Life is like...

So, I'm reading a story about an interview with Ethan Hawke. He's going to tell us all how hard it is to be a celebrity couple (he used to be married to Uma Thurman).



He says that it's hard when one person's career is on the rise while the other's is languishing. I can see that. It'd be hard to cheer your spouse's success while you feel like you're failing at the same thing they're succeeding at. Human frailty. You're not a butthead - it's not that you want them to fail. You'd just like to succeed, too. That's probably why it's better to marry someone who isn't in your same industry - cuts down on the natural sense of competition.

He tried to say he wasn't jealous, but it wasn't really believable the way he said it. To him, I say, "Ethan, it's okay. You were jealous. You felt bad about your career stalling, and then you felt bad about yourself for feeling jealous of Uma's career taking off. Bad feelings led to more bad feelings, and it's hard to have a happy relationship when that starts. We'd like to all think we're above that kind of jealousy, and it would've been better if you had been - you would've kept your family together, but it's not hard to understand. Here's Ryan Philippe's number - you boys talk amongst yuhselves."

I would've liked him better if he'd just said that. "I wish I could've been bigger about it, but I couldn't and it just sucked." But I didn't *dislike* him. And I still don't. But I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to hang out with him - not based on the stuff I've mentioned so far, but on this quote:

"There's a certain geometry to life — that life has a certain math equation to it, and if you're never together, you can't build a home," Hawke says.

Uh. What? What the hell do geometry and math equations have to do with not having enough time together? I get the last half of that, and I agree with it, but the first part - I think Ethan thinks he's deep. And I'm not really sure he is. And there are few things more annoying than someone who *thinks* they're deep.

If you're going to start out making some big philosophical point about life and math and octagons and chapstick, you need to actually MAKE that point. Just suggesting that you see some sort of interplay, but never actually explaining it, and then just trailing off into some banal conclusion that pretty much any one of us could've come to...that ain't deep, Ethan. "Life is like a flourescent bulb - it's like an incandescence that passes into obscurity, and if you're hungry, you should eat."

Ethan, maybe your marriage didn't fail because you were jealous of your wife's success and you spent too much time apart. Maybe the time apart was all that kept you together as long as you were. Maybe you bored Uma to tears with your pseudo-intellect and taking yourself way too seriously. Just a thought.