by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I have to accept that it definitely appears as though — barring something I can’t predict — that my dream of pulling of a third hat trick with my life is a bit…delusional? I say this in the context of reading the big new book about The New York Times, “The Times.”
I always though that I had one big third act ahead of me. But, lulz, even if I sell my novel and it’s some sort of hit, it’s not like I will be, uuuuhhh, YOUNG when it happens. Everything will happen in the context of me being in my 50s.
It’s not like I can get my act together an one day work at The New York Times. I MIGHT be able to, like, hang out with New York Times people if I was some sort of successful — and eccentric — novelist, but work there full time….nope. Not only am I too old, I’m too bonkers and my personality just doesn’t fit working at such a high pressure gig.
Meanwhile, my other option — making it big in Hollywood — is just as delusional, but for different reasons. Yeah, I could probably talk my way into a three picture deal while drunk at a cocktail party, but, still, the whole context would be different from what I always imagined.
Rather than partying with 24 year olds, I would be this guy that everyone is stunned became a success 25 years later than everyone else. “So, how does it feel to be a success later in life,” is the chief question every reporter would ask me.
All of this is delusional, of course.
And I have to appreciate that barring something REALLY BIG that I can’t predict, I probably won’t actually be able to physically see my novel on the shelf of a physical bookstore until my mid-50s. (And by that point, a combination of AI and XR may have even made physical print bookstores rather quaint.)
Who knows. I don’t. But no matter what, the context of any success I have at this point in my life just won’t be what I expected back in the day.
