Every once in a while someone will ask why I include my middle name on social media. I didn’t used to; back in my day when we climbed uphill both ways through the snow to post online it wasn’t a habit when making a new account. But as social media flourished, so did the number of fans who like this guy.
That’s when the confusion started.
As you can see, we are basically the same person. At least, we were to some fans online. See if you do a search for “David Hewlett” online, you end up with this guy’s eerily smug face. But every once in a while if you click the wrong thing on the internet while trying to find a ComicCon quote, or enjoy a chuckle of him playing a nerdy role in a sci-fi drama, you’ll end up finding me instead. And he’s basically my doppelganger in every way, so it’s easy to see fans confusing the two of us. Right?
Right. I guess.
So for a while people would send me messages or want to be friends, thinking I was a minor C-list celebrity because they didn’t know how to look at photos and distinguish between two tall white guys. At first it was a little funny—I got a good chuckle and a bar story out of it. But then for a while I was getting a couple messages a day, beeping on my phone at random hours of the night from people I never would meet who had no actual interest in me as a human being.
It was a little disheartening, to be honest. To know there was this person out there who was famous and successful and wealthy who shared my name, and people wanted to get to know that guy far more often than they wanted to get to know me. So, after a little research I discovered adding in my middle name made it easier for people to...not...find me, oddly enough.
Back then it made me think, “I wonder what it would be like to be this other person, who has all of these things in their life I don’t.” To switch places for a day with my supposed doppelganger and see what the other side of minor stardom is like.
Last week I listened to a podcast from several years ago by The Liturgists in which they invite the now recently passed Rachael Held Evans to talk with them about the idea of being a celebrity, especially one in Christian circles, and what that meant in her life. All three of the cast members at the time of the release were all somewhat famous and each had their own set of fans so they shared thoughts about what fame does to a person, and their struggles with the byproducts fame brought. One thing which has been rattling around in my brain about her part in the conversation, other than the fact that she also used her middle name regularly online, is that she had come to miss her life before becoming a renowned author and speaker.
It’s stuck with me because it’s so counterintuitive to how we are told to live. We are taught by society that not only are fame and recognition to be sought after and highly valued, but on the other side of whatever we are pursuing is where we will find happiness and fulfillment.
If we can just land this contract.
Once we fall in love with the right person.
After we hit (X)XX,XXX per year.
When our kids get easier to handle.
For most people becoming a celebrity isn’t on the radar; we are planted in other pursuits far away from the allure of Hollywood. But there is a similar sense that once we get from A to B, just over the crest of the mountain, the valley will hold everything we need to be satisfied.
If I can just make it, i’ll be happy.
Evans goes on to describe how at first she thought becoming a minor celebrity would be a fun change of pace, and would cure a lot of her woes about being an author earning a pittance from her passion-laden work. But after several years in the limelight, she began to yearn for the simple life she had cultivated before an endless stream of emails, long nights in hotels far away from home and countless stops at the airport to snap selfies with fans.
We dwell all too readily on the gold we think our pursuits will bring often without considering the costs they incur.
These days I get less invites from strangers on the internet to party in Vegas while i’m in town for a convention, and I’m glad for it. I don’t want the life of a celebrity; I want a simple journey filled with people and passions and work I love. But something in my soul still yearns for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, so to speak. To have that thing just on the edge of the horizon of my pursuits. I’ve had to learn over the years that satisfaction in life won’t come from a simple algorithm change.
I’ve had to learn to kill my inner Oscar Nominee.
At first, I didn’t want to be a self-murderer. After all that’s the type of thing if you talk to much about without explaining they throw you in a padded cell for. For a long while I was very interested in fame and fortune and trying to date a model; that lifestyle was appealing to me because it would mean I made it. And when I made it, then...then I'd be happy. Over the years I discovered not only did I not want a Californication life, but I would have to keep killing again and again the part of myself which still yearned for it.
Dying to myself, as scripture puts it.
Sometimes we have to kill our worst impulses in order to be free.
My hope for you is this: be like Rachael.
Listen to your better angels this week and dive into a simple life full of beauty, and shut out the voices which would call for you to chase the trappings your story has offered.