Stuck
with two Chinese fortune cookies
I had to
ask for the Chinese fortune cookies this week, which is why the lady dumped a
handful in the bag as I left, sticking me with two
fortunes and a choice of which one best suits me.
I’ve
always been a lucky cur – growing up with almost no talent as opposed to my
best friend who was artist, musician, writer, actor and such, and could never
choose between them and so went from one to the other in an endless litany that
made him resemble a pin ball bouncing off bumpers but almost no score.
I know
someone today just like that – and have become addicted to songs, art and
writing, only not to have the person leap off that kick leaving me hanging. I
have read one piece of this person’s fiction so many times, I have it nearly
memorized and can hum all the tunes.
I grew
up imitating other people’s art, getting inside of it, learning how to do what
the people I envy do.
I still
do this with my reporting, reading what I like, especially reporters I work
with, and trying to succeed the way they do. With one reporter I worked with in
the early 1990s, I recorded his work so I could listen to it, as if his work
was inside my head just as I’ve done for people like Tom Wolf and EB White,
thinking that if I hear what they are writing, it gets into my head better, and
with headphones, it is almost as if I am walking around inside their heads.
I still
read many stories aloud from fellow reporters, drawing odd looks at the Coach
House Diner when I do this over breakfast on Saturdays, forcing me to retreat
to my car where passers’ by only see my lips moving and think I’m merely crazy.
Imitation
is the sincerest form of flattery, they say, with me it’s more like adoration.
I don’t try to absorb anything unless I truly admire it and want it to become
part of me.
But
then, I’ve always been a sponge, drawing everything I can inside me, trying to
mix it up to come out with some sense of my own.
Having
little or no talent growing up, I was forced to work harder at this, often
making a fool of myself with my imitations because they started out as crap and
over time grew into something meaningful, sometimes even nearly as good as
those I admired in the first place.
But
giving people too much of a choice is frustrating to people like me, who wait
with breathless anticipation for the next song or poem or piece of fiction,
only to find the author or singer or poet has moved on.
Now,
with two fortune cookies, I’m in a similar dilemma.
Do I
follow the first and “Think highly off yourself, for the world takes you at
your own estimate,” or do I follow the second’s words of wisdom: “to think is
easy. To act is difficult. To act as one thinks is the most difficult of all?”
I tend
to lean towards the second, and have most of my life, leaving the first for
other more notable people, others who need the world to take their estimate,
when I know what my worth is already.