Last week, my wife and I went to New York to see Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along on Broadway. She more or less demanded we go, then cobbled together credit card points for airfare and arranged for us to sleep on her sister’s couch. The show was incredible, but that’s not what I’m writing to tell you.
I’m writing to tell you about the What If Spiral. Because going to New York always sucks me back into it.
I used to be an actor, though I was never a big deal. (IMDb me if you’re curious.) But for a long time, that was my dream, and I pursued it mightily. So much so that I left my hometown high school during my junior year to attend a performing arts academy in L.A. It’s the kind of place that sends graduates to NYU and Julliard. Famous people went there.
But after one year, I left. The school had a policy against students working, and I had just booked a role on The Wonder Years I was unwilling to give up. That role consisted of a single line, but it got me my SAG card, and by God, I was on the climb, wasn’t I? Well, not really. I worked on and off through the nineties and early aughts, but my career stalled out and I quit in favor of starting a band, getting a day job, and earning enough to pay for an air-conditioned apartment.
(That’s me on the left and Fred Savage on the right, on the set of The Wonder Years in 1992.)
I don’t regret my choice — but sometimes I play What If. What If I’d stayed at LACHSA and ended up at Julliard? What If I’d become a theater actor in New York? What If I’d written some plays on the side and become the next Sam Shepard? Or screw that, the next Lin-Manuel? What If instead of sitting in the audience for that production of Merrily at the Hudson Theater, I’d been on stage?
Of course, it’s statistically more likely I would be serving drinks at the bar next door, or Ubering theater goers to their after-show dinners. But when we play What If, we don’t spend any time on the mundane possibilities, do we? In our fantasy lives, we always win big. We romanticize the opportunities we didn’t seize, diminish the sacrifices that Other Life would’ve required, and blow the likelihood of our success way out of proportion. We Wikipedia famous Julliard graduates from our year and imagine our lives would’ve been like theirs, ignoring the thousands who ended up as lawyers and baristas and marketing executives.
What If is fun, but it can also be toxic. It’s antithetical to gratitude.
Suppose I had made it big as an actor. I wouldn’t have met my wife or toured with a rock band or written a novel. I might be sharing a flat with four other middle aged dudes, waiting tables, playing bit parts off off Broadway and wishing I’d stayed in California to quit TV and write. The What If version of me might be playing What If, imaging the version of me I am now.
The truth is, I have a wonderful life. But when I see a great film or a brilliant stage production like Merrily that tugs at the loose ends of my years as an actor, I teeter on the edge of the What If Spiral. And sometimes, I fall in.
Over time, I’ve found that the only way to climb back out again is to sit down at the keyboard and spill my guts. I’m closing the Wikipedia tab now, and the one on IMDb. And I promise not to dig into my old audition log and count all the parts I never got that might have changed my life.
Really. I like this one just fine.
Check out the latest episode of my other baby, The Hero’s Journey℠ Podcast.
The Toxic Majesty of What If