Deep Thought

Jack Handey was an occasional commentator on "Saturday Night Live" throughout the '90s -- if "commentator" isn't too solemn a word for what he did there. His routine has been enshrined any number of places (books, greeting cards, various famous-quotations Web sites) as "Deep Thoughts." A quote-a-day feed that I subscribe to just served up this gem, from the broadcast of December 6, 1997:

When he was a little boy, he had always wanted to be an acrobat. It looked like so much fun, spinning through the air, flipping, landing on other people's shoulders. Little did he know that when he finally did become an acrobat, it would seem so boring. Years later, after he finally quit, he found out he hadn't been working as an acrobat after all. He had just been a street weirdo.

I don't know why I find that so funny. Maybe because there's a lesson there for wannabes of all kinds -- including wannabe writers. (Ouch.)