I had a young protégé. He wanted to be a screenwriter.
But his father encouraged him to be a bricklayer, like himself. It was his “lot in life,” his father said. “The arts don’t make money, bricklaying is a decent wage, and the world needs bricklayers. You’ll be one like me.”
For 10 years my young savant laid bricks and swallowed his dreams. One day his father’s best friend died (presumably from laying bricks). At the funeral the father got up to read a eulogy he had written. My friend was moved to tears. Not by the eloquence of the good-bye—but by the realization that his father was a writer.
