On Being Useful
Parenthood removes selfishness and maybe even sadness, but can you be an artist? - with Louis C.K.
Perhaps the main thing I’ve most struggled to navigate in the last ~15 years of my life is the role of artist (in my case, often lapsed writer) verses mother. Seems to me being an artist — of any real successful/productive kind — got shafted when selfishness flew out of the window. And selfishness was gone the second I even felt a tiny bit pregnant. Maybe it’s a little different for men to keep trucking artistically (since more often than not, there’s a woman behind the curtain making that possible). But I do love what Louis C.K. says below with Terry Gross.
Louis CK on parenting, April 28, 2015; Fresh Air with Terry Gross, NPR
Some excerpts:
Q: But before you realized how being a father would give you material for your comedy, did you think, ok, I’m going to be a father, and now it’s over for me, no more independence, no more easy life on the road. The door is slamming shut.
Well, there’s always a give and take. I was glad to let go of some of that. The road really sucks when it’s all you have; it’s really sad, it’s very lonely out there. So I was happy to be in a family and be married and everything.
You know, when I first got married and had kids, I had some friends I played poker with on Mondays. And I thought, the poker game on Mondays, that’s the water line. If I don’t make that game, I’m losing something… It means I’m letting go of my youth, I’m letting go of my manhood, all these things. My independence. But then after a while I realized, why I would want to go play poker with a bunch of guys in a smoky room when I could be at home with my family. I realized that a lot of the things that my kid was taking away from me, she was freeing me of. A lot of things that men hang onto when they’re younger, they’re just not good for you. And that there was this huge pride in having a kid and also that I didn’t matter anymore. The greatest thing about having a child is putting yourself second in your own life. It’s a massive gift to be able to say that you’re not the most important person to yourself –
Q: Why is that a good thing?
Because…that’s always going to let you down, you know what I mean, the idea of I’ve got to get me right, I’ve got to get what I want, that’s gotta be right – that’s never going to quite work – you know, life just isn’t that satisfying, but if you can be useful to somebody else, that you can actually accomplish. You know what I mean? You can go, I did a pretty damn good job today as a dad, pretty good, best as I could. That’s worth so much more.
I saw a movie once where Spencer Tracy catches this woman about to kill herself – it’s a pretty dark movie for the time but, I forgot the name of the movie but – Spencer Tracy’s on a boat and he sees a rich, young girl about to throw herself off the boat because her fiancé left her for another woman and he ‘s trying to talk her out of suicide. And he says to her, do you have a job, do you have anything that you do in your life, which was a funny to ask because she’s like 1920s and she’s like a socialite. And she says no and he says, I think you should get a job because it’s very hard to be sad and useful at the same time. And ever since I saw that, I keep that in my head. If you can be useful – which means to somebody else, not to yourself – if you can be useful, it just makes you feel better.
So I live in service for my kids, that’s the first priority. And then things like my career, they feed into that, they’re a part of that, because I’m providing for them, but also it’s just not that important. If something’s not important it’s more fun. It’s more something you can look at it objectively instead of having it be this albatross around you of I’ve got to get this right; if this isn’t perfect, my life is a nightmare.
