As the missile homes in on him, as Springfield and its denizens are about to disappear in a mushroom cloud, the Comic Book Guy stares into the face of his approaching demise and declares, “I have wasted my life!”
Boom!
And that has stuck with me for the last two years. Not the show or the scene, but the words, “I have wasted my life.” Stuck with me because of the incredible amount of time that I have wasted myself. Wasted on stuff that doesn’t matter. Wasted on the trivial and the inane, when the large and the weighty things were all about me. Wasted chasing a middle-class dream that was never mine. Wasted watching vapid TV shows, playing mindless computer games, wasted in pointless arguments that changed nothing, and – worst of all – wasted doing work that I never wanted to do. As Brad Pitt says in Fight Club, TV and advertising have us working at job we don’t like to earn money so we can buy stuff we don’t need. And what a waste!
And I’m as guilty of it as the next person.
I think of Philip K. Dick, for 30 years living in near obscurity and poverty, churning out novels, short stories and essays, one of the most prolific writers, yet fame and recognition evaded him throughout most of his life, and he died thinking he was a failure. What drives a man like that? What keeps him going when everything seems to be telling him to give it up, get a “real” job, become a responsible person, grow up, settle down, and so on and so forth? What separates a Master from the rest of the hoi polloi?
Talent? Sure, but a lot of people have talent. I know lots of musically talented people who don’t become rock stars. So it ain’t just talent. Ambition? Sure, but ambition can only carry just so far. Drive? Maybe. Obsession? Now I think we’re getting closer to it. It seems to me that maybe the thing that keeps someone like PKDick going, when all the odds are against him is obsession, a single-mindedness and a determination to do one thing and to keep doing it no matter what happens, no matter what anyone says, no matter how bad things get or how little money you have.
And do I have that kind of obsession? I fear not. But do I have drive? Enough drive to actually create something, to do something more with my life than go to my mundane job, come home to my mundane house, sit on my spreading ass and watch mindless TV shows until I keel over some day? Do I have enough obsession, not too much, but just enough, to not waste my life?
So what is all of this sudden angst and self-doubt really all about? I’ll be 45 in April. IF I live to be 90, that means my life is already half over! And I have yet to accomplish the thing I wanted to do. And what was this thing? I wanted to be a writer. A novelist. I wanted to write books. I still want to. I’ve started, but I haven’t gotten there yet. I keep letting the middle-class, money-chasing mentality obscure my vision and bog me down. I keep hearing those words ringing in my ears that my ex-wife’s lawyer said about me – that I was “classic under-achiever.” But that was nothing compared to my daughter who told me I was irresponsible. And hearing that one, I thought no I am responsible and I will show you that I am. And so I worked harder, pushing towards something that I didn’t really want, while – as Jackson Browne says – “the ships bearing [my] dreams sail out of sight.” And if that happens, do I too become nothing but the Pretender? Am I the kind of person who sits around saying that they ought to write a book someday, but never gets around to it?
Questions to ponder . . . but not for too long. After all, the clock is ticking.
Boom!
And that has stuck with me for the last two years. Not the show or the scene, but the words, “I have wasted my life.” Stuck with me because of the incredible amount of time that I have wasted myself. Wasted on stuff that doesn’t matter. Wasted on the trivial and the inane, when the large and the weighty things were all about me. Wasted chasing a middle-class dream that was never mine. Wasted watching vapid TV shows, playing mindless computer games, wasted in pointless arguments that changed nothing, and – worst of all – wasted doing work that I never wanted to do. As Brad Pitt says in Fight Club, TV and advertising have us working at job we don’t like to earn money so we can buy stuff we don’t need. And what a waste!
And I’m as guilty of it as the next person.
I think of Philip K. Dick, for 30 years living in near obscurity and poverty, churning out novels, short stories and essays, one of the most prolific writers, yet fame and recognition evaded him throughout most of his life, and he died thinking he was a failure. What drives a man like that? What keeps him going when everything seems to be telling him to give it up, get a “real” job, become a responsible person, grow up, settle down, and so on and so forth? What separates a Master from the rest of the hoi polloi?
Talent? Sure, but a lot of people have talent. I know lots of musically talented people who don’t become rock stars. So it ain’t just talent. Ambition? Sure, but ambition can only carry just so far. Drive? Maybe. Obsession? Now I think we’re getting closer to it. It seems to me that maybe the thing that keeps someone like PKDick going, when all the odds are against him is obsession, a single-mindedness and a determination to do one thing and to keep doing it no matter what happens, no matter what anyone says, no matter how bad things get or how little money you have.
And do I have that kind of obsession? I fear not. But do I have drive? Enough drive to actually create something, to do something more with my life than go to my mundane job, come home to my mundane house, sit on my spreading ass and watch mindless TV shows until I keel over some day? Do I have enough obsession, not too much, but just enough, to not waste my life?
So what is all of this sudden angst and self-doubt really all about? I’ll be 45 in April. IF I live to be 90, that means my life is already half over! And I have yet to accomplish the thing I wanted to do. And what was this thing? I wanted to be a writer. A novelist. I wanted to write books. I still want to. I’ve started, but I haven’t gotten there yet. I keep letting the middle-class, money-chasing mentality obscure my vision and bog me down. I keep hearing those words ringing in my ears that my ex-wife’s lawyer said about me – that I was “classic under-achiever.” But that was nothing compared to my daughter who told me I was irresponsible. And hearing that one, I thought no I am responsible and I will show you that I am. And so I worked harder, pushing towards something that I didn’t really want, while – as Jackson Browne says – “the ships bearing [my] dreams sail out of sight.” And if that happens, do I too become nothing but the Pretender? Am I the kind of person who sits around saying that they ought to write a book someday, but never gets around to it?
Questions to ponder . . . but not for too long. After all, the clock is ticking.
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