What is a Diver’s Dream?

I am determined to seduce and marry Veronica Lake. Hear me out. She is beautiful, a movie star, and has a lot of money. I just know our lives together will be exquisite. Admittedly, she doesn’t know I’m alive nor is she aware of my undying passion or my plan to be with her forever. But I know just what to do. I have been working on this strategy for the last four years and I am thoroughly convinced that it will work. I have found out the last known address for Veronica-somewhere in Beverly Hills. Although there is an eight-foot wall around the property, I have spent the last several semesters writing poetry and throwing the poems over the wall. I just feel it in my heart that she is reading and appreciating them. I also serenade her by walking back and forth along the sidewalk in front of her house singing love songs that I have written. No, I don’t particularly like writing poetry nor do I have an ear or appreciation for music, but I am willing to do anything so that Veronica will notice me, fall in love with me, and marry me.

Some people have had the unmitigated temerity to suggest that Veronica and I will not be a good match, that we are ill suited for one another. These people are just jealous fools. For example, some stupid actor, Joel McCrea, refused to be in another film with her because he said, “Life’s too short for two films with Veronica Lake.” And this author guy, Raymond Chandler, referred to her as “Moronica Lake.” So, okay, you can’t please everybody. As far as the fact that she’s been married four times, well, people make mistakes. But she’s so pretty. I just know we would be happy. I know that after her movie career deteriorated she lived in cheap hotels and was frequently arrested for public drunkenness, but, like I said, you can’t have everything.

I am a determined guy; I always get what I want. (And when I don’t, I’m not that much fun to be around.) I don’t let myself get confused by the facts. I am convinced that Veronica will be impressed if I learn to play the bouzouki so I have been practicing four hours a day, all the time I can spare when I’m not writing poetry for Veronica or walking back and forth outside the address I have for where I think she lives.

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Change “Veronica Lake” in the monologue above to admission to a “top” college and you have the sad lives or many high school students. Rather than doing what gives them pleasure, they hurl themselves down the lonely road to nowhere hoping to impress unseen admissions officers at colleges about which they know nothing. Rather than taking courses they would enjoy and from which they would learn, they blindly follow dictums about what course selection and extra-curriculars will “get them in.”

Wouldn’t this child’s interests be better served by engaging in those activities in which he might excel? Shouldn’t he direct his energy toward that which he enjoys rather than pursuing only that which he thinks Monica will value? By his own admission, he doesn’t like playing guitar or writing poetry and nobody likes walking back and forth in front of an empty home, yet nothing will dissuade our “Princeton or Perish” young man from “pursuing his dream,” “overcoming adversity,” and “achieving his goal.” (Not that there’s anything wrong with Princeton, mind you, but not everyone gets in.)And what about when he learns that Veronica Lake is dead? (According to Wikipedia-the source from which I got all the facts above-Lake died in 1973.) No matter how inappropriate the match, out applicant still won’t give up. Wouldn’t he better off following his passion, learning what he loves, and preparing himself to be successful wherever he ends up in college?

The take-away for loving parents is simple enough: encourage your children to have goals that make sense, goals that will bring them contentment–obsessing over schizophrenic, dead movie stars, no matter how beautiful, is probably not on this list.