- Hard as it may be for those who know me to believe, I
get a lot of phone calls and e-mail and, "Hey, Larry B, can I talk
to you a sec?" stops on the street from people asking for advice.
-
- And, also hard as it may be for those who know me well
to believe, I very seldom give any.
-
- I love the sound of my own voice and the concept of my
own wisdom as much as anyone, but good sense is good sense. It's clear-cut
and easy to recognize. (Except, of course, when it's not.) And good sense
dictates several reasons for this policy.
-
- One reason for this is my aversion to gurus, even if
I'm supposed to be one of them. My experience tells me that no one ever
really learns anything from anyone else. We know what we know because we
discover it for ourselves. All a teacher can do is show the way to the
path of self-discovery.
-
- Another reason I try not to give advice is based on the
fact that I've already got plenty of responsibilities and telling someone
else what to do or how to live makes me feel responsible for the outcome
- if he or she takes the advice - and for the whole rest of that person's
life even if he or she ignores it. (A "You had a chance to help that
man, Larry B. All you had to do was push a little harder!" kind of
thing.)
-
- A third reason is that since I'm the only person I really
understand, and I'm only at the tip of my own particular iceberg to begin
with, how can I presume to tell anyone else anything that would be of true
value? What I say could really mess 'em up, and that's not something I
can live with.
-
- Recently, though, Norma, the daughter of Delly the Interstate
Trucker, got through my defenses. Off she'd gone to college, eager for
the great adventure of higher learning. But what she found - or, maybe,
what she thought she found - was the biggest disappointment of her young
life and sent her skedaddling home.
-
- "The other kids in the dorm weren't there to learn,"
she told her mother. "They were there to party. Everybody was up all
night, carrying on and getting madder and madder at me because I wasn't
joining in. I had to leave school but now what do I do?"
-
- "You could get a job," Delly pointed out.
-
- Norma furrowed her brow. "Doing what? Wasting my
DNA as a clerk? Or a bagger? What's going on in the world? How does anybody
ever achieve anything? How does anybody feel good about themselves?"
-
- And then she looked straight at me. "Waitaminnit,"
Norma said. "You've done it. You've used your God-given talent to
have a career. And you smile and enjoy life. How do you do that? What's
the trick?"
-
- Instead of asking for advice, the young woman was asking
me to tell her something about myself. And if there's one thing I can't
resist, it's the chance to yak on about my virtues.
-
- So I thought about the question. And I replied.
-
- "You're struggling with big issues," I said.
"By their very nature big issues are overwhelming. I acknowledge that
the Big Questions are out there, and I'm always trying to find the answers.
But I don't conduct my life in terms of them. Instead, I break everything
down to its smallest possible piece and work on solving each little mystery,
one at a time.
-
- "All in all, I'd have to say I'm happy because usually
I succeed. And I succeed because I'm pretty happy. I'm proud of myself.
Proud of everything I do, even if it doesn't seem like much to anyone else.
-
- "I say things to myself like, 'Hey, you woke up
this morning! Much better than the alternative. Way to go, Larry B!'
-
- "And, 'You made coffee and didn't set the house
on fire! Good for you. Take a bow, Larry B!'
-
- "And even, 'You didn't fix the fence and the dog
got cut up, but you got to him in time, and you're restringing the wire
now. You've learned your lesson. Nice going, Larry B!' "
-
- To prove my point, I gave myself a little round of applause.
Norma stared. "Um can I say something, Larry B?"
-
- "Sure."
-
- She threw back her shoulders. "I think you're as
crazy as the kids in the dorm."
-
- "You could be right," I replied.
-
- But I said it with pride.
-
-
-
-
- Copyright C 2008 by Larry Brody. All rights reserved.
-
-
- Author Larry Brody's weekly column, LIVE! FROM PARADISE!
appears on his website, www.larrybrody.com. He has written thousands of
hours of network television, and is the author of "Television Writing
from the Inside Out" and "Turning Points in Television."
Brody is Creative Director of The Cloud Creek Institute for the Arts, the
world's first in-residence media colony. More about his activities can
be seen on www.tvwriter.com and www.cloudcreek.org. He welcomes your comments
and feedback at <mailto:LarryBrody@cloudcreek.org>LarryBrody@cloudcreek.org.
Brody, his wife and their dogs, cats, horses and chickens live in Marion
County, Arkansas. The other residents of the mythical town of Paradise
reside in his imagination.
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