Today, Scott Beale of LaughingSquid linked to an Esquire interview conducted by Chris Jones. The interview was truly remarkable but the real focus on Roger Ebert and how he beat cancer but lost his lower jaw in the process. That isn’t really important for the sake of the interview or the content contained in it as told by Ebert himself. What stands out time and time again is that I’ve read two columns by Ebert about his “condition” and each time I’m simply fascinated by how he has lived his life after cancer. Well, let me rephrase – I’m fascinated with how Ebert views life after cancer and how he writes so eloquently about so many things that touch me personally.
The first column by Roger Ebert that I ever read was linked to by John Gruber of DaringFireball and it was titled, “Nil by Mouth“. In that post, Ebert discusses the beauty of food and how food relates to socializing and how, without a lower jaw, Ebert misses those delicate moments of very specific foods. In the piece, this section stood out to me the most:
Let me return to the original question: Isn’t it sad to be unable eat or drink? Not as sad as you might imagine. I save an enormous amount of time. I have control of my weight. Everything agrees with me. And so on.
What I miss is the society. Lunch and dinner are the two occasions when we most easily meet with friends and family. They’re the first way we experience places far from home. Where we sit to regard the passing parade. How we learn indirectly of other cultures. When we feel good together. Meals are when we get a lot of our talking done — probably most of our recreational talking. That’s what I miss. Because I can’t speak that’s’s another turn of the blade. I can sit at a table and vicariously enjoy the conversation, which is why I enjoy pals like my friend McHugh so much, because he rarely notices if anyone else isn’t speaking. But to attend a “business dinner” is a species of torture. I’m no good at business anyway, but at least if I’m being bad at it at Joe’s Stone Crab there are consolations.
When we drive around town I never look at a trendy new restaurant and wish I could eat there. I peer into little storefront places, diners, ethnic places, and then I feel envy. After a movie we’ll drive past a formica restaurant with only two tables occupied, and I’ll wish I could be at one of them, having ordered something familiar and and reading a book. I never felt alone in a situation like that. I was a soloist.
How much we take for granted a cheeseburger or soda and how much we rush through these things. This post actually inspired my recent fasting because I wanted to come back after 5 days and taste a burger like it was my first time and I will always remember so vividly sitting in In-N-Out on a rainy Monday all alone staring at the burger after not eating for 5 days and thinking to myself, “this is going to fucking rock” and boy did it!Each bite of the hamburger was truly remarkable and the diet sprite tingled my tongue and my throat. The cheese ground into my teeth and the crisp lettuce massaged my gums. Trust me, it was pretty awesome.
The interview with Ebert in Esquare Magazine was exceptional but I’m once again drawn to Ebert’s recent column in the SunTimes that he wrote in response to the interview. I picked a few parts that I really loved.
This was a conversation he was having with his wife, “Chaz”.
“Did you really have to write all those Tweets about Rush Limbaugh?” she asked me one day. “He’s a sick man. What if people had written about you that way when you were in the hospital?”
“That would be their right,” I said heroically. “Besides, he said he was fine.”
“And you wouldn’t care what they said about you?”
“Resentment is allowing someone to live rent-free in a room in your head,” I intoned. That line isn’t original with me. It may have originated with her.
This speaks loudly about many of the reasons that I’ve pulled back from being online so much. I call it “micro-celebrity” because that’s what it is only because I’ve been called that a few times. I consider it being famous for not really doing anything. I don’t think I’ve done enough to have 3,000+ Twitter Followers or 30K people reading this blog every month but I do and that comes with some responsibility and yes, some stalkers. Celebrities have it rough and without a support system, it’s easy to let things get to you. Ebert’s wife posed an excellent question, one that Laura said to me very often when I criticized others after just expressing my distaste and displeasure of being called “fat” by some anonymous commenter on my blog. Of course, I’m not as wise as Ebert nor as comfortable in my own skin to have such a terrific quote in response to the situation. I’d like to post it again:
“Resentment is allowing someone to live rent-free in a room in your head,”
Wow. This is coming from a man who has been a professional critic for many many years and has sat on both sides of the table as the critic and the person being criticized. What wisdom inherited in this quote that truly excites me about one day being able to say this out loud and truly believe it and live it.
Later in the article:
Well, we’re all dying in increments. I don’t mind people knowing what I look like, but I don’t want them thinking I’m dying. To be fair, Chris Jones never said I was. If he took a certain elegiac tone, you know what? I might have, too. And if he structured his elements into a story arc, that’s just good writing. He wasn’t precisely an eyewitness the second night after Chaz had gone off to bed and I was streaming Radio Caroline and writing late into the night. But that’s what I did. It may be, the more interviews you’ve done, the more you appreciate a good one. I knew exactly what he started with, and I could see where he ended, and he can be proud of the piece.
I mentioned that it was sort of a relief to have that full-page photo of my face. Yes, I winced. What I hated most was that my hair was so neatly combed. Running it that big was good journalism. It made you want to read the article.
It is uncomfortable to stare into the eyes of Roger Ebert after seeing his face for so many years in the newspaper. I have a bit of regret, more emotions of sympathy kick in but it wasn’t until I read the article and how he lives without the joy of food, normal conversation or appearing “normal” at least cosmetically that I actually feel inspired to live life differently with a new outlook and not one of normality where I take everything for granted. Ebert has lived his life, sure but the condition he’s in now only inspires sympathy for 10 seconds and then I’m ready to live my own life knowing I could grow old and have people who are sympathetic to my “condition” whatever that may be. His philosophy and view on how things went continues to amaze me. This part truly stood out.
I studiously avoid looking at myself in a mirror. It would not be productive. If we think we have physical imperfections, obsessing about them is only destructive. Low self-esteem involves imagining the worst that other people can think about you. That means they’re living upstairs in the rent-free room.
Too many of us focus on our looks and not trying to better ourselves from the inside out. Living a long and healthy life is absolutely essential as I’ve learned that I was recently in the later stages of developing diabetes at only 23 years old. However, focusing on our faults only leads to less action because you’re too busy thinking about it. Roger is saying that sitting in your house imagining that you’re at the store buying milk isn’t actually helping so don’t focus on the milk, hop in the car and drive.
The final sentence about low self-esteem speaks volumes to me as well. I have always had high self-esteem until I threw myself into an industry of overachievers, successful hard working people who worked very hard for what they have. All of my great friends are in their 3os and it’s difficult fitting in sometimes as they have money and know what they love and don’t like. After a few failed projects last year and rising criticism from anonymous commenters, things took a turn for the worse and I allowed a few thousand people to live rent free in my head instead of focusing on buying the milk, I sat at home and simply convinced myself that the milk I was going to buy had already gone bad. This is how I spent my last 6 months and I achieved very little.
Ebert’s words speak volumes to so many humans today and I know for a fact that he’ll be remembered by his philosophy and strong spirit more than how many thumbs down he gave to the movie, “Cable Guy”. I hope to relive the emotions i have right now while writing this blog post. I feel inspired to live and will continue cultivating that feeling for a long time coming.
Thank you for reading.