Paul Newman

 "I feel like a person who has been doing prison time and is suddenly let out. He realizes he has only five or six or eight years left in his lifetime, and there's no way that'll be enough to make amends."

"An incredible part of me believes you're a free agent inside of your genetics. And that complaining that Mommy's never kissed me is a bunch of shit. But somehow I got a pretty shitty opinion of myself that had to come from somewhere."

Those quotes ring true to my own life. 

I just read Paul Newman - The Extraordinary Life Of An Ordinary Man. There are books that I read - a rare occurrence - that when I read them my stomach is slightly clenched. Because I don't want to finish the book, because the book is connecting with my very soul. This is one of those books. An honest man who bares his soul and insists that any quotes from other people in the book be brutally honest.

Why did I never have a beer with this man?

In 1986, Newman asked his closest friend, Stewart Stern, to compile an oral history of Newman's life. Newman insisted that anyone who spoke on the record had to be completely honest. Then he would work with Stern to offer his side of the story.

It was never completed. Newman died in 2008 and Stern died in 2015. Recently, Newman's family decided to finish the project.

There is so much I could say, so many quotes I could share, but I'm going to get to the part of the book that exploded my brain.

Newman speaks of himself as the "ornament" and the "orphan." The orphan is who he really is, the ornament is the person he presented to the world - shaped by his early life etc. 

He speaks of both parts of him trying to connect. And the fear that "the completion, the merging - it was hopeless and all the impressive attributes you were looking to find in the blending of the halves were simply wiped out, your worst fears realized."

"And I dread the terror of discovering that the emotional anesthetic I've lived with will never be able to let the orphan get out front and have a life of it's own."

"I've always had a sense of being an observer of my own life.".............."I have a sense of watching something, but not of living something."

"What shuts down a person?................. "It isn't that you don't care, but that you're always observing and so detached you can never get inside. The core (orphan) has never had an opportunity to fly, to discover its own curiosity. It was usurped, outranked by the decoration (ornament). The core never had a chance."

"I think I'm angry at getting old. I'm not going to age gracefully." 

He describes himself, he describes me. I am stunned by how similar our thoughts, our self-opinions, are. I am stunned that even with all his success he felt this way about himself.

My fascination with this man is not only because I feel what he felt. I mean, the man was an enormous success. I respect the life he made for himself despite his inner reservations, his inner struggle. I respect his honest approach to life, which was confirmed over and over again by friends and relatives. I respect his down to earth manner in the face of great celebrity.

Maybe the book gives me a little hope that I can make something out of my life that I can point to with pride, however small.

Ultimately I enjoyed the story of his life as he saw it, and how his friends, relatives and co-workers saw it.

He was a very impressive man.