Reliving Seinfeld

Watching the Season 3 DVD of Seinfeld, with such timeless classic episodes as "the Parking Garage," "The Pen," "The Boyfriend" (aka the Keith Hernandez episode), "the Parking Spot," etc., etc., and I wonder.....are the lives of Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer ideal? Would I want to be a successful single comedian living in the Lower East End of New York and living life with some of my best friends, and with hilarious stories, thrilling adventures, and various companions/dates/relationships?

I think not. I love Seinfeld, George, Kramer, and their interactions with each other: they kid around, have inside jokes, go everywhere together, and step up for each other if someone's in trouble; it's exactly the kind of interaction I try to have with my friends, and aspire to......NOW. But I DON'T necessarily want to be like that when I'm 35, or 40, or whatever age the characters in Seinfeld are. Seinfeld is awesome but it purposely doesn't include an element of living: kids + family. They don't have wives, they don't have kids, they don't do "family things." In contrast to the family-based comedy of "Everybody Loves Raymond," "The Cosby Show," or "Home Improvement," Seinfeld + friends don't have families. Dare I say it, I feel a little sorry for them that they have to rely on their friends to combat loneliness and act as surrogates for their lack of real families. I'm fine with it for a year, a few years, maybe until I'm 30, but I'm a guy who eventually wants a family, eventually a big family, eventually kids to play with, raise, and share my life with. It's not an Asian thing, a Midwest thing, it's a me thing and what I value the most.


Let's analyze also, if I may, the "it's a show about nothing" aspect of Seinfeld. Is life, like the show, pretty much about nothing? Do we just live our lives for the stories, for the awkward events, for the series of accumulated moments that happen while we're doing other things? Is it, as said so eloquently by the irreverent Lester Freamon on "The Wire," "the sh*t that happens while you're waiting for moments that never come?" It might be. What's our purpose for going to our jobs, earning money, traveling, going to school, and every other aspirational activity that we undergo? It's all to achieve some abstract "perfect-world" where we're at our dream jobs, living beautifully with nothing to worry about? That almost never happens!! Even people who we think have that "perfect-world" continue to strive for more; very few people are satisfied. So that's why I say we gotta enjoy our lives sometimes, celebrate the occasions......because once life gets going, it's hard to stop it. Go out and run in a new place, go look at Christmas lights, watch old Seinfeld re-runs, play some fantasy football ( I got some GREAT advice). Whatever it is, try to enjoy it, because the moment that you're looking for might actually never come.

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan