The Limits of Ambition.

30 Rock ended tonight, and that demands 5,000 words and a copious amount of cheese. But I'm going to limit myself, because if 30 Rock taught us anything, it's that you don't have time to give everything its due, and what it really deserves.

30 Rock has been with me my entire adult life. I discovered the show when I was looking to kill some time the summer before I started graduate school in Boston, and I quickly became addicted while catching up in Season 2, watching a half-dozen episodes a night. It stayed with me through graduate school, where I struggled to unite my goals and hopes with the possibilities and prejudices before me, and it continued on until I entered the job world, which was even more depressing.

When 30 Rock really got into my soul, though, was when I began my time as a young professional. You could only smile every time you heard Liz Lemon say, "You really can have it all!" because that was the battle we all were fighting. Home, work, school, friends -- Liz showed me how to balance, how to fail, and how to really not let it bother you that you can't balance and that you fail, even when you still really care.

The amount of similarities between Liz and I is astounding -- as it is, I'm sure, for any 20-something girl. Liz and I both have a distinct German heritage, which made me especially enjoy those bits in the show, and we both have the same personality, meaning we both tend to have to work with people of another type of personality (the freaking Tracy Jordans of the world). Her family structure, workplace decisions, and hapless love life were also familiar. The only thing I always lacked was a Jack Donaghy, but now that I think of it, I think I do have a Jack in my life. It's either a blend of my brothers or that ambition demon that sits on my shoulder.

Ah, ambition. That's what it was all about, wasn't it? Wesley Morris wrote a great piece for Grantland on 30 Rock, and while he had many fine points about the overall show, and especially its implications on race and the larger TV culture, my favorite parts were when he revealed how the show so truly reinforced that it was a mockery of itself. Tina Fey is a great writer, and a great actor, and Alec Baldwin, the other stars of the show, and the writers behind it are all excellent. But in their excellence, they chose to glory not in what we could do if we could create our own perfect world, but rather to glory in how we create just something in a world that is never perfect.

Morris calls 30 Rock "a farce about the pragmatic limits of ambition," and he couldn't be more right. The show is all about ambition -- Jack's amibition, Liz's ambition, even the skewed ambition of the Tracys and Jennas and Kenneths. It's ambition not necessarily to be the best, or to claim some great something, but rather to take that untouchable thing you've always chased. Money and fame (Tracy and Jenna), happiness by triumph (Jack), or the perfect job and perfect world (Liz) -- it's all each person's desperate heave to get that thing, only to find that life doesn't allow it, or that you can't keep the other things you've gained (like people) when you're chasing that ambition.

As the great Conor Oberst says: Ambition is a loaded line. But we've all got it deep within us, even though it manifests differently in everyone. In 30 Rock, it played out in every life in varied ways, and in those ways, it showed a true amalgamation of real life.

The show's final episode tonight summed up the characters' pursuit perfectly, but it also did it in a way that was very 30 Rock. That is, it mocked the face of regular TV writing, made fun of culture, turned the tables, and threw curveballs. Yet, also in true 30 Rock spirit, it did not do it in a mean way, or to give a sense of loss. Instead, 30 Rock gave its supporters one final nod of the head to its true theme, that even amid the crap and everything not working out the way it should, good still happens.

That's the lesson of life, and the lesson of ambition if handled properly. Ambition is a demon if you can never tame it, but it's a joy when you can chase it and then settle for less, not feeling any loss in doing so. Liz long lamented that she couldn't actually "have it all," but when left with less than having it all, she discovered she had gained what she really wanted. Jack couldn't ever fulfill his ambition or find true happiness, but he discovered enough of himself that he finally found peace, which is what he was really looking for all along.

30 Rock fulfilled the John Lennon-bred cliche that life is what happens to while you're busy making other plans, but it did it in a way that affirmed that, if you pay attention to life as it's happening, even when you're chasing those other plans, you can have both the life and the hope for the future plans. You really can have it all.

Liz chased her dreams of a good show, and of having a family, and she never ended up with utopia. But she was able to discover richness in the pursuit, and to find at the end that she had what she was hoping for -- not a perfect family and a stress-free life, but a family, and a life. During her long, tiring road, she hated all the struggles with Tracy and battles to get things to just go right once. But she also loved her night cheese, and that funky middle-of-life area she got to live in for so long. When she finally reached her dreams, she knew she had to move on and take them, because that was what she had been aiming for all that time. But it didn't diminish that she knew she loved what she left behind, which is something that many people never pause to realize. They're too busy hoping to get to the next stage that the good parts of the struggle never show through.

The 30 Rock ending comes at a point where I'm transitioning from that blur of a life where everything is unbalanced and wrong to something that's starting to resemble the life I've imagined. Of course, it could all go up in smoke easily, but it looks as if I've left my 3 a.m. nights eating fat food in front of 30 Rock behind for good. I hated those nights so much, getting home all alone and knowing I wouldn't be able to see people the next day because they'd be working while I was free, and they'd be free while I was working. But I also loved those days, because there was a certain adventure to living that desperado life where I just had to make it happen all the time -- and then I got to go home, and be alone, and eat night cheese.

You hate it so much when you're going through it, and you know you want to -- and have to -- aspire to something more. But you also love it, because it's an excuse to not have everything perfect for a while, and to know that every crappy moment is preparing you for the time when things really will start to fall into place. Better yet, you're learning what you really do want, and ambition becomes less a tormenter and more of an impetus, a place to funnel ideas and then pick the one you decide you like after the hard slog, rather than being chained to wanting them all.

I'm going to look back on my Liz Lemon years knowing they clarified a lot of what I really wanted, and that they were fun in themselves even while adding up to what my future ended up being. But above that, I'm going to always love this time, and 30 Rock, for teaching me that ambition is not a foe. It's a tool -- a great, big, Jack Donaghy-acronymed tool whereby we strive and fall and slip and hold on and then see what matters.

Liz Lemon may be off the air, or teaching improv to senior citizens on cruise ships. But she's spawned more than that bespectacled granddaughter.

Her little children are running around Boston, further enthused and prepared to struggle for balance but loving it when it fails. Yes, Lemon: Blerg. We really can have it all.

There will be life.

The struggling Christian bows her head at Starbucks, tears in the eyes and despair in the heart because — despite her best intentions — she has hurt someone again. In a world where she has felt so much pain, and been mistreated so many times, she couldn’t stop it. When treated wrong, she lashed out again — in furious anger, biting words, searing jabs. Her ugliness was thrown in their faces, and they were hurt. And the soul that was just trying to patch itself up from so much pain has now made someone else feel just as shredded as she. She didn’t want to hurt them; she just wanted the pain to go away.

But corrupted life is better than no life at all.

The disgraced father bows his head and tightens his hands, the pit in his stomach and hole in his heart growing faster than the fruit of his efforts. A sin done years ago is back, taunting him. It has found his children, screaming at them with the shock of his past. He has become a lesser man, a shell of a soul, a carrier of wretchedness. And now, in the season when the scab was supposed to be fading to a scar — forgiven so many times now — it is being ripped off and picked at. Insufficient as a man, failing as a father, fallen as a soul, he just wants to escape the pain.

But corrupted life is better than no life at all.

He is by the ocean, surfboard stashed by his sandals, with the salt wind blowing through his perfect hair, over his perfect face, down his perfect body. But in the lap of wealth and talent, the emptiness grows – the gap that is never edged by enough beautiful moments, not hidden by the comfort of many who love him, not filled by the answers and truths he’s been told are it. To keep living means to keep finding those bits of happiness, only to have them crushed by the overwhelming feeling that it is not enough. The soul still aches, the brain still wonders, the heart still hurts. He just wants the turmoil to stop.

But corrupted life is better than no life at all.

She is successful, at the top of it all, a mastermind at both her craft and among the people she knows. A job never comes that she can’t do, a contest she can’t win, an idea she can’t best. Advancement has never come up short; the answers are always there. Yet, for all the achievement, a pause. More answers only lead to more questions, deeper questions, worse questions — questions of never really feeling love, of being so close yet not really being able to grasp life, of the heart falling limp while the brain is twirling. She just wants a friend, a real hope, an idea that maybe this doesn’t have to be it. She wants to switch the twirling off.

But corrupted life is better than no life at all.

She didn’t mean to walk to the beat of her own drum; she didn’t ever really know she was that different. She was happy, alone, running in her imagination and doing what she knew best. Do this and it will be better, they said, so she did. Help here and you will be great, they said, so she did. She saw pictures and ideas and words that made her heart skip, her brain explode, her feet float. She ran after them, moving them here and adding them there, making beautiful little worlds. But when she came outside again, the faces were different. She was still doing this and being better, helping here and being great, but for some reason it wasn’t enough. For some reason there was disapproval now, a looking down on her little works of art. The beat of her own drum was frowned at, as if it was some horror she had made to subvert the world. She tried to help and only made disasters. She spoke the only things she knew and was chided for being so wrong. She was good enough not to get help, not to get extra love, but not good enough to win praise. She was one vote away from victory, one letter from being accepted. She was unwanted, incomplete, and she didn’t know why. And she just wanted the unapproving looks to go away.

But corrupted life is better than no life at all.

He usually doesn’t know what to say, but he tries. He tries to be friendly, tries to help, tries to listen. Usually it just makes it worse. Every attempt at better just makes it worse.

They put up buildings with good intentions, programs with high hopes, but now those visions have been taken and polluted. They’ve been spoiled, used for evil causes. They’ve been adulterated into schemes that look the same but have no good within. They’ve been misunderstood.

They’ve killed, maimed, and murdered. An entire nation eliminated. Children’s hands cut off. Dictators withhold food. Politicians take away basic decency. The mentally ill fall into the streets; the handicapped cower to the back of the room. The dumb are scorned, the weak are ridiculed, the wanting are left behind.

They build entire societies on hurt and waste and oppression. Generations go by without hope. Children become adults to feel pain and die. Good men suffer for fools. Strong men see life wither to feed the lazy.

But in the darkness, a soul stands up.

After years of hurting others, the girl realizes that hurt can stop. Crying in the coffee shop from the residue of her anger, she looks around her and decides it will stop. She will fail so many more times, but today she will succeed at least once. She will choose to help, not hurt. And somewhere, somehow, life will be affirmed and grow. There will be green.

The father gets out of the truck and takes a deep breath of fresh air. He shakes his head clear of his mistakes and determines that, despite all of the pain he’s given his wife and sons, he still has something to give them tomorrow. There will be love; there will be red.

The young man digs his toes into the sand and clenches his fists, chasing away his doubts. If he has mastered the sea, he can master his mind. For all the darkness in his heart, there is a wide open sea, waiting to be explored, asking to be enjoyed. There will be blue.

In her office, the successful woman closes the book. She puts away the notes. She stops looking for answers. And in the quiet, staring out her window at the beautiful lights of the shrouded city scape, she lets herself smile. There will be orange.

The little girl runs from the crowded building and staring faces, runs fast, into the wide open field. She builds castles and dreams up stories. She throws flowers to the wind. She calls her mood joy. There will be yellow.

The boy tries to be friendly one more time. The organizers put together one more program. The missionaries build another church. A martyr stands up in the street. A revolution fills the square. A resistance hides the oppressed. A remnant fosters life. A hopeful youth calls for change, that this world could be different, this generation saved.

Because corrupted life is better than no life at all.

Together they work, often alone, often wondering, often unsure. They make green and red and blue and orange and yellow. A rainbow forms.

And God says, this is my promise; this is my sign. I will never remove life from this earth completely. This world will not be destroyed. When you see clouds, you will also see my rainbow. It will remind you of this promise — that no matter how much hurt there is, how much decay, how much hopeless and destruction — life will never disappear. Some kind of life is always worth it. You may doubt, but trust me. And when you wonder, when the rain comes and clouds gather, just look at the sky.

Because corrupted life is better than no life at all, and life is the most beautiful thing.



first written 11.12.MMX