What makes any one individual more or less likely to succeed when there is so much talent swimming around us? For the red carpet portion of the SNL 40thanniversary, Will Ferrell was asked what he thinks about the last 40 years ofSNL, and he said he thinks about how random it all is. He says it’s all chance and muses about a sketch he created and how he thought it was mediocre, but it became THE sketch that SNL showed of him for all of their publicity spots. There’s no other format that exists now that would provide the platform for such success in modern culture and society. Yet, he says it was just a rag tag team of people who convinced a producer to let them right their own show. This is so important.
I want to write my own show. My timing is not the best though. Actually, my timing is pretty much the worst, which from what I gather is my biggest weakness. But if a bunch of screw-offs with comedic talent can write their own ticket to being celebrated and loved and changing culture on a mass scale over the last 40 years, then why can’t I? I am a person, with raw talent and a drive to succeed just like them. I am no different than the famous people whose name everyone knows, other than there are not nearly as many cameras pointed at me and no one knows my name…yet.
Famous figures stumbled into their roles. Richard Avedon practically tripped into Harper’s Bazaar and got a life long career out of it as one of the most notable fashion photographers in history. David LaChapelle painted a room a solid bright color and shot a notable celebrity and vundebar, his notoriety precludes him. David Choe paints Facebooks’s headquarters in the beginning and takes stock options as payment…that are now worth $200M. So, is it a matter of social presence? Is it dumb luck or flexibility? Is it a matter of nagging those around you and crying like a child and showing everyone your work that will even feign a glance?
I read something recently, though I cannot recall where, about how any self-respecting creative professional shouldn’t go to potential employers or independent contractors showing their wares to get a handout. Rather, we should do what we love and do it well and do it very, very often to the point where the volume and quality of our work is unable to be ignored. In short, don’t go to them. Be who you are and do it so well that you have to fend off their offers with a stick.
I know that I am passionate. I know that I love what I do and revel in my own creation. It seems, in this moment, all that I lack is proliferous production. But how does one produce prolifically if one does not have the time or venture capital to begin or the audience to create reciprocal income for reinvestment and growth? Those pesky groceries need buying. So I need to make the money somewhere and customer service doesn’t exactly offer efficiency in the usage of my time.
Here’s the thing. I don’t want to be famous. I don’t want to be rich. I just want to do what I love. Doesn’t everyone? But I don’t want the money for random crap I don’t need. I think the Buddhists have it right about living minimally, though they are presenting it for a different cultural value than I am. I live in an apartment right now. I have a friend who bought a house recently and I watch how much of his time is sucked up with general maintenance. Mowing the lawn, renovating, and repairs. Sure, there are those that enjoy that type of work and enjoy it passionately, just like I enjoy my ability to create. But for those that don’t enjoy that type of work, myself included, what a waste of life that is. Furthermore, speaking of large liabilities, while my initial career path was pushing me toward exterior auto body design, I couldn’t think of a larger waste of money and time than our vehicles. The time, the maintenance, the initial cost, the long term cost. Nothing about our vehicles lends to improving our lives other than the time that is saved transporting us from A to B. Perhaps this will improve with the introduction and public acceptance of alternative fuels. Lastly, I cannot fathom people that pay for storage spaces. You’ve accumulated so many things, that you never use, that just sit there and take up space, that you need to purchase extra space and incur an extra expense to store all your useless crap. Bravo, consumerism, and marketing, for brainwashing the psychologically weak public into thinking our self-worth is measured by the amount of crap we have.
No, I don’t want the money or the useless crap that money buys me. I want the time that money buys me. I see and hear so many others around me discussing 401(k) plans and retirement and debating about social security and whether our generation will even have the privilege of cashing in on all this. Everyone is looking forward to the end of their lives. This is so disturbing to me. Why would you spend the next 60 years working daily at a job you hate in a situation that makes you feel hopeless and lost just to have the last 20 years of your life be semi-ok, maybe, if the economy doesn’t crash by that point or if the US doesn’t become a police state or adopt a Fascist government?
I want every day of my entire life to be exorbitantly better than the wildest dreams of the retirees that will probably never see their goal. So I strive to make money efficiently and maintain focus while life inevitably gets in the way.
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