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The Mission
Can I make a difference without self-destructing in five seconds?
By Suzanne Schlosberg
When some people get bored and restless, they climb Mt. Everest or fly a balloon around the world or buy a Web cam and produce Internet porn.
I am undertaking a challenge more formidable. More bold. More...implausible.
I am attempting to be useful.
Now, I don’t mean to imply that my life has been without value. It’s just that my contributions to society have been limited. A few examples come to mind:
•A friend e-mails from London desperate to know the circumstances under which a certain assistant district attorney departed Law & Order, now airing in the U.K. I respond immediately and in detail.
•A reader asks Shape magazine whether the French anti-cellulite treatment "endermologie" actually works. As the magazine’s "Weight Loss Q&A" columnist, I inform her that the procedure will suck away her money but not her fat. I save her $1,500.
•A friend-any friend-calls in despair after a traumatic blind date. I ease her pain with an even worse tale of my own, like the guy so obsessed with cross-country skiing that he used the term "we" in reference to himself and his skis.
You may notice that the above examples have one thing in common: they involve no practical skills. This is because I have none. I have managed to reach age 33 without developing competence a single area that could serve anyone but my TV-deprived girlfriends or the cellulite-obsessed readers of Shape magazine. I cannot caulk a window or baste a turkey or trim a hedge or operate a power drill.
I attribute these deficiencies to my upbringing, in a large and well-kept house one mile from the Sherman Oaks Galleria in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. My parents are exceptional people, but they are not exceptionally handy. To my father-a fine art dealer known for his dashing collection of Panama hats-manual labor means hoisting his copy of Matisse in Nice onto the top shelf in his office. My mom’s idea of Survivor is enduring a full week while the housekeeper is on vacation.
In my defense, I am the only Schlosberg ever to have erected and slept in a tent. I am, in fact, the only Schlosberg ever to have slept beyond the immediate vicinity of a one-hour dry cleaner.
Still, my deficiencies have been eating at me. I have recently begun to wonder: Am I capable of more? Can a person like me make a difference in this world?
My mission is to find out. I will travel far and wide to test my usefulness-as a support-vehicle driver for a wheelchair race in Alaska, as a construction worker in Papua New Guinea, as a community-farm gardener in the California desert, as painter in Raratonga, as a ranch hand on a South Dakota wild mustang refuge.
If you are wondering why I am not simply marching myself down to my local soup kitchen, I will tell you why: I have 256,808 frequent flyer miles. Why not do some good and do some traveling at the same time? Hey, I never claimed to be Mother Teresa.
Each segment of my tour lasts 5 to 15 days. I figure: How much damage can I inflict on any man, woman or horse in brief a short period of time?
Stay tuned.