Is all this really necessary?

I have frequently heard the old axiom that one must suffer for one’s art. The way I always interpreted this was an artist must live through the tough times, the rejection, and the lack of appreciation from the masses in order to get to the point when his art will be accepted and he will be given adulation, respect and possibly even monetary gain. It appears I was wrong.

The more I hear the background stories of great artists of every stripe the more it seems in order to be truly successful as a painter, a musician, a writer, or a ventriloquist (wait a minute, forget that last one) you had to have an upbringing Oliver Twist would find breathtakingly sad. Think about it. How many times have you heard an author’s early life described like this? A life of nightly beatings suffered at the hands of the older boys at the boarding school run by the sadistic headmaster who later married his mother so he couldn’t even escape the malevolence during Christmas break or upon graduation thus ensuring meals consisting of larvae infested bread crusts and a water dish he was forced to share with the dozen or so Rottweilers doted upon by his evil stepfather and total servitude to his craven stepbrother who had the IQ of a dinner roll until one day he was using a stolen spoon to scratch his thoughts and dreams on the back of the rock under the hedge next to the moat to which he was chained every night at bedtime and a passing traveler stopped to ask directions, read the brilliant prose exposing surpassing beauty and a depth of human understanding never before put into words and was thus whisked away to a life of adoration and exultation as a writer of inestimable skill. Believe it or not I just described the adolescence of Academy Award winner Aaron Sorkin. Who’d of thought growing up in Scarsdale would have given his family access to a moat?

Okay, I may have overstated things a bit. The thesis is still correct. I have been intentionally writing for over a decade and have not gotten beyond the 620 area code. My problem may not be talent or drive. It probably all has to do with the fact I had a childhood completely devoid of sadistic headmasters (I was scared of the assistant principal at Liberty Junior High but that was mostly due to facts which lived in my head and nowhere else). I was never forced to eat anything worse than peas (actually my mom never really forced me to eat anything). My siblings were all kind-hearted and their IQs dwarfed even the most gifted of baked goods. My upbringing was pleasant…rats…

My next options for proper artistic suffering are crippling substance abuse or unrelenting mental illness. Hmmm, that would be a no. I am not willing to do either of those choices just for a large advance from Simon & Shuster and a three picture deal with Dreamworks. Maybe a preternatural craving for Junior Mints and an irksome feeling that I left the water running would suffice for eight hundred words published in Cigar Aficionado (which is an actual, honest-to-goodness magazine).

Like so many afflictions it appears my suffering (which oddly enough is the massive lack of suffering) is a cycle which is being handed down to my children. I’m sure they have their moments when they believe their lives are terribly hard but that usually revolves around the fact that the internet went down as they were watching Glee reruns on hulu.com. All three of my kids love to read and enjoy music. They have all had opportunities to show some skills in the performing arts but unfortunately they will never be giant successes unless some changes are made.

It may be too late for the oldest one. She is 18 and getting ready to scamper off to college. Kid number two might benefit from some emotional cruelty but whenever I try it we both just start laughing at the lack of conviction in my performance. Kid number three has the greatest amount of time left living with me. Maybe I can turn his life into a Dickensian morass of despair. Naah, that will never work. His mother likes him too much.

It appears all of us will just have to settle for being mostly happy and reasonably well-adjusted instead of being world famous artists of talent and deep melancholy.

Christopher Pyle still holds out hope Aaron Sorkin has a google alert set for his name which causes him to read this column and hire Chris to write for his next television show. Mr. Sorkin, your people can contact Chris’s people at occasionallykeen@yahoo.com.