You Call That a Career?

I often wonder about the career choices that people make in their lives. Are they even really choices or just the path that they were destined to follow for some peculiar reason or history?

For example, why would someone choose to be a proctologist, to spend years studying medicine and then wind up investigating the anus and rectum all day?  Or a gastroenterologist, diagnosing and treating disorders of the stomach or colon?  Wouldn’t it be more thrilling and satisfying to be an OB-GYN, whose work is to deliver babies, be part of the gift of new life, the profound joy of parents and the preciousness of the baby?  Well, I would think so.

A fictional conversation between me and my gastroenterologist, Dr. X. Me:  I hope it’s okay for me to ask you, why did you select this particular branch of medicine to focus your life’s work on?  Dr. X:  I frequently wonder that myself, but when I was in med school, it seemed an interesting and useful choice, more complex than say, an allergist, which was the other road I was exploring.  There were also fewer students in this field, so I had less competition. Me: How about, say, dermatology, which is less intrusive and dramatic?  Dr. X: Sounds tedious, with me looking at patients’ lumps and bumps all day.

I have the same thoughts about someone choosing to be a urologist, who works in the same general area of the body as a proctologist but focusing almost entirely on pee.  I wonder what they talk to their mates about after work, how they answer this dinner-table question, “How was your day, dear?”

Then there’s the job of driving a massive truck back and forth cross-country. I see these vehicles and drivers frequently on the LA freeways and I’m always amazed.  I am bored silly when I must go from Santa Monica to downtown LA and back on a series of freeways that take me about 35 minutes each way.  I listen to funny podcasts, the news when I can stand it, and symphonies or Broadway show tunes. I can’t wait to get off the freeway and drive on normal streets with houses and trees and people walking their dogs.

But what if I was driving round trip from Albany to San Diego in a huge vehicle, carting two thousand pounds of lumber?  Being on the highways for a few weeks, stopping at truck-stop diners for awful food, sleeping, I assume, in my truck, rarely showering and being alone the whole trip. And doing this jaunt many times a year.

Maybe that’s the point, the deep need the truck driver must have to be alone for long, long periods of time, the fascination with the endless roads that I find so dreary. A therapist friend told me he feels like he’s safe, back in the womb. What does he think about, listen to, meditate on?  What is his life at home? What was his childhood like?

(By the way, every driver I’ve ever seen on the freeway is a HE.  What to make of that is an ongoing question.)

My favorite scene in my favorite movie, THELMA AND LOUISE, is when the two women confront a disgusting truck driver on a series of highways who is coming on to them.  They stop, he thinks he’s going to get some sex, but they just want an apology for his vile behavior on the road. When he refuses, they take out their pistols, shoot his tires out and the truck explodes.  This scene often pops into my brain when I see a giant truck with a lone driver and ponder who he is.

I’ve spent much of the last few decades with actors, since I’ve been producing theatre.  When he or she gets a part in an upcoming show, works constantly or becomes a star, it’s a delectable life. Exhilarating to be onstage, working in the company of other actors or musicians in a show, making decent money and of course having the endless thrill of the audience’s applause.

But most actors have that experience rarely if at all and spend their days waiting tables and waiting for their big chance. I always remember auditions, where the powers that be – the casting director, producer, director and musical director – sit like gods behind a wide table with our notes and pads, faking enthusiasm but expressing kindness. Sometimes the actor will be right for the part they are reading or singing. But usually they are not, and they will leave the room filled with self-criticism and fear. Sometimes they will get offered a call-back, to return for another audition. Usually, the results are the same, since there may be seven call-backs for one part.  My actor friends have told me this is worse than their first audition because the expectations have risen.  The disappointment is deeper.

Sometimes an actor will have aged out of most jobs. Then what do they do?  Teach perhaps. Privately, or in a high school, college or acting school. Or learn how to do backstage jobs. Or be a barista at Starbucks.  Or become a casting director. Or become a corporate management consultant.  I know someone who left acting after some years of struggle and became a chef.  She’s now delighted with her life and makes the best chocolate brownies I’ve ever tasted.

How about a writer who hates to be alone? Or stares at blank pages on the computer and has no idea what the first word should be.  Or the second.  Or third…. I’ve been there at times over my years as a writer and abandoned my desk after a few hours to read a juicy detective novel or watch Jeopardy. Or eat.  But then, there was the time Playboy Magazine sent me and a colleague to India for a month to interview Mother Teresa in Calcutta. That’s certainly more rewarding than doing colonoscopies.

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“Marcia Seligson is one of the funniest, most original, and irreverent people I know, and her book carries all those qualities. She can make anything funny, from a Peloton bike to a 40-hour brisket cookery. And she can be touching, deep, and bracingly honest. My advice to readers is make sure you have unbroken time ahead when you pick up this book. Each time I did, intending to read for ten minutes, an hour went by before I looked up. And I’d laughed out loud at least twice.” Sara Davidson, Writer NY Times bestseller Loose Change, Head writer for Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman