The Treadmill of Life
I was listening to WHAT THE FUCK with Marc Maron and his guest was actor Bryan Cranston. A very talented actor from Malcom in the Middle and the current star of Breaking Bad. Marc asked how he got into acting and if it was something he always wanted to do. He talked about how he was 23 when he dedicated his life to become a professional actor and for 2 years prior to that he was in police school to become a cop. He eventually switched to theater because “the girls in acting classes were cuter than girls in police acadamy.” and then he delivered a brilliant quote:
“My entire life’s path was chartered by the libido of a 17 year old boy.”
I thought about it and I related so much. My much less compelling story:
When I was 17 in high school. I started making videos for our high school TV station. A friend and I had all sorts of funny ideas, and we kept telling our friends who were in the class. They got annoyed and asked us to just join ourselves. We talked to the teacher who let us in with special permission because we didn’t have any pre requisites. We got into class started doing all these funny videos. Meanwhile. My whole life path was a blur at that point. I had no idea what I wanted to do. All I knew is I was about to graduate without good enough grades to legitimately get into a real 4 year school. I had toured a couple community colleges and didn’t really like what I saw. I was not really that excited about the next phase of my life. Discussing this and similar situations of unrealistic expectations with my friend CJ has enlightened me to his phrase “the treadmill of life.” You go to college, you pick a degree, you marry a broad, you have 4 kids and you live a miserable fucking life. Just like your parents did and their parents did. You do not break the cycle. This is what is supposed to be.
All of a sudden things started changing in high school. I was becoming somewhat well known through the TV show. I had fans. I knew I liked entertaining people. I was brand new to making videos but I liked it. That would be something cool to do. There was a girl I had a crush on. She was going to Art Institute of Seattle for Fashion Design. I heard about this school and I heard they had a video production program. BOOM. It was destiny. I would go to this school also
Would you put this kid in charge of your life?
. I would convince said girl to fall in love with me. I’d become a famous movie director or something and make millions and have 8 babies in a mansion.
Well. Things didn’t quite work out as the original plan intended. but the point is. I followed her to this school. My life decision was based on a girl who never paid me attention and who I thought would go for me because she was in an abusive relationship and I was a *nice guy*If I don’t go to film school who knows. Maybe I don’t exercise my creative energies and I don’t become a comedian one day.
Trippy. but it’s small things like this that in a weird way give me hope and confidence that it may just end up all right.
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This is a collection of photos from during high school. This collage was used for my first forray into online dating. Hotornot.com. I remember averaging a score in the high 7’s to 8’s. Obviously a flawed system. and that’s me at prom with a girl who was way too cute for me back then.
