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.