Expectations
So the other day after observing a child throw a tantrum, and in the wake of a mini-internal tantrum of my own, I was thinking about how advanced whining over not-getting-what-one-wants can actually become. We just hide it better as adults. As children, it is very over-the-top emotional rage, usually culminating in public outburst and crying. By our 20s we perhaps don’t cry as much, but still rage a little, but for the most part we keep it out of the public. Or we become intellectual about it; about how we are in the right and deserve X, and Y that got in our way is the source of all evil. So, in contemplating expectation, I thought I would profile three celebrity personalities and look at the differences.
Sisyphus. Confined to a life of daily disappointment, he is the Jesus of the secular set, representing the poor and misfortunate many of this world. Perpetually disappointed, he is hardened, a beaten down calloused man whose hope has long been vanquished. He expects nothing because everything is dead by way of cynicism.
Tom Cruise. TC is the proverbial child-mind gone wild: enough celebrity and wealth to finance the deepest voyage into the depths of surreal, self-important fanaticism, polishing an unbalanced and unchecked ego. As such, like Kim Jong-il, when he whines, he gets. When he doesn’t get, he goes slightly more insane. Like a Zoo raised Cheetah, he wouldn’t last a day in the real world, where he’d most certainly be an overworked project manager. Mission very possible.
The Dude. Perhaps the most ironic example of maturity, the Dude represents a highly evolved attitude of staying flexible in the face of adversity. With virtually no expectation to begin with, the Dude is thrown only by highly unusual circumstances, but maintains his integrity in dealing with them, with the assistance of a little THC. The Dude is an existential hero because like a Buddhist monk he has nullified the concept of expectation before it owns him. Bravo, Dude, bravo.
But in the end I wish we still had public tantrums as adults. Going out would be that much more interesting.
September 16th, 2007 at 2:14 am
I was having a conversation the other night on a similar topic, how when you’re a child you hit or annoy the person you have a crush on. I think that feeling doesn’t really go away, just most adults don’t knock someone’s baseball cap off or pop a bra or shove or kick that special someone. I can say that I sometimes want to smash the face in of someone I want to get close to almost as much as I want to kiss it all over.
September 16th, 2007 at 11:35 am
Public tantrums remind me of my childhood and going out to eat with my parents. Then again I don’t know if that had anything to do with not meeting expectations, as they always seemed to be fighting about nothing, getting off on the adrenaline. Maybe it relates to what e. wrote, just being desperate for any attention, even if it’s negative. We are all 2 year olds underneath.
September 16th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
You people need to grow up!
…and bring back bra popping.
September 22nd, 2007 at 10:38 am
Nice one, MUS. Being a parent to a couple of wonderful kids inevitably prone to the occasional apocalyptic public meltdown, I gotta mention the catharsis element of tantrums. The little folks just let it all out, and then 30 minutes later it’s done, forgotten. Grown ups tend to archive the tiniest offense or embarassment and then chew on them like cud for decades. Course Proust or Nabokov would say that’s also the source of great literature.