catapult magazine

I don’t know about anyone else but when I was younger my parents said to me “you can be anything you want to be.”

Now maybe that’s something my parents just said to encourage a younger child’s imagination and/or I’ve just become extremely cynical, but I do believe that’s a lie. There are just some things we can’t be and wouldn’t be suited for. (For example, I want to be a professional actor so bad I can taste it, but I just don’t know if it’s possible). Am I right? Is this just an idealistic philosophy?
What do you think? I’d love your imput on this.

(hmmmm, Perhaps this is under the wrong topic, but I think of relationships between parents and children when I think of this.)

I still think it’s true, I just think I’m probably too lazy.

Once in my church’s young peoples group, (of which I was the leader) we had a costume party, and students were supposed to come dressed as what they wanted to be when they grew up.

Alison came dressed as a butterfly.

I love that kid.

GoDrama,

Although I do think you may be right in saying that not everyone can be whatever they want to be, I don’t think that you can’t be a professional actor. How do you know you can’t be one if you haven’t tried? It’s kind of like saying, “Man, I want to be a surgeon so bad! I just don’t think I know enough about surgery and medicine to be one, though.”

Right, probably not NOW. That’s what learning is for. I am a firm believer that talent doesn’t inherently exist. Well, maybe it does, but if it does, we give it way more credit than it’s worth. An artist once said — There’s no such thing as talent, just hours. — I think that’s good advice. If you feel led to the profession of acting, learn how to do it well, then do it, do it, do it!

I know, sometimes you don’t get cast. Or someone says your acting was bad. Or you’re not in love with the play you’re in. Or you see loads of famous actors younger than you. I understand that it’s easy to get discouraged, especially in an area like acting, which a lot of people don’t consider a legitimate profession. But it is. The Lord calls us to be painters, shoemakers, theatre-makers, accountants, philosphers, musicians, historians, farmers, salesmen, cooks, teachers, social workers…

Do it.

When I was growing up in the 1940s, it seemed like all parents (at least in my lower middle class environment) said that anybody could be anything they wanted to be. Usually, it was framed in terms of anybody could grow up to be President of the United States. To some extent, it was a mantra; to a lesser extent, everybody believed (or wanted to believe) it, because that was the essence of “the American Dream.”

I still think that you can be almost anything you want to be. (Actually, it’s probably more true for women than it was in the 1940s and 1950s. My wife took one of those career aptitude tests in high school; the counselor said that, if she was a boy, she should probably be a forest ranger; since she was a girl, she might be a flower arranger in a florist shop). Having said that, I don’t think it is possible for anyone to be President. Probably anyone can be an actor, but I doubt that talent and hard work are enough to make you a “star.” “The American Dream” looks pretty tarnished to me, but it’s still probably easier to envision in this country, Canada, or some of “old Europe” than anyplace else.

you can’t be anything you want to be…..if your parents were losers so shall you be a loser……..its science