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2001-07-20

God, I'm kind of churning inside because I just read a glowing New York Times review of a play by a girl I knew when I lived in New York. She's a great big deal now, has been for a while. She's talented, and when I knew her, at least, a genuinely nice person.

This stuff always rips me apart.

I don't believe my lack of success is due to lack of talent. Rather, it seems to be about laziness, ambivalence, fear. Lack of single-mindedness. Tendency toward distraction. Not needing it enough.

What will having a kid do to this scenario? Here are some possibilities: Make it matter less. Make it matter more. Give me some kind of focus I have previously lacked. Destroy any shred of focus I once had.

I know quite a few people who have had one or another degree of success and/or notoriety in their chosen fields. While they are talented, I don't believe they are more talented than I. Maybe more driven, maybe that's the key difference.

Does this notoriety equate to (for lack of a better term) happiness? I don't know, can't know. For one thing, I'm no longer in touch with any of these people. There's this adage I've heard, about the folly of comparing one's own insides to other people's outsides. It's corny but true, for you never really know.

I don't think I really want fame so much as respect and possibly influence. The opportunity to touch others, to matter. To a greater degree than I presently do.

I feel kind of crummy complaining about this. It feels like whining.

I hope I sort all this stuff out one day. Or that the passage of time somehow sorts it out for me. I believe that sometimes happens.

I don't feel this way all the time, far from it. But when it crops up it causes me great anguish. The kind I'm feeling this moment.

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