Why I do what I do

The Oscars are my Super Bowl. For years, growing up, while other kids would stare in rapt awe at the World Series or Super Bowl and imagine themselves hitting that game winning home run or catching that all important touchdown, I practiced and practiced and practiced my acceptance speech for my Oscar. I was so convinced that I was going to be up there on that stage one day accepting my award that I never bothered to ask the question of what it was that I hoped I would actually receive. Accolades? Acceptance? Large monetary rewards? Self-esteem? I so accepted the knowledge that I would be there, that it was somehow a fait d'accompli, that I never actually paused and asked myself why it was so important to me.

There have been a few setbacks along the way. For one thing, I'm not nearly as talented as I once thought. Somehow I've fallen off the peak that rested above Shakespeare, Walt Disney, and George Lucas and below God as the ultimate human author and I've tumbled past most of the great writers, film makers, and story tellers to a much more attainable plateau. Reality has played a large part in my new found humbleness. But the larger part has come about because of the inevitable delay in reaching these heights - somewhere along the way, when I thought I was lost, I discovered that I was really looking for something other than the summit of human achievement. The time spent NOT winning Oscars made me realize that I never really wanted an Oscar in the first place.

I think we all want our lives to have some significance. We want to do something that changes the world for the better. And, of course, we want to be acknowledged for the things we do. This was at the core of my wanting to win an Oscar - because in telling stories I found my true calling and there was no better way of being signified as a master storyteller in this American society than in winning an Oscar, being a best-selling writer, and then opening your own theme park. Yes, I wanted all three. I wanted to be such a good writer that people would run out of words to describe how good I was. A million Oscars weren't going to be enough. No. I pretty much wanted them to retire the award when I was done.

But wishes aren't enough. Dreams aren't enough. Talent isn't even enough. There is also desire. And desire is fueled by accomplishment. I could never quite get my stories up to the level where I knew they needed to be in order to be the Greatest EVER! My desire started to flag. My talent stopped developing. My dreams remained dreams. My wishes changed into more attainable common place things.

But I never gave up. Honestly, I couldn't. I never chose to be a writer. Writing chose me. It just happened to match the way that I see the world. Like a musician can never stop hearing the world as music and the artist can never stop seeing the world as art, the writer can never stop describing the world in words and stories. And so, here I was, writing and writing and writing without any hope of ever achieving impossible goals that I'd set for myself. And that was when I started asking the big question - why, exactly, am I doing this?

Though writing is one of the most solitary art forms, it requires participation to make it complete. A writer is nothing without a reader. This symbiotic relationship forms the basis for all writing decisions - will the story I tell be met with approval? Can I entertain another human being? Can I make them laugh? Cry? Shout for joy? Think? Change the world? While I had initially hoped for accolades, what I realized was that the true thing that I was hoping to do was simply tell good stories and have people enjoy them. Period. End of sentence. Nothing so mundane as making a good product that people enjoy and embrace and that hopefully moves them or helps them or teaches them or simply makes them forget their problems for a moment. Once I realized this, my focus changed and I started working on projects where the outcome was simply to produce something that someone else could enjoy. In this change of direction, I found success.

And yes, I even had my Oscar moment. It was sitting in a church social hall with about forty other people while my movie played on a screen for them to enjoy. My words made them laugh. My words kept them enthralled. My acting drove them to reach for the barf bags - or laugh as hard as I did when I first saw something so horribly awful. That was my Oscar moment. That was my highest accolade.

I will achieve another milestone this year. I wrote a play. Somewhat. It is a dramatic retelling of the Last Supper. My church will be performing it on Palm Sunday. We start rehearsals in a week. I am like a kid in a candy store waiting to hear others perform my words. I don't care how they do it (that's why I'd be a terrible director). I just want to hear my words move others. If it's good, so much the better. But just hearing the words spoken out load will be all the accolade I ask for. That is why I do what I do.

Notes from the Road - Day Two - Karibu Nairobi

Back in the day we flew Lufthansa to Europe and back and I got used to a type of air travel that I’ve not experienced since. I’m crammed into my window seat next to a nice German couple no doubt heading off to Safari. Good for them. Africa needs tourism. Sitting in the row in front of me is a young man heading off on a six month stint with Doctors Without Borders. Outstanding. Half of the 400+ people on this plane are missionaries of one sort or the other. Are the do-gooders descending en mass? The plane is full. The service is excellent. I don’t think it’s providence. KLM restores my faith in flying.

Shortly after take off we were handed pretzels and I was not impressed until I realized that they were earphones for our personal seat units. These wonderful devices allow 400+ passengers to watch 400+ individual programs. I saw The Hangover and about 3/4^ths of Star Trek. What I really wanted to see was Europe, The Med, and Africa from my window seat, but the glare from the window kept the German couple from seeing their TV screens – so a once in a lifetime view was replaced with mindless Hollywood entertainment.

We were served dinner. It was a salad and cheese and crackers and a dinner roll with butter and a crème puff pastry dessert with some sort of penne pasta dish as the main course. Wine was served with the meal at no extra charge.

And then the long hours of the flight. I was able to look down over Libya as they served the meal. At last, Africa from the air. Vast empty stretches of desert with long straight caravan lines running from one oasis to the next. Little puffy clouds hovered over it all giving the countryside the look of a Cheetah’s skin. But the window closed, and I tried to close my eyes as I passed the 24 hour point of the journey. I wasn’t able to find a comfortable position, even to shut my eyes. My legs were cramping up and I just wanted off that plane.

Thankfully the ice cream arrived just after that. It was just enough. I put on Star Trek then to distract me for the last three hours of the flight. Right before it ended, they served some sort of breakfast thingy and I decided that I wasn’t hungry. I’d had enough for now.

We landed and taxied to the terminal and there at the end of the jetway was Silas Muriuki and his “bodyguard”, Martin. Martin lead us through customs and into baggage claim. As soon as I was through customs he gave me a hug and said, “Jambo! Karibu Nairobi,” which means, Hello, Welcome to Nairobi. Martin is one of those nice guys, flash of a smile, that would look good equally on the dance floor or in the middle of a riot. About three months before our arrival, Silas and Martin drove into the middle of just such a riot – between enraged taxi drivers and embattled police. I can see Silas’s fearlessness. He is a true believer. And with Martin at his side, he might be invincible.

After getting most of our luggage and managing to cram it into two or three vehicles, we finally left the airport and took a bewildering tour through the nighttime streets of Nairobi. Picture the traffic of New York in a quaint New England town. It was bedlam at 10pm.

Two things of note here. The police carry fully automatic machine guns. I saw at least one AK-47. Second, their word is law. They pulled us over at one of the many neighborhood checkpoints and I was sure that bribes were going to be asked. But once again, Martin to the rescue, and we took off without so much as a hiccup. This is an unfortunate truth about this country and it helps to keep everything else in perspective.

At last, the Methodist Guest House and a rather nice, if spartan, room. It’s stifling hot. We go to a late dinner. A really delicious soup and potatoes and various Nyomi Choma meats – lots of chicken and beef. Rice. My appetite has returned and I nosh. But then its off to bed – finally – after 30+ hours awake.

Notes From The Road - One Year Ago Today

Who flies first class to Minneapolis? No, really. I started this journey with a somewhat facetious question. Our flight from SFO to Minn. Departs at 6:25am. It is half full. And yet, as we board, we walk right past an entirely full first class section. In this day and age of so many economic challenges, first class travel seems like such a wasteful luxury. These people have not only thrown away the extra money on first class, they’ve done so on first class tickets to Minneapolis. Nothing against this great Minnesota city, but that’s a little like taking the Rolls Royce to go buy groceries. It is a fitting indictment of everything I find wrong with America right now.

That’s America – with a Capital A – as in the country, the culture, and not its people or its spirit or its way. America is lost. We have been seduced by greed and wealth and ignorance. We have come to accept propaganda as truth. We have bought into the notion that we are deserving of our place in history as the World’s masters. Such hubris has always lead to destruction. The blood of patriots will have to be spilled again, I think, to refresh this tree of liberty.

But I think there is nothing wrong with America that Americans can’t fix. We’ve been in some pretty tough scrapes before but our love for truth, equity, and decency has always won out in the end. We will recover. We always do.

Staring out over a field of vast clouds, 36,000 feet in the air, and I can’t help but thinking that could be Africa down there. It hits me then. I’m going to Africa.

Africa – the legendary place of so much adventure. It’s very thought conjures up images of crocodile infested waters, strange and wondrous creatures, vast untamed wilderness, cultures ancient and exotic. It looks different and smells different and sounds different. It is half way around the world from me in every way imaginable. And I’m going there. I’m walking there. I’m sleeping there. I’m eating there. This isn’t a snippet of Africa like something out of Animal Kingdom. This is the full fledged experience.

In Minnesota, it is snowing and 30 degrees out. I manage to find an Arby’s for lunch and have a Bleu Cheese and Roast Beef sandwich. I don’t know when I’ll get another American meal. Before I know it, we’re boarding our flight to Amsterdam. There is a large group of college kids from Saskatchewan here heading to Nairobi. They take up the three rows in front of me. But sparingly, I’m once again next to no one. Breathing room is so necessary. For dinner, they serve some sort of veggie pasta dish. It is filling if not exactly thrilling.

Our individual TV sets go out, but that’s fine. My brain is starting to fog over with fatigue. I try to read one of the books I brought with me. But I don’t get very far. As the flight nears its end they serve us some sort of breakfast croissant thingy. It’s barely edible, but it does keep the hunger pangs away.

Tomorrow

Just to let you all know, tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of the day I left for Kenya. So in honor of this auspicious event and as a tribute to the group that flies out of here tomorrow to return to Kenya this year, I will be posting my journal entries from my Trip Journal during the course of the next three weeks. Of course, I never finished writing everything. I think I managed about seven or eight days of journal. But so many things happened in those first eight days, you'll have to forgive me if I ran out of time to write them all. I was too busy living them.

Anyway, come back tomorrow and relive the experience... starting with a 25+ hour plane trip.