Tuesday, September 21, 2004
I just read a wonderful column by Ben Stein. I'm copying it in full below, because I hope it means as much to you as it did to me:
How Can Someone Who Lives in Insane Luxury Be a Starin Today'sWorld?
Lew Harris, who founded this great site, asked me to do it maybe seven or eight years ago, and I loved writing this column so much for so long I came to believe it would never end.
But again, all things must pass, and my column for E! Online must pass. In a way, it is actually the perfect time for it to pass. Lew, whom I have known forever, was impressed that I knew so many stars at Morton's on Monday nights.
He could not get over it, in fact. So, he said I should write a column about the stars I saw at Morton's and what they had to say.
It worked well for a long time, but gradually, my changing as a person and the world's change have overtaken it. On a small scale, Morton's, while better than ever, no longer attracts as many stars as it used to. It still brings in the rich people in droves and definitely some stars.
I've been feeling very discouraged lately. We are getting so much closer to our goal, but it still seems so far away. The hurdles and challenges are surmountable, but I've just felt uninspired to meet them with verve. I've stopped imagining the future and have started up an almost constant self-belittling that is annoying.
Sunday afternoon I took one of our cats to his new home. Thinking back, I had to admit to myself that, though I think of myself as an animal-lover, my record with pets is dismal. I get tired of them and, though I keep them fed and housed, neglect them. I am glad I've found new and better homes for my pets.
Reading the Ben Stein column, I realized though--what he is saying, That is what I want for myself. That is what we are trying to do. Rearrange our lives, challenge ourselves to give more space and time for what is Important. Loving family and friends, having space to do volunteer work and make a difference--if only in loving each other and family a little better. Feeling put-upon and belittling myself doesn't help me get where I'm going and I'm going to put that aside. I can't give love to others if I can't even find it for myself in my own heart.
I'm a brave person and I can get through these days--and maybe even find a way to make them more fun again.
It is not sufficient for religious people to be involved with prayer. Rather, they are morally obliged to contribute all they can to solving the world's problems.-His Holiness the Dalai Lama
¶ 9:59 AM
How Can Someone Who Lives in Insane Luxury Be a Starin Today'sWorld?
I begin to write this, I "slug" it, as we writers say, which means I put a heading on top of the document to identify it. This heading is "eonlineFINAL," and it gives me a shiver to write it. I have been doing this column for so long that I cannot even recall when I started.
Lew Harris, who founded this great site, asked me to do it maybe seven or eight years ago, and I loved writing this column so much for so long I came to believe it would never end.
But again, all things must pass, and my column for E! Online must pass. In a way, it is actually the perfect time for it to pass. Lew, whom I have known forever, was impressed that I knew so many stars at Morton's on Monday nights.
He could not get over it, in fact. So, he said I should write a column about the stars I saw at Morton's and what they had to say.
It worked well for a long time, but gradually, my changing as a person and the world's change have overtaken it. On a small scale, Morton's, while better than ever, no longer attracts as many stars as it used to. It still brings in the rich people in droves and definitely some stars.
I saw Samuel L. Jackson there a few days ago, and wehad a nice visit,and right before that, I saw and had a splendid talkwith Warren Beatty inan elevator, in which we agreed that Splendor in theGrass was a supermovie. But Morton's is not the star galaxy it once was, though it probably will be again.
Beyond that, a bigger change has happened.
I no longer think Hollywood stars are terribly important. They are uniformly pleasant, friendlypeople, and they treat me better than I deserve to betreated. But a man or woman who makes a huge wage formemorizinglines and reciting them in front of a camera is nolonger my idea of ashining star we should all look up to.
How can a man or woman who makes an eight-figure wageand lives in insaneluxury really be a star in today's world, if by a"star" we mean someonebright and powerful and attractive as a role model?
Real stars are not riding around in the backs of limousines, or in Porsches, or getting trained in yogaor Pilates and eating only raw fruit while they have Vietnamese girls do their nails. They can beinteresting, nice people, but they are not heroes tome any longer.
A real star is the soldier of the 4th Infantry Division who poked his head into a hole on a farm near Tikrit, Iraq. He could have been met by a bomb or ahail of AK-47 bullets. Instead, he faced an abject Saddam Hussein and the gratitude of all of the decentpeople of the world.
A real star is the U.S. soldier who was sent to disarma bomb next to aroad north of Baghdad. He approached it, and the bombwent off and killed him. A real star, the kind who haunts my memory night andday, is the U.S. soldier in Baghdad who saw a little girl playing witha piece of unexploded ordnance on a street near where he was guarding astation. He pushed her aside and threw himself on it just as it exploded. He left a family desolate in California and a little girl alive in Baghdad.
The stars who deserve media attention are not the oneswho have lavish weddings on TV, but the ones who patrol the streets ofMosul even aftertwo of their buddies were murdered and their bodies battered and strippedfor the sin of trying to protect Iraqis from terrorists.
We put couples with incomes of $100 million a year onthe covers of our magazines. The noncoms and officers who barely scrapeby on military pay but stand on guard in Afghanistan and Iraq and onships and in submarines and near the Arctic Circle are anonymous as they live and die.
I am no longer comfortable being a part of the system that has such poor values, and I do not want to perpetuate those values by pretending that who is eating at Morton's is a big subject.
There are plenty of other stars in the American firmament....the policemen and women who go off on patrol in South Central and have no idea if they will return alive, The orderlies and paramedics who bringin people who have been in terrible accidents and prepare them for surgery, the teachers and nurses who throw their whole spirits into caring for autistic children, the kind men and women who work in hospices and in cancer wards. Think of each and every fireman who was running up the stairs at the World Trade Center as the towers began to collapse.
Now you have my idea of a real hero. We are notresponsible for the operation of the universe, andwhat happens to us is not terribly important.
God is real, not a fiction, and when we turn over ourlives to Him, He takes far better care of us than wecould ever do for ourselves.
In a word, we make ourselves sane when we fireourselves as the directors of the movie of our lives and turn the power over to Him.
I came to realize that life lived to help others ist he only one that matters. This is my highest and bestuse as a human.
I can put it another way. Years ago, I realized I could never be as greatan actor as Olivier or as good a comic as Steve Martin....or Martin Mullor Fred Willard--or as good an economist as Samuelsonor Friedman oras good a writer as Fitzgerald. Or even remotely close to any of them. But, I could be a devoted father to my son, husband to my wife and, above all, a good son to the parents who had done so much for me.This came to be my main task in life. I did itmoderately well with my son, pretty well with my wife and well indeed with my parents (with my sister'shelp). I cared forand paid attention to them in their declining years. I stayed with my fatheras he got sick, went into extremis and then into a coma and then entered Immortality with my sister and me reading him the Psalms.
This was the only point at which my life touched the lives of the soldiers in Iraq or the firefighters in New York. I came to realize that life lived to helpothers is the only one that matters and that it is myduty, in return for the lavish life God has devolved upon me, to help others He has placed in my path. This is my highest and best use as a human.
By Ben Stein=====http://www.eonline.com/Gossip/Morton/Archive/2003/031220.html
I've been feeling very discouraged lately. We are getting so much closer to our goal, but it still seems so far away. The hurdles and challenges are surmountable, but I've just felt uninspired to meet them with verve. I've stopped imagining the future and have started up an almost constant self-belittling that is annoying.
Sunday afternoon I took one of our cats to his new home. Thinking back, I had to admit to myself that, though I think of myself as an animal-lover, my record with pets is dismal. I get tired of them and, though I keep them fed and housed, neglect them. I am glad I've found new and better homes for my pets.
Reading the Ben Stein column, I realized though--what he is saying, That is what I want for myself. That is what we are trying to do. Rearrange our lives, challenge ourselves to give more space and time for what is Important. Loving family and friends, having space to do volunteer work and make a difference--if only in loving each other and family a little better. Feeling put-upon and belittling myself doesn't help me get where I'm going and I'm going to put that aside. I can't give love to others if I can't even find it for myself in my own heart.
I'm a brave person and I can get through these days--and maybe even find a way to make them more fun again.
It is not sufficient for religious people to be involved with prayer. Rather, they are morally obliged to contribute all they can to solving the world's problems.-His Holiness the Dalai Lama
¶ 9:59 AM
