is what came to mind
after writing yesterday’s post.
I have often – by which I mean more than one time but not
incessantly – thought about immigrants.
Not necessarily the immigrants of today but the immigrants like my
grandparents who arrived here at the turn of the twentieth century, and in a similar context, myself, who immigrated
to this great country on April the Twelfth, 1974, a date rivaling in importance
December the 7th 1941, but with considerably less infamy.
Yes, I too was an immigrant.
Leading me to ponder during a recent conversation the fundamental difference
between “The People Who Leave” and “The People
Who Don’t.” Overhearing my pondering, a fellow immigrant, not of the inter-country variety but the “inter-state” – having moved from Minnesota to Seattle Washington, observed that when he went “home” he noticed a characteristical distinction between the migrational contingent and the ones who stayed put.
Who Don’t.” Overhearing my pondering, a fellow immigrant, not of the inter-country variety but the “inter-state” – having moved from Minnesota to Seattle Washington, observed that when he went “home” he noticed a characteristical distinction between the migrational contingent and the ones who stayed put.
I cannot quote the man verbatim, as at the moment he spoke I
had no plans to appropriate his observations.
Which is a shame, became he put it considerably better than I am about
to.
People who stay – I now paraphrase his insightfulness – are
more cautious and considerate; people who leave are more adventuresome, but
they’re a pain in the ass.
I left. And I acknowledge, not entirely comfortably,
that the adjectives describing the “leavers” pretty much personally apply. The second “descriptive” is not a giant
surprise. “Pains in the ass” are inveterate
complainers, which generally defines
why they are pains in the ass.
“I hate winter!” “Canadian television is too limiting!”
I am sure I whined both
of those things. On numerous
occasions. “Complaining”,
characteristically, is me. And I believe
that it ultimately helped me to move. So
never say complaining is all bad. That
would make you a complainer about complaining.
Meaning you are no different that I am.
So there.
As for the other
descriptive, I never thought of
myself as “adventuresome.” But in retrospect,
I must have been. Or I’d be in Toronto and not here. Not that, as Seinfeld said about gayness, there is anything wrong with that. Though I’d be suffering through months of
frigidity, disappointed career aspirations and, for a number of years, an embarrassing mayor.
Contracting my overall self-perception, I can recall
specific examples of being brave. I have mentioned the story of how, when the
confirmation of my temporary work permit had not arrived at the Toronto Airport
Immigration Checkpoint, I forced a burly American Immigration Officer –
carrying an enormous firearm – to a nearby payphone, to speak to a
California-based Immigration Official I had called up – there were no cell
phones back then – so he could instruct the Toronto
Officer to allow me to proceed legally onto the plane.
That was plenty
brave. “Racing-into-traffic-to-rescue-your-child”
brave, only in this case, the child in question was my embryonic career.
That, you will agree, was brave. Won’t you?
Well, it was certainly brave for me.
I was also brave
when I was rejected the invitation to move to New York to work on the inception
of Saturday Night Live, jettisoning
the only person who had given me work to that juncture and facing the daunting
prospect of my navigating my career in Hollywood on my own.
I was brave on certain other
occasions as well, like when I said “Yes” to an opportunity when I could more
comfortably have said “No.” (Note: I am restricting my examples to the work-related arena; there were a handful
of personal braveries as well. Or, more accurately, a couple of fingers’
full.)
And then at some point, nearing the end of my career, I
apparently – and inconveniently…
Ran entirely out of gutsiness.
After three decades of comparative clear sailing, things
started to get harder. The offers dried
up, my “spec” pilots and screenplays were unilaterally rejected, my agent,
realizing he was extremely wealthy, retired…
And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the ball game.
Unlike during earlier stages in my career when I ignored
them, I took a look at the formidable obstacles that confronted me, and I ran
out of… the stuff that I needed to empower myself to take them on. I had, it appeared, reached the end point of
my “Gutsy.”
And that’s when I realized – well not at that precise moment,
but at some point down the line… that your “Gutsiness Quotient” – like your talent,
like your timing, your good fortune, among countless other continua (the Latin
plural of “continuum”) – can be identifiably designated along, in this case,
“The Gutsiness Continuum”, pinpointing your position somewhere between curling up
permanently into a ball and… I don’t know, telling Donald Trump you are cutting
his previously agreed-upon classical piano solo out of your television
show. (And who knows, there may be even gutsier actions than that. Involving a lion, a bullwhip and a chair, but
that’s about it.)
Call it the “Gunfighter Mentality.” I do. Because, like the “quick draw” specialist who
believes he’s the fastest, whatever personal characteristic, aptitude or ability
you can think of, there is always somebody out there who’s “faster.” (And also, following the “Gunfighter
Analogy”, slower. Which should make you
feel better, but it usually doesn’t.)
You can motivationally push yourself beyond your statistical
limit. You can intentionally restrict
yourself and undershoot. But there is
indisputably only one
“Fastest Gunfighter” out there. (And that position is temporary.) The rest of us are reliably somewhere along that line.
I can more of less live with the fact that I am not the most
talented.
That I am not the gutsiest – or more specifically not as
gutsy and I may have wanted to be…
That one, I am still working on.
1 comment:
There are bold writers and old writers, but no bold old writers?
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