Nathan Edlin Profile

I walk over to a park bench to meet a kid who’d said he’d be there. He is not. Seven minutes go past and a car rolls up. “Sorry, bad traffic… or I was hungry and had to stop on the way. Uhh… one of the two” says the now 8 minutes late Nathan Edlin I’m supposed to interview. We exchange pleasantries and I begin my interview, “Which person in your life has shaped you into who you are today the most?”The question is pondered, ‘I would say my older brother has probably had the largest effect on me. When I was little I used to think he was like the apex of what a human could be. People seemed to like him and I thought if I could be like him, then people would like me too”. I follow up, “How’s that working out for you”, my question is answered with a half-joke, half-dead serious response, “You know, I’m not quite sure yet. Get back to me in ten years and we’ll see how we’re doing”. We both let out a light chuckle and I move on,  “Next question for you Mr. Edlin, what do you plan on doing with your life?”, his eyebrows lift and eyes widen, “You tell me brother! What am I going to do? What does Nathan Edlin like doing? Uhh… I dunno, not working. I’ll be 18 when I go into college, how am I supposed to know how I want to spend the rest of my life at 18? It’s kinda freaky” he says. I further the conversation, “What things do you like? Just look for a job that makes you happy”, he responds with, “Oh golly, thanks. Do something that you don’t hate. Ah yes, it’s all so clear now” in a tone which leaves me questioning if he was amused or exasperated. I push further, “Seriously though, what is it that you enjoy doing”, he sits for a moment thinking, I presume, and answers, “I think making people laugh makes me happy but what do you do with that? Comedian? Yeah right, and spend the rest of my life living in a motel. Yeah, that sounds like something I want to do. Thanks for the help guy. All I needed to do was follow my unrealistic dreams straight into making 20,000 dollars a year”. We both pause for a few moments before I ask, “Is happiness not worth 20,000 dollars a year”, the response I receive is backed by an audible fire, “No. I’m not going to go out in life and be nothing. Happiness is not worth failure”. The air hangs dead. Pretty intense response to a question that was not so serious. I could hardly believe a real human would react like that. It seemed almost like a person had written that hyper-dramatized response just so I could write something that wouldn’t double as Nyquill. Before I can ask another question Nathan says to me, “Listen brother it’s been fun and I hope you got something that you wanted from this but I have to be somewhere”. With that he stood up, walked to his car, and left.