My Jesus Year

The conventional wisdom has Jesus Christ of Nazareth being crucified by the age of 33. By that point, he'd been a carpenter, thrown the moneylenders out of the temple, walked on water, turned water into wine, made a few loaves and fishes feed a multitude and founded a religion that would eventually spread over the face of the earth.

Tomorrow, I turn 33. And I've...moved a few times, dated some women, drank more than my fair share and wrote some plays.

This isn't a comparison that comes out well on my end.

So this is it, my last chance to do something truly lasting with my life. To really make a mark. Okay, it's not my last chance. That's a little dramatic (what can I say? I'm a dramatist). But this is a good year for reflection, for looking at my life and works, and, of course, for getting my ya-yas out before the biographers start.

I think most people are aware of the whole Curse of 27. Janis, Jimi, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, all dead at 27. That's a birthday that's about proving you're more hardcore than them, that you can party like the Rock God you are, as a friend of mine used to say. But this birthday isn't like that. Even in days like this.

For anyone who might be feeling uncomfortable, I'm not a religious man. And I'm not an anti-religious man. This isn't going to be a whole thing about how Jesus saves or didn't exist. It's just looking at one pretty famous life and my own significantly less significant life and wondering how I stack up. I'm a guy and I'm all about measuring.

So these will be thoughts and discoveries and just...the detritus of an average life lived now.

Pretentious enough for you? I thought so.