Birnam Wood

I've been really careful to avoid ambition all my life. I've read enough Shakespeare to know it's a pretty bad deal. The levels of ambition range all over the place whether it's to be king of Scotland or to nail a 14-year-old or to be a black guy in Italy, but they all end the same way: pile of bodies, a grand summation of woe with especial notes on ironic tragedy and Exeunt.

Even when I was a doctoral candidate, I wouldn't really have called myself ambitious. Had I been, I may have actually, you know, finished. At the time, I was smart enough to get in and couldn't really think of anything else I wanted or was qualified to do. I was shiftless and selfish and childish and essentially unemployable. Luckily the kids started coming. If the parenthood thing didn't happen for me, the only other thing that skill set prepared me to be was a Real Housewife of Beverly Hills. Remember, this was 1999. Like most men of vision, I bore the curse of being ahead of my time.

It isn't just me, though. Rick Perry thought he wanted to be president, but then he realized--wisely, I think, if entirely too late--that the high, high cost of the office might be more burden than his slopey, cowboy shoulders can bear. Turns out it's not just 1) Become governor of Texas, 2) Announce presidential candidacy and 3) Denim-themed inaugural ball. Step 2a is People Ask You Stuff, which Rick himself will tell you really isn't his best format. Of all the things Rick Perry does well, coming up with stuff to say in response to things other people say is probably his second-least-impressive area of competency. Unfortunately for him, the only thing he's proven worse at is Giving Prepared Remarks.

So you see, there's no winning. You make up your mind to do America a favor by giving it a unique opportunity to crown a Texas governor running on a platform of Jesus and suspicion of the readerly and all you get for it is the chance to find yourself looking up at a black guy and a Mormon. But America is cruel that way. I'm pretty sure in Russia, both of those things are illegal.

I'm struggling with the ambition thing now because, now that I'm in the workforce, I find it wriggling into my ear and taking over my brain, like those ear lizard-worms from Wrath of Khan. Because of my lack of experience with the sensation, I'm not sure if it's purely ambition or if it's just the nascent, napalm-esque incendiary resentment of possibly ceding a position of authority (relative to my current one) I'm qualified for to someone who is, both vaguely and hyper-specifically, Not Me. I don't know. Maybe one of you can help me. It feels like I've swallowed knives. Does that help? Is that ambition? I don't know. All I know is in the end, that poor bastard Paul Winfield shot himself in the face with a ray-gun. Awesome? Sure. Scares me a little, to be honest. If Shakespeare's still getting in right in the Star Trek future, what chance do I have today?