But was he interesting?
Robert had a famous father who knew everyone. This meant that Robert grew up around famous people and had access to all sorts of opportunities. Some of these opportunities he parlayed into a modest writing career. But he found it hard to get around to the writing he really wanted to do: a biography of his father.
“I still can’t get started,” he complained to his editor at the magazine where he appeared regularly. “I can’t get a handle on the story.”
“Maybe there is no story,” his editor Marvin replied.
“There are a million stories,” Robert exclaimed. “I’ve told you them. They’re great!”
Marvin shook his head. “Great? I wouldn’t call them great. Some wild party? Some threesome? That’s greatness?”
“He … people lined up for hours to meet him.”
“Agreed,” Marvin said. “Your father was famous. That doesn’t mean he was interesting.”
“But he knew everybody!”
“Yes. Who were themselves famous. But were they all that interesting? Was a drunk movie star more interesting than a drunk truck driver? Or was he just a drunk?”
Robert, aggrieved, licked his wounds by watching his father’s old movies. His father was certainly a handsome devil! He certainly had charisma. Sparks flew. His leading ladies couldn’t keep their hands off him. Surely …
But Marvin’s question haunted him. Certainly, his father had been famous. But had he been interesting?
The next day, he decided to write out a list of the interesting things his father had said to him, the interesting things his father had done, and the interesting people his father had known. He sat there for a long hour, putting things down and crossing them out.
“Safari to Africa? Big deal. Skydived out of a biplane? Who cares. Friends with that perverse director? Interesting? How is that anything but bad! Made a fortune on that action movie? Could anyone care less?”
The day after that, he felt a pounding in his skull. It came with a question he had never entertained before: “What is ‘interesting’?” What did the word mean? Was anything interesting? If yes—what? And why?
The question hounded him at the gym. It hounded him as he shopped at the fancy market in Chelsea. It hounded him as he picked up his kids from private school. It hounded him as he handed the kids off to their nanny. It hounded him as poured himself the good Scotch.
“What is ‘interesting’?”
He couldn’t say when, but finally the question passed like a gallstone. Then, for the next year, Robert wrote nothing.
**
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Dr. Maisel is the author of 50+ books, writes the “Rethinking Mental Health” blog for Psychology Today (with 3.5 million views), blogs for The Good Men Project and Fine Art America, serves as lead editor for the Ethics International Press Critical Psychology and Critical Psychiatry series, and is co-founder of Purposely, the life navigation app.
Dr. Maisel’s books include Fearless Creating, Rethinking Depression, Coaching the Artist Within, The Van Gogh Blues, The Power of Daily Practice, Redesign Your Mind, and scores of other titles. He has been published by Penguin Random House, McGraw Hill, Rodale, Harper San Francisco, Shambhala, New World Library, and Conari/Mango, among many others.
Dr. Maisel has created three certificate programs with Noble-Manhattan Coaching, a Creativity Coach Certificate and Diploma Program, an Existential Wellness Coach Certificate Program, and a Certified Relationship Coach program. With Lynda Monk of the International Association for Journal Writing, Dr. Maisel has created an Art of Journal Coaching Self-Study Plus program.
Dr. Maisel’s most recent books are Why Smart, Creative and Highly Sensitive People Hurt (2023), Affirmations for Self-Love (with Lynda Monk, 2024), Parents Who Bully (2024), and Choose Your Life Purposes (2024). Dr. Maisel lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and maintains a thriving international coaching practice.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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