It's been a very, very big-picture kind of 24 hours.
Not only have I attempted to help a friend improve his quality of life (by way of advice on schools and skills and careers) but the TV version of Ira Glass' This American Life has left me wondering about my own.
The finale of Season 2, John Smith, borrows the concept from an old Washington Post piece looking at one complete life by piecing together the lives of seven different men, who don't know one another, but share the name John Smith, the most common name in America.
The baby John Smith was a few weeks old, and lived vicariously through his parents. Their dreams for him were big - maybe President or CEO - but they hoped for the usual things - a happy family, a life as a working man, an education.
The 8-year-old John Smith was a bit like any other kid - he went to school, he played in the yard. Like me, he looked for something to control. At school, he played the policeman whenever he could. At home, he often played by himself.
The 24-year-old John Smith was unlike me - unsure of himself, looking for direction, trying to balance a steady job with drug offenses. I'm lucky to not be in such a situation.
The 40-or-50-something John Smith welcomed his son home from Iraq, and set about repairing a strained relationship.
A 50-something John Smith visited his father - the 79-year-old John Smith - at the nursing home every day after work. Even when the elder was in a bad mood, the loyal son was there, saying what he could to a man who was confined to a wheelchair, jaw stuck open, and said little in response. But, in the paraphrased words of the infant John Smith's father, he may have sat at the head of the table at Thanksgiving and simply silently admire
d this family that he had created.
In order of age, I skipped one, because his story hit home. The 30-something John Smith worked in the Xbox division at Microsoft. He spent his time in meetings or answering emails, was tethered to a Blackberry, and traveled frequently. He had a wife and a beautiful baby girl, but his mother was on the way out the door. And the piece focused on what this did to John. To him, it felt as though everything had been thrown into the air, leaving him unable to focus on everything that he knew he had - the job, the wife, the baby, the house, the car. (The same things that the eldest John Smith had black-and-white photographs of, to illustrate this eponymous American life - one of aspiration, of acquisition, of work and of family.)
It could have been me, 10 or 20 years from now. That was the point - the whole show was essentially telling the stories that we all have to go through, from growing pains to the search for one's own identity to parenthood and grandparenthood. But the 30-something John's story hit home because I know that it's what I'll go through. Many years from now, I'll have the wife and baby. There's not an ounce of doubt in my mind. And I'll lose my mom - that I couldn't possibly doubt. And it's mortifying; it's the only thing that's made my brain grind to a halt more than the thought of my own death.
Remarkably, John's mom was very brave. "I know she's not scared, but I am," John said of his mother's downhill battle with cancer. I think my mom will have the same bravery, the same peace of mind. She's smart and self-aware that way. But like John, it will throw everything I know into relief with that one giant elephant in the room - she's going, or she's gone.
John picks up the phone to call his mom on the way home from work, but then, realizing he can't call her, he just gets stuck in an infinite loop. He can't put the phone back down as easily as he picked it up.
In 10 or 20 years, I'll have the wife, the child, the house, the car, and the job. Of these things, I have no doubt.
Whether I'll be able to appreciate them, with the distractions of American aspiration and the fear of lost loved ones, is a different story.