Many of you will recognize the person in this photo, not that he cares…

“…You believe that what you are doing is of great importance and that it is affecting mankind wall-to-wall. And then when you get out of it you realize, oh, well, that wasn’t true at all. (laughter) It was just silliness… I realized, geez, I don’t think I care that much about television anymore. I feel foolish for having been misguided by my own ego for so many years.” David Letterman

~~~

At the end of a long career, many of us look back and wonder whether what we accomplished was such a big deal after all.

In other words, did we stack up?

I’ve noticed that many of those who come up short are in the entertainment industry, where ridiculous sums are paid to people who couldn’t hold a normal job if their lives depended on it.

I’m one of them, though I have to say I did hold a normal job for the whole of 3 months after graduating college.

It was at that point in my life when I realized I was going to have to go it alone, freelancing as a photographer – and, at the time – copywriter.

I bring this up because entertainment is where people who can’t make it anywhere else go.

It’s not for lack of intelligence, talent, tenacity and perseverance.

It’s for lack of fitting in anywhere else, including everywhere else.

No wonder those who are actually successful in entertainment are referred to as geniuses.

This said, most don’t consider success in entertainment a tremendous accomplishment in the context of mankind, and I guess this is where I’m going.

Letterman looks back and sees a talk show host who interviewed celebrities in exchange for tens of millions of dollars.

He doesn’t see a brain surgeon who saved lives; a forensic anthropologist working at the Smithsonian, or a research scientist searching for the cure for cancer.

On some level I’m sure he’d prefer people see him in proper context, particularly given the fact that he could buy and sell them a thousand times.

It’s embarrassing. I get it.

Recently, I had a conversation with a 72-year-old man who turned out to be a world-renowned organ transplant surgeon with 12 medical books to his credit.

The man was unassuming, but not without presence.

There was gravity in his tone which I found a bit disconcerting, honestly.

Who was this guy? And why was he not pretending to be someone he was not like so many others who never feel complete without a good back story?

He summed everything up in a sentence or two, and just walked away.

That was it.

It got me thinking that no matter what any of us do, we all play a role in what constitutes the totality of the human experience, whether it’s science, art, music, literature…or entertainment. 

I don’t know that he needed to reflect on any of this, as his contributions could be counted one life after another.

But I’m sure that in his home one would find art on the walls, literature on the shelves, and memories of his favorite Letterman interviews.

In this sense, entertainment isn’t so ephemeral after all.

Nonetheless, entertainment is the one area of human existence that doesn’t require a formal education, a clean law enforcement record, or green light from the American Psychiatric Association.

No wonder Letterman got paid so much.