"May the road rise with you."
-PiL
All this week, Shane Nickerson is publishing older blog entries that never made the cut for one reason or another. He introduces each entry with a brief comment about it, then shares some wonderful writing that clearly deserved to make it past the internal censor who often paralyzes writers actors actors/writers guys like us.
This one, in particular, hit me where I live:
If you want the secret, I have it.
It’s about the work. Regardless of your chosen profession or station
in life, the work is what matters. Skip it and you will be caught.
Slack off, and others will catch up to you. Cut corners and you will
have to answer to yourself at some point.Of course, that said, the hardest question to answer once it is
assumed that hard work is part of the equation is, "Now, what do I work
on?" Whatever you love. Work on whatever you love and don’t think about
the payoff, but instead the road. If part of your road is a continual
hunt for a payoff, so be it, but pick a life and career that makes you
happy even in the very pursuit of the thing you’ve chosen.
A couple of days ago, I had an epiphany: Around the time I came to Exile, I drove right off my Road. I started to take an interesting little side trip, (mostly to Prove To Everyone that I could do it) but I lost my map and couldn’t find my way back. I was so thoroughly off my road, I didn’t even realize I was driving around in circles and down dead end paths until it was way too late, and I was running out of gas.
Set phasers to Ramble, Mr. Worf:
When I went to the Grand Slam convention last weekend, I kept expecting to feel bad about it. I kept expecting to feel like I was a loser for going without anything new to show off and I really worked myself up about it. I really felt like I was in exactly the same place I was five years ago, and that seriously bummed me out.
But when I got there, that anticipated feeling never arrived. Despite my best initial efforts to really feel like a jerk, I really had a good time. I didn’t feel bad; I felt like I was at home. I felt like I was surrounded by like-minded people who all wanted to celebrate this stuff that we all love, and I felt like I had something unique and interesting to share with them. I loved how good and how right that felt, and at some point over the weekend, I realized that even though I was hanging out at a con, I’m not in the same place I was five years ago. I’ve grown as a writer, I’ve grown as a husband, and I’ve grown as a father. I’m smarter and wiser than I was five years ago, even if I haven’t accomplished as much as I’d hoped. There is no denying that I haven’t done what I’d hoped to do with acting or writing, but in all the other areas that truly matter, I’ve rolled several critical successes.
You know how everything happens for a reason? If I hadn’t gone to that convention and simply enjoyed the celebration of Sci-Fi and Sci-Fi fandom, if I hadn’t realized, accepted, and acknowledged that I really have grown and succeeded in the last five years, I wouldn’t have found the map back to my Road. Without it, I never would have been in the right place to have so much fun with the hosting audition, and I wouldn’t be waiting right now to hopefully hear good news about that job.
I thought about the last line of Just A Geek the other day, which I thought went something like, "I’m finally cool with all the Star Trek and Sci-Fi stuff, and I’m happy about that."
I just looked it up, and that’s not what it says. It actually says that I’m doing something that really makes me happy, which at the time was writing. It says a lot about my current state of mind, (and the unvarnished truth about myself at this moment) that I thought it said I was happy about my work on Star Trek and I was cool with all that stuff, though, doesn’t it?
When I watch TNG on G4, (and I do, almost every night,) no matter how hard I try to feel sad, or maudlin, or regretful, I just can’t do it. I see my friends, and I have fond memories of working with them. I see my work, and I feel proud (when I’m not laughing at the Ugly Grey Spacesuit) of a lot of the things I did with what I was given to work with. As a bonus, watching lots of TNG has brought back happy, lucid memories of of all sosrts of things I did when I was a teenager: I get flashes of painting 40K armies in my dressing room, going to Depeche
Mode concerts with my friends, watching movies like The Hidden and Alien Nation and Prince of Darkness at the AMC in Burbank with Darin when it was just 10 theatres (and 10 was HUGE back then), and going to different conventions all over the country to celebrate Star Trek. Of course, as I described in Just A Geek, there came a time where I didn’t have fun at the cons, and I started to resent them, but even those memories are hard to pull up as I watch these shows from the second and third seasons. Is it selective memory? Of course it is, and I’m totally fine with that.
I know I went over this in Just A Geek and Dancing Barefoot, but it’s worth it for me to go over it one more time: I don’t have to avoid or run away from science fiction because
I was a big part of a huge science fiction franchise, and I didn’t have the acting success I’d hoped for when I quit. I was a science fiction geek long before I was Wesley Crusher, and I’ll be a science fiction geek for the rest of my life. I can’t run away from fandom, because I can’t run away
from myself. I can’t run away from who I am. Resistance is futile.
When I read Shane’s post earlier this week, I initially responded to
what he said about the work. But as I reflected on it, I kept
thinking about the Road. When I knew what my Road was, I knew where my Road was, and I knew how to get back on it. I wasn’t as far off it as I thought, in fact. I just had to turn the wheel and step on the gas. It also helped to drive with my eyes open for a change.
My Road is paved with d20s and TRON DVDs and Atari 2600 games. It’s lit
by the glow of TNG and BSG episodes and the soundtrack is by Vangelis. It’s
patrolled by Rover and they sell Soylent Green in the rest stop vending
machines. The speed limit is 42, but if you flash your Bavarian Illuminati card, you can use the FTL drive to make it to Milliways in time for dinner.
I’m back on my Road, and nobody can take the sky from me.
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OK…anyone who doesn’t freak out during “Prince of Darkness” at the end when she comes out of the church is lying.
Welcome back, Wil–good to see you’re enjoying what you have and who you are instead of worrying about what you don’t and who you aren’t.
Wow, all the minimalist posts this week seems to have exploded into one awesome post. It looks like something good has come out of all this waiting.
This is one very well written and very insightful piece.
Thanks Wil!
My magic eight ball still says “YES”.
You’re still flyin’, Wil, and here’s one more geek wishing you all the best.
Yay!
You’re out of the rut! Always knew you would get there – you’ve just realized what we’ve been telling you all along!
Very happy that you’re happy again, just remember that you’re an inspiration to so many people all over the world!
Guinness is on standby to either celebrate or commiserate with you.
Regardless, keep on the Road. If you start to drift off, do what I do – sit in your chair in the middle of your office and spin – hopefully looking at everything around you that got you on the Road in the first place. It always helps this mid-30s geek to spin and see pictures of his family nestled along posters of Monty Python, Kids in the Hall, the old copy of the Fiend Folio next to the stack of Illuminati cards.
All Hail Discorida!
Wil has been (re)assimilated.
All hail the purple cow.
Deep, very very deep post.
I haven’t kept up with you as much as I should have since you’ve been In Exile, but I’m doing better with it since embracing the handiness of RSS.
A great and profound post today. And I just want to say that I grew up in Burbank (and still live there) and I remember when the AMC 10 opened and how awesome, err excuse me, hawesome it was when we were kids. 10 was enormous back then and now there’s 30 AMC screens there within a block or two of each other with the new AMC 16 across from where the 10 used to be, the 6 down by In N Out, and the 8 in the mall.
Incidentally, they’ve started construction on some new office building on the site where it used to stand. Godspeed you ugly pink and blue bastard.
Wil, in the grand scheme of life, aren’t we all on our own respective roads? Yours has taken you to much cooler places than mine has, but the key is finding happiness on whatever road you chose to follow.
Take time to smell the flowers, take in the scenery and forget about where that damn road leads you.
In the immortal words of Led Zeppelin (yeah, I took it to fucking Stairway to Heaven!): “Yes there are two paths that you can go on, but in the long run…there’s still time to change the road you’re on.”
And that you did, Wil, that you did! Your writing career is something that a lot of us appreciate, so don’t knock yourself too hard, OK?
OK…sorry for the annoying italics in the last 2 paragraphs…apparently I don’t know basic html code as well as I thought!
Hey Wil,
You always seem to mention ‘the ugly grey spacesuit’, but, personally, I didn’t find it all that bad. Then again, I didn’t have to wear it. I don’t know all the ‘bad history’ you have with the Wesley character other than the stuff you said on your blog, but I was in High School during TNG and used you as a role model of sorts. Your character was always intelligent and mature and handled situations in an honourable way. Other than a few truly awful lines they gave you in the first season, I thought you were a great character and you should be proud of the work you did. I especially liked that episode in Season 2 where Wesley helped Riker win that mock battle simulation. It just really sticks out in my mind how you jumped over the railing and looked like you were truly having fun. That’s the Wesley I remember.
Back to the gray spacesuit — certainly those sweaters they had you wear early on were a lot worse. Perhaps someone out there could make a ‘Wesley sweater collage’ from the first season. 🙂 Makes you appreciate the spacesuit 😉
Does this make you a born-again geek?
There are times I feel such a kindhip with you Wil.
This is one of those times.
I can’t lay claim to a succesful acting career, but I think there are many of us that often try to think of ourselves as something we aren’t. Especially when what we are is a geek. Glad to see you are embracing who you are.
The comment below has been imported from Livejournal.
Not sure if you read this stuff but, I felt I had to comment… you see everyone who watches TNG seems to have their favourite character and you know the obvious choices that get put up.. and you probably know where I’m heading on this but, yeah.. Wesley was my favourite… Maybe because in the character I saw alot of myself (okay definitely not as smart as he was but, the whole outcast within the group thing.. the teenage geek just wanting to be excepted.. etc)..
The one and only bad thing about Wesley was the way they wrote you out of the the series. The Star Trek universe really didn’t need one more uber-powerful being and I didn’t think the writing on that particular episode was all that good… it also meant you really couldn’t go back to that role (if you’d wanted to).. nuts…
Anyway enough TNG… I have to admit I’ve only ever seen you in two other things… Stand by Me (Which I think again was brilliant… and the way that you guys pulled it off.. the closeness of friends and all that.. and the story being told from your characters point of view).. and one other thing (the title of which I’m sad to say I can’t remember.. but, it was the thing about the private boys school and I think your character was the son of a mobster or something) I found your feed over on the LJ of muskrat_john and thought hey it’d be good to read about the “real person” and what goes through his mind.
It’s been good reading about you and what you think and I thank you for that opportunity.
I don’t understand anything about PodCasts or much of the other stuff you speak of but, the quips and stuff and what I presume is your honesty gives me something to look forward to reading everyday.
Never regret the stuff you have done in your life as long as you can look at a piece of work and say “Okay it’s crap but, I know I did my best” that is what matters..
I know that you hear it from probably all your fans but, I’m gonna say it anyway.. if you are ever in my neck of the woods and just want to go for a beer/ale/vodka/etc… than look me up… as this is open I won’t post contact details but, if you do read this and set up a quick you and me only post I’ll give you everything you need to get in contact with me…
Sincerely,
Glenn
Dear Wil,
How ironic it is to find you here. Do you remember a girl in dreads, and a Bob Marley shirt on, chasing you down the Fun Zone arcade in Balboa CA.?
After yelling “THAT”S WIL WHEATON!!” you took off running into the back of the store? Say 1988ish? That’s ME!
Ha Ha…You also gave an autograph to the guy working there for me. I saw you later at the Del Taco, ordering drinks…
Small world. I still have the autograph, and with huge stars in my eyes, I tell all I know about that encounter…
Listen, Wil…Keep doing what your doing…I am proud of you.
Never forget us crazy folk who chased ya down!
I am glad to hear that your life has gone on.
By the way, I have normal hair, still love Bob Marley..married with kids too! And the ironic thing is my maiden name is the same as your step children.
Love and God be with you.
Kris
I missed this one when it first posted. It’s a fracking awesome feeling to be ourselves sometimes, isn’t it?
As for that first response referencing Wil Power…you really have to get that shit up and rolling again. Folks need autographed pictures of you smiling in a fantastic sweater.