Just Like Me

I’ve enjoyed listening to Marc Maron’s podcast WTF if for no other reason than at some point the conversation centers on how the guest “made it.” How did they find their way to the hit show, the full theaters for standup gigs, the blockbuster movie role, the big album? He primarily talks to performance artists, and there really isn’t a prescribed path they can follow. Their story often begins with simply showing up in New York or Los Angeles sometime after college and finding their way through day jobs and experiments, disappointment and failures, and eventually some kind of success.

I never tire of hearing these stories because each is unique and unpredictable but also reflective of the individual. It’s as if they must find that path tailored for them and them alone. I’m reminded of when I quit college at twenty-one, theoretically to pursue a career as a writer. I had no plan other than to write. The plan I had abandoned, which involved getting a degree so I could get a “real job” which would both support me and also give me a grownup profession on which I could hang my hat while I secretly pursued my dream – that was the only plan with which I was familiar. That’s what you did if you were a middle-class kid like me.

My friend Peter, a lifelong A-student and now lawyer, tried to talk me out of quitting when I told him what I was going to do. It was like he was trying to convince me not to commit suicide. I frankly understood his point of view better than mine. I didn’t know what I was going to do, what my life would look like. I just knew what I couldn’t do, and that was keep going to college. It had become a game I could no longer see the point in playing.

I would like to say this kind of experience is unique to artists of all kinds, but it’s not. We may just face it sooner. At some point, everyone has to cut their own path, regardless of the fields and forests they travel. I’ve written about my own journey frequently in this space because I found it so instructive, how it was different than what I had expected, how I’d resisted what I hadn’t planned, how it showed me I was someone different than I had once thought. This journey has helped me understand other people like nothing else. When I meet someone, I can feel how they’re on it too, whether they acknowledge it or not. It's how they are uniquely themselves while also just like me.

If you like the ideas and perspectives expressed here, feel free to contact me about individual coaching and group workshops.

William KenowerWriting, William Kenower, Marc Maron, SuccessComment