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I love the TV show Succession. I think it is the best TV show ever made. I find it to be wildly entertaining and brilliantly written. It is both hilarious and has devastating emotional gut punches. It has plot and also introspection. It has it all, in my humble opinion.
But there are two big reasons why I think it is No. 1 among all shows ever made. One is that I find the show to be the perfect window into life on Earth in 2023. It’s a show full of entitled buffoons who were born on third base and yet have no understanding of that. They somehow manage to fumble and bumble around, impacting countless millions of people with their ridiculous, vain decisions of how to use their fame and fortune. They aren’t 1 percenters; they’re .00001 percenters that influence the fate of humanity, and it makes you shudder at how many people in our real lives are as empty as these suits we see on Succession. I really think it is the kind of show that people in 2123 will be able to watch and understand what the world was actually like 100 years earlier.
The second reason why I think it is the best show ever is how relatable the main characters are. You’re probably saying, “Wait, I thought you said these were billionaire trust fund bozos who are ruining the world?” They are. But they’re also people who want others to tell them they are loved and appreciated, that they are smart and worthy. They’re people who think if they had more money, or more power, maybe then they’d feel complete. They’re empty inside, trying to fill up on various things that would never actually fill them up, anyway. Put aside being the billionaire thing for a second. Can’t most of us relate to that concept?
I know I can. I often say my drinking and drugging was to make me feel either awesome or at least numb, and that’s true. But it’s probably more the numb part. Toward the end, I could never get high or drunk enough to ever feel good about myself. So I just wanted to feel nothing. And when I think about why I wanted to feel nothing, it’s because I couldn’t cope with life. I couldn’t cope with having ideas about what would make me happy—money, professional success, romantic success, a nice house, good looks, and so on—and then the harsh reality. Which was, some of these things didn’t happen (wealth and professional success, for one) and that made me angry and sad. And some of these things did happen (romance, for instance) and I realized, “Oh no, I got exactly what I wanted and it still wasn’t enough.”
Because that’s the thing: Most of the stuff I’ve ever really, really, really wanted… I got most of it, and it wasn’t enough. The Roy kids in Succession were flopping and flailing and trying to broker massive mergers and big-time backstabbing power plays, and they already had billions of dollars and more influence on the world than pretty much every living person. It didn’t matter.
I won’t spoil the end of the show, which concluded on Sunday night. But I found it to be a masterpiece of storytelling, and I also found it to be a valuable life lesson again about the idea of what I want and what I need. What do I really want? What do I really need? The answers are not easy, and they change every day, sometimes hour to hour.
I will say that I know the most important answer to those questions of what I want and what I need is… I don’t know. Certainty is my enemy in those situations. So I try to remember that the world is uncertain, and so am I. I gotta turn it over to a higher power and be patient as I think through whether certain stuff will truly, honestly make me happy. So now I have a life where I have lots of options as I try to reach decisions. I can pray. I can call some sober friends. Or I could throw on some reruns of Succession.
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
IN NEED OF MONEY FOR HIS NEXT BREW, the town drunk decides to hire himself out as a handy-man and starts canvassing a well-to-do neighborhood. He goes up to the front door of the first house and asks the owner whether she has any jobs for him to do.
"Well, I guess I could use somebody to paint my porch," says the owner. "How much do you charge?"
"How about fifty dollars?" the drunk replies.
The woman agrees and explains that the paint is in the garage. But when she goes inside, her husband, who's overheard the conversation, says, "Does he realize that our porch goes all the way around the house?"
"That's a bit cynical, isn't it?" says the wife.
"You're right," the husband admits. "I guess I am being too cynical. He can probably handle it."
A short time later, the drunk comes to the door to collect his money. "You're finished already?" the owner of the house asks.
"Yes," says the drunk, "and I had paint left over, so I gave it two coats."
Impressed, the woman gets her wallet and pays the drunk his fifty dollars.
"And by the way," the drunk adds, "it's not a Porch; it's a Lexus."
(Credit: AA Grapevine, by Linda S. of Bonita Springs, Florida, December 2003)
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