Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself (21 page)

You can do these things whether you get lucky or not…in fact, getting lucky and
not
doing them is probably the best way to turn good luck into bad. These three essentials will help you make the most of what comes your way,
whatever
comes your way.

1.
Make someone happy. Learn how to laugh and how to make someone else laugh. Take pleasure in who they are,
as
they are. In other words, love someone. Surrender to the person you love. I don’t mean give in. I mean surrender. Put down the arms of war and open the other kind. You don’t need to debate and compromise with someone you love. Just make them happy.

2.
Find out how you can be helpful. It didn’t occur to me at first that being helpful was better than being the center of attention. That’s not an idea that would tend to occur to an actor. But it turns out that if you can really find a way to be helpful, more satisfaction and praise than you know what to do with will come your way. Being helpful assumes that the people you help actually
want
your help. And that you know enough to actually be of help and not make life worse for them than it already is. This means getting as smart as you can. But getting smart is a tricky business. The smartest people I’ve ever met are the ones who knew exactly what they were ignorant of. If you don’t know much about something, assuming that what little you know is all there
is
to know is not the way to find out more. And try not to assume you can just take a
stab
at complex things. Complex things bite. So be wary of simple answers to complex questions.

3.
If you keep score, keep score your way. Don’t let the world tell you success is a big house if you think success is a happy home. If you meet a bully who says, “I’m stronger and richer than you, and you’re nothing if you’re not richer or stronger than I am,” and if he’s richer and stronger than you’ll ever be, wouldn’t it be stupid to get into a pissing contest with this guy?

But maybe I’m putting it into too many words. Let’s say I was about to be shot in some penny ante dictatorship and the firing squad says, “You have ten seconds to tell us everything you know. And if you can’t do it in
one sentence,
the president told us to shoot you.” Here’s what I’d say: “Boys, think for yourselves.”

I think that sums up everything but the love part.

Thinking it through is what I’m asking of you. No matter what the ideology is, get the facts. Don’t just rely on your beliefs. Everything is more complex than it first seems, and being passionate doesn’t make you right.

Now, about being the leaders of tomorrow: Given the way the world works, how could you, sitting here today, take seriously the words of some character up here saying, “You are the leaders of tomorrow—you are our future”?

Let’s be serious. When you leave here, if you’re lucky enough to find a job, you’ll spend the next ten years learning the ropes and finding out exactly what compromises to make to get ahead. You’ll learn how to make and sell cars that are a little less safe than you personally would like to drive—you’ll make movies that are a little more stupid and predictable than you would like to see—you’ll fly people in planes with just a little more time between safety inspections than you yourself feel comfortable with. You’ll do this because the system you’re trying to fit into has been in place for longer than your ideals have. It’s the one your parents had to adjust to in order to survive—and
their
parents, too.

The single greatest American invention was not Henry Ford’s car—it was Henry Ford’s assembly line. In our time, it’s reached the peak of perfection. Everyone on the line has a specialized role to play. Crank your nut, slam in your bolt, and go home. No one is responsible for the whole thing, just his or her little part of it. It only has to be good enough to sell—and its value, its worth, is reckoned by the price it gets. Your ambition will be directed at getting a better place on the assembly line and someday maybe even
running
the line—but as in that great Lily Tomlin aphorism, “The trouble with the rat race is even if you win, you’re still a rat.”

So what chance do you have to be “our future”?

This chance: You can decide to think for yourself. You can say to yourself,
I will make a silk purse out of every sow’s ear that comes down the assembly line.

You may be expected to tell people only what they need to know to make the sale. But if you learn to find out what they actually
need
and help them get it, I bet you’ll feel better and even do better. It takes more energy—much more energy—but it’s also more fun. Edmund Burke said: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” And I say the only thing necessary for the triumph of the assembly line is for creative people with the energy of youth to do nothing but learn the ropes.

So that’s it. I’ve told you everything I know.

Think clearly and think for
yourself;
learn to use language to express those thoughts. Love somebody with all your heart…and with
everyone,
whether you love them or not, find out how you can be helpful.

But, really, it’s even simpler than that. After all this time, and all these talks in public and in private, I think I get it now. If I were taking my friend Arnold’s suggestion and spoke from my deathbed, I think I know what I’d say: I see now that I had my meaning all along. I just had to notice it.

The meaning of life is life.

Not
noticing
life is what’s meaningless, right down to the last second. When I played Richard Feynman on the stage, Feynman, who was dying of cancer, told his doctor he didn’t want an anesthetic at the end, because “if I’m going to die, I want to be there when I do.” Even in this last moment, there will be something to notice. After all the talk,
that’s
the final word.

Notice.

So, go. Accomplish as much as you can. But while you’re busy doing great things—don’t forget to tend to Bosco’s belly.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A
LAN
A
LDA
played Hawkeye Pierce for eleven years in the television series
M*A*S*H
and has acted in, written, and directed many feature films. He has starred often on Broadway, and his avid interest in science has led to his hosting PBS’s
Scientific American Frontiers
for eleven years. He was nominated for an Academy Award in 2005 and has been nominated for thirty-two (and has won six) Emmy Awards. He is married to the children’s book author and photographer Arlene Alda. They have three grown children and seven grandchildren.

ALSO BY ALAN ALDA

Never Have Your Dog Stuffed

Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself
is a work of nonfiction.

Some names and identifying details have been changed.

Copyright © 2007 by Mayflower Productions, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

R
ANDOM
H
OUSE
and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the
Chicago Tribune
for permission to reprint an excerpt from “Advice, Like Youth, Probably Just Wasted on the Young” by Mary Schmich (June 1, 1997), copyright © 1997 by Chicago Tribune. Reprinted by permission of the
Chicago Tribune.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Alda, Alan.

Things I overheard while talking to myself/Alan Alda.

p.                                    cm.

1. Alda, Alan 2. Actors—United States—Biography.

I. Title.

PN
2287.
A
45
A
3 2007                                    792.02'8092—dc22                  2007012880
[B]

www.atrandom.com

Frontispiece photograph courtesy of the author

eISBN: 978-1-58836-648-1

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