I came across one of those list articles on the internet “revealing” six historical figures that lived much of their lives celibate (by choice). Part of me wondered if they were only celibate from the ladies (wink, wink). With examples like Hayden and the guy who wrote Peter Pan, it isn’t that far of a stretch of the imagination, but as I read further, I came across Ghandi, Nickolai Tesla, and Sir Isaac Newton. Tesla viewed sex as a “drain on creativity”, valuing his work over the marriage and family. As I read, I remembered an article in Blender where Rivers Cuomo (lead singer of the band Weezer) talked briefly about his more than two-and-a-half year vow of celibacy (which is no small feat for a rock star, I’m sure), which he did for meditation and creative reasons.
Here I am, celibate, young, and creative, and yet I spend almost every evening staring at an empty Word document for hours before giving up and going to bed. Seriously. I don’t have a wife/kids/girlfriend/boyfriend/California-domestic-partner to take up my time and energy. I’m not actively pursuing any of the above, yet I find myself devoting hours of effort into writing and creating only to end up with virtually nothing at the other end.
If sexlessness were the key to great thinking, one would assume I would have a couple of PhDs, a successful string of novels, and my own humor column in the New Yorker by now, yet here I sit in my inadequately air-conditioned studio apartment in the south with a hard drive full of empty .doc files.
I blame my nemesis.
To be honest, I don’t think my nemesis even knows that he is my nemesis. To be more honest, I’m really not even on his radar. While I was in college, I was selected by the faculty to direct a short under the guidance of a famous TV director (well, the director wasn’t famous, but the TV shows he directed were famous). The script that was selected was written by another student. He was also made a producer on the short. (For those that don’t know, in television producer > director.) I read through the script and groaned. While I liked the premise, I hated just about every part of the execution. The dialogue was unrealistic, the humor was inconsistent, the pacing of the script was abysmal. I took out my pen and went to work rewriting. By the time I was finished the pages ran red with my notes. Some pages were even completely crossed out.
At our first pre-pro meeting, we went over my notes for the script. The first one I presented was completely shot down by my nemesis. So was the second…and the third. Realizing that none of my notes were going to fall on willing ears, I threw them out and decided to shoot the script as is.
It was an uphill battle for a while. I was cowed by the producers into casting an actor that I thought was terrible (who happened to be good friends of my nemeis), the semi-famous director was unable to teach the class due to a death in the family, and I faced constant criticism from my director of photography. I eventually felt vindicated, however. The fill-in instructor (who generally liked my work) suggested we drastically cut down a scene and in the edit we essentially removed the lines from the pages that I had thrown out earlier. When the movie was reviewed by the student newspaper, my direction was applauded (which is funny as I realize now how terrible it was), and the criticisms the reviewer made of the script also reflected my ignored notes.
We graduated and I took a job with a production company in the southeast while my nemesis moved to LA. We kept in touch off and on – each comparing accomplishments. He was mostly doing production assistant work for various TV shows while I worked on regional commercials – usually as the editor, but in other capacities as well. At the end of last year, I was able to work as the 2nd Assistant Director (a title that sounds more important than it actually is) on a cable TV show in LA and I figured I had him beat for a while. I ended up hating the job, however, and decided that I wanted to start moving my career into online content production – both written and video. No matter how hard I tried to concept an idea for a site or even to write portfolio-building articles on my regular blog, I usually ended up with frustrated attempts and abandoned sites. My friends that often tell me I need to write a book only exacerbate the problem as I am unable to finish even the shortest of stories.
Recently, I heard the writer/producer interviewed on NPR. NP-freaking-R. A stunt for the comedy website that he and his friends had started had gotten him into the Guiness Freaking Book of World Freaking Records. A couple of days ago I saw that the podcast segment of the site was in the Top 100 on iTunes. I’ve always considered myself more talented than him. My ideas were simply better and I wasn’t the only one that thought so, but as I sit in front of yet another blank Word document, I realized that my nemesis has something that I don’t have. Whatever it is, it allows him to take his tired, mediocre concepts and turn them into something that gains national attention.
I’m the one that is celibate. I’m the one that has long lonely evenings in which I can churn out the worlds next great novel. I’m the one. When is this lack of doing it going to get me some talent? Without it, I’m just a penniless twenty-six year old sitting on his cheap Ikea couch without the possibility of getting laid.
(sigh)
In the end, I’m happy for him. In reality he isn’t the talentless hack I sometimes wish him to be. My frustration actually comes from jealousy. When I look at my life and wonder how I will make an impression or am I doomed to be a forgotten terminating branch on someone’s pedigree chart? Some thirteen year old boy scout who is earning a genealogy merit badge will ask his mom a hundred years from now if I was a baby that died in child birth, but after checking, she’ll see that no, I actually lived to be quite old, however there wasn’t any record of me getting married or having any children. I guess I am hoping to fill my life with something that people might remember me by – even if it is someone who picks up some random book in a library. If I can’t have the one, I should be able to have the other, right? Maybe not. God doesn’t care about whether our name becomes a byline. All He cares about is that we learn to love others and find our way back to Him. It’s by service to others that we find the fulfillment that we seek. If it can’t be our family, then it should be those around us who need our help and our talents (which is the real reason that we have them). Still, NPR….
Tesla, you suck.