One night a couple of years ago, I found myself at Goodwill at 8pm on a Friday. Probably the same night that I spent an hour at Home Depot looking for "jewelry" and sourcing chain for a necklace that I still need to make. Basically, a WILD night. I went to good old will to look for a long-reach stapler (different DIY project), but after a failed search, I wandered over to the bookshelves in the back corner of the store. There's something about treasure hunting for used books that just makes me feel whole. I don't know. I feel a pull and I follow it.
They had a long night.
I scanned the shelves, jam-packed with ‘90s cookbooks, chick-lit novels, and more than a few David Sedaris books, and I was just about to leave when something caught my eye—a book called The Meaning of Life, a collection of interviews from Esquire’s “What I’ve Learned” column, featuring Ray Charles, Snoop Dogg, Lauren Hutton, Gore Vidal, etc etc. I flipped through it and found a letter printed on heavyweight paper stuck inside. The letter was written by Mark Dornfeld, a man who I later learned owned his own visual effects studio in L.A, and it read like a personal epiphany:
“Each year at this time I find myself writing a message to accompany the gift that I will be sending to the friends and associates of CFE. Every year I attempt to tie the gift (which is always a book) to something that is going on in my company or in my life. Distributing a book titled The Meaning of Life may appear to be a giant cop out, but this year has truly been about adding meaning to my own life and to the lives of others.
“I began this year with the news that a long-time friend and ex-boss had climbed into bed on New Year’s Eve, gone to sleep and had his life end before 2004 had begun. Peter Donen had given me a break when I needed one. He gave me an opportunity to work, learn and apply my craft and skill in a medium I loved. This loss tempered my entire year. He was so young and if you knew Peter you knew that the thought of him being motionless is impossible. He never sat still and he was almost always talking.
“I don’t mean to make this a bummer; it’s not. I mean, death is a bummer, but what if it makes you look at your life? What if you realize that the day to arrange to do all the things that you want to do is today? What if every lingering family issue is fixed now because of the uncertainty of tomorrow? These are such easy clichés - we hear this ‘live in the now’ stuff all the time. But it is true. I have done things this year I have always wanted to do. I made a point of it. I fixed a long time rift in my family and was able to see two of my cousins get married. I had not seen them in about 8 years. Two other cousins I hadn’t seen in 30 years. These are first cousins. I had a one man art show of photographs I had been compiling over the past 2 years, remodeled a kitchen and bathroom, opened a design entity for CFE, worked on about 19 or 20 movies, watched my son play drums, my daughter land a few roles in her budding acting career, and still had time to get all fired up about the election and occasionally sleep.
“The meaning of life may be as simple as just living. Do the things you love. Love the things you do and remember to laugh every once in a while. Doing something nice for a stranger is always good, too. I remember the old Yiddish-speaking aunts and uncles in my mom’s family. How they would sit and play cards and watch the kids, the joy in their faces at just watching the young ones. As I watch the younger artists in my company develop into highly skilled professionals I feel this joy. As my son and daughter grow I feel that same joy. This may be the gift of age. As we get older we may indeed get wiser.
“The book is filled with pictures and quotes of famous people. The thing that strikes me is that between the very accomplished and the relatively ordinary, the differences in the experience of being human are few. I have often observed that talent is abundant. Everywhere I go I meet talented musicians, artists, builders, and writers. There is no shortage of talent in the world. I have occasionally been in some small town out in the heartland and run into some incredibly talented artist who has no idea of how brilliant their work is. They are making their art because it is what they do. Famous people just drive nicer cars.”
“The Meaning”
This letter about “The Meaning” is eighteen years old, and while it was clearly not written during a pandemic, it still carries weight. No one knows what the world will look and feel like in a week/month/year’s time, and making plans is sort of a joke because they’ll probably change anyway, so these cringe clichés provide a surprising amount of comfort. “…We hear this ‘live in the now’ stuff all the time. But it is true.” Is there any other way to live at this point? And not necessarily in a better get cracking on that bucket list kind of way, more like let me just watch this bird for a while and replace that lightbulb in the living room that’s been flickering for days. I’ll go from there when I get there.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot with the New Year—instead of trying to maintain an illusion of control and carve out a clear life trajectory OR wait around for the future, which is a fruitless pastime and kind of a mind trick, I’m surrendering to the idea of LIVING. In all caps. Moment by moment.
What began as a survival instinct now just feels freeing (ask me again tomorrow). It’s like what I imagine doing improv is like, but in life. Maybe forever.