One Can Make a Difference (3 page)

I am the fleet commander of our local Federation Alliance, and integral to our small group is community service. We dress in our uniforms and visit children in the local hospital, who get bug-eyed with delight when they see us walk in. We have raised money for the local animal shelter for about four years now. We have done a blood drive for the Red Cross, and we had an exhibit in the local Children's Museum with all the items donated from our members' own collections.

I hold two more principles close to my heart. First, I never want anyone to be ashamed of wearing the Star Fleet uniform. It stands for something good, and so it should be worn with pride. Second, I think people should express themselves, not someone else. I hear mothers say that they have to buy their teenagers the latest jacket or sneakers or Izod this and that so they can express themselves. I want to say, “How can you express yourself by wearing what everyone else is wearing, and by wearing a label that expresses the designer or the company that produced it?” It isn't what you can afford that matters, it's what's inside that counts. Be you; express yourself, not someone else. Don't throw away the chance!

SEAN ASTIN

On Being a Good Son

Sean Astin began his career as a child star when he appeared as Mikey in
The Goonies
when he was just thirteen. He has since made his mark as an
actor in fifty films and TV shows (including
24
and
Monk
) and is perhaps
best known for his role as Samwise Gamgee in
The Lord of the Rings
trilogy. His famous mother, Patty Duke, also made her debut at thirteen, starring
as Helen Keller in
The Miracle Worker
. Coming from a troubled and
dysfunctional family, Patty was subject to fits of depression and even attempted
suicides, all of which had a deep effect on Sean. Patty Duke felt a great sense
of relief when she was finally diagnosed as bipolar, and today she works to
help others with mental illness. Sean has made it his business to help in that
area, too. In fact, his compassion for all, of any species and with any problems,
combined with the experiences he had as a child, makes him a wonderful role
model for his own three daughters. I am happy he would share his thoughts
with readers of this book.

I
grew up in what could be described as “Hollywood adjacent.” My parents were famous, and in the center of the Hollywood machine, but somehow, living a block away from UCLA in Westwood, California, my brothers and I were insulated from much of the fast-lane activity of show business. My life felt very normal with Little League, friends, and neighborhood holidays.

I'm sure, like most people, the first visions I had of my future reflected whatever was happening around me: firefighter, police officer, janitor, and so on. I do remember in the fourth grade, my mother told me that I could be anything I wanted to be, even president of the United States. This was a blessing and a curse, because for most of my life after that, I took her literally. While becoming president of the United States doesn't seem likely for me, even at thirty-six years of age, I remain convinced that I could be almost anything I want to be in life.

When I travel around the country, people often approach me about how much my mother has meant to them and how grateful they are that she's spoken openly about her bipolar mood disorder. I'm always moved by these conversations. Obviously, her condition had a major impact on our family. I spent a great deal of time worrying about her and wishing that I had the tools to ease her suffering. Out of a feeling of gratitude to the hardworking mental health care professionals who helped my mom, I felt duty-bound to contribute to our national public conversation about mental health by sharing openly about our life. I've also been invited by a major pharmaceutical company to participate in a bipolar awareness campaign. And I've launched a Web site where we provide a mood questionnaire to help folks determine if they or a loved one may have symptoms of the disease as well as supplying tools and resources so that people can find the assistance they need.

I've also been involved in advocating for a host of issues, problems, and areas of concern in our society. Oftentimes, celebrities, notables, activists, and others focus most of their attention on one or two specific issues that mean the most to them, or that they can have the greatest impact on. Unfortunately, I never developed the skill to filter, prioritize, compartmentalize, or ignore my feelings about anything that bothers me in the world. It may be arrogance or a melodramatic fantasy of how the universe should operate, but I can't help feeling as though not only can I make a difference in the world, but that if I don't, I will have failed to honor my own destiny. The one thought that gets me off my duff is that no one person can improve everything alone. And there's no chance that everything will improve unless everyone does something.

One of my proudest endeavors in the civic realm relates to the issue of literacy. In particular, the family literacy movement. I'm a spokesperson for the National Center for Family Literacy as well as a Verizon Literacy Champion. Recently, my wife and I founded a literacy success award given to individuals who've used their newfound literacy to overcome obstacles and move on to healthier, happier lives that benefit others. I've never been diagnosed with ADD, dyslexia, or any type of learning disability, but I know for certain that in grade school, I had neither the patience nor discipline to complete my assignments. One of my most cherished memories is of the period of time when my mother would read entire books aloud to me. The words, concepts, and rhythms in the stories have not only stayed with me, but they have been my weapons to do battle with the world. My father always overemphasized the critical importance of academia. The combination of my mother's and father's values operating on me had the effect of inspiring in my soul an intense and passionate devotion to literacy. In my heart, I believe that people's ability to read and think—in essence, to communicate—is the last best hope that mankind has for peace in the world.

My father presented me with a copy of Rudyard Kipling's great poem “If ” at the surprise twenty-fifth birthday party my wife threw for me. I reread it many times every year. Everything you need to know about how to behave in life is in it; keeping your head about you in times of crisis, letting yourself dream, never dealing in lies, and, remembering the power and worth of virtue.

Reprinted by special permission of the author.

KEVIN BACON

Saving the World by Degrees

An extremely talented actor (among his screen credits:
JFK
,
Animal House
,
Diner
,
Footloose
,
A Few Good Men
, and on stage:
Lemon Sky
and
Spike Heels
), Kevin is a family man who cares about the planet and all the beings on
it. He has won critical acclaim for giving so much of himself in his acting, but the
reason he belongs in this book is that he is also giving in other ways.

The phenomenally popular game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon was invented
by students at Albright College in Pennsylvania in 1994. It requires players to try
to connect any film actor in history to Kevin Bacon as quickly as possible with as
few links as possible. Elvis Presley has a “Bacon number” of two (Elvis appeared in
Change of Habit
with Ed Asner and Ed Asner was in
JFK
with Kevin Bacon).

If you are not an actor, hey, you are probably still connected to Kevin, at least as a
member of an audience.That's because he has appeared in so many different roles in
various media that possibly only a few tribal people still living without benefit of a
satellite dish somewhere haven't seen him in something. I myself have a photograph
of Kevin standing next to me at PETA's “Rock against Fur” concert in New York.
I'm proud to say that gives me a Bacon number of one.

Kevin has put his notoriety to good use. SixDegrees.org is the celebrity-driven
Web site he founded (Joaquin Phoenix, Tyra Banks, and Bette Midler,
among others, advertise their favorite causes on the site) to encourage charitable
giving. It is also a game: anyone can enter his or her favorite charity, and there
are even “races” that net extra funds for the most popular of visitors' causes.
Given the need in the world, Kevin has done something wonderful by coming
up with a game in which everyone wins.

A
ctingsince before I knew what it was. I remember one of my first toys, when I was very little, was a costume box that my mother had filled with old clothes. Basically, I had a strong desire to be watched, to have people look at me, so I would dress up and become different characters. Most actors tend not to like to admit that they just want to be noticed, but that's what it is.

However, no matter how much you want to put yourself out there, no matter how much you want the attention, doing so can be frightening. Over the years, I've learned that fear is an important emotion, that if we harness it properly it can drive us and push us toward new challenges. For example, my band, the Bacon Brothers, played Carnegie Hall in 2007, just one song: a tribute to Bruce Springsteen. Bruce is a huge hero to me, so it was very frightening to think I had to stand up and try to interpret one of the Master's works, especially because we were doing it very differently, with an accordion, a cello, and we changed up the guitar. I was sitting in the dressing room, stressing out and Bruce walked in. It was a heart in my mouth kind of moment but it probably made me play better!

The same is true with the stage. Everything can go wrong on stage: it's live and so there's always danger. A prop falls, you forget your lines, someone in the front row starts snoring, a cell phone goes off. I get butterflies in my stomach, at times my knees have actually been shaking, I've been nauseous and short of breath, but luckily I don't sweat a lot! That kind of fear keeps you on your toes, makes you work harder. With movies, it's a different fear because a movie set is comfortable to me; it's like my living room. But even then, things can go wrong with a stunt or something, and there's still always the fear that the movie will come out and no one will see it or—maybe this is worse—if they do, they'll discover what a big fraud you are! Another good thing about fear is the tremendous rush that comes when it's over. The feeling that you've conquered. Perhaps for that reason, I love amusement rides, but I don't jump out of planes. That's too much of a good thing!

In my personal life, I worried that I wasn't doing enough for the world. It can be hard to figure out what to do. Celebrities are asked constantly to go to benefits. You could do a benefit a night and so it's hard not to get too spread out. I'm devoted to my family, my wife, but I also want to help.You know how you feel when you pick up the newspaper in the morning and read about the bodies, people and animals dying, hunger, climate change? It can be overwhelming. I'm raising two kids and I see that sense of hopelessness sometimes present with their generation. I want to reach out and do something about that. People like Bono are doing great campaigns in Africa, Live Aid; other people have found ways to help. I was thinking about it all one day while I was putting some of Paul Newman's dressing on my salad. I realized that Paul raised hundreds of millions of dollars for good causes just by doing what he likes to do, cooking.

I thought “what brands me?” and that gave me an idea.

I'll admit that when I first heard about
Six Degrees of Kevin
Bacon
I didn't like it. I thought it was a joke at my expense.

I think that's part of the fear thing, your head gives in to that and you think people are laughing at you. But, as time went on, I met the guys that conceived the idea and I realized that they had a real fondness for my work. They had chosen me because of the sheer number of films I have crammed into my life. I've taken the little and the big parts and I've been in films in which I was one of a huge cast—every actor in the world was in
JFK
. That made me the ideal “six degrees” guy. It was cool!

I thought, “That's my brand now. I can use that.” Because I do believe that we're all connected, not just in movies or photographs, but in the world. All of us crawled out of the same swamp. Nothing happens in a vacuum, the butterfly flaps her wings in one part of the world and there's an effect in another; we use all this fuel in the West and there's severe flooding thousands of miles away across the ocean. The idea comes up all the time now. I bought the domain name,
www.sixdegrees.org
, brainstormed with friends and family, and the folks at Network for Good who said, “Great, we'll do it with you” and created a new way to give.

Through this site, people can learn about and support various charities. It's celebrity-driven, which gives us press attention for the causes. But anyone can put up a badge for their favorite charity. You can say, “I believe in animal rights,” “I want to find a cure for autism,” or whatever moves you. We have little races to see which charity gets the most donations and then I donate my own money to boost the top ones. I'm excited because it's a viral sort of thing. People like to go to
Amazon.com
to shop and online charity giving is as easy as that. I'm hoping it spreads exponentially. People get in touch with each other this way. They can post pictures of their friends, say “this is my favorite band,” and “by the way, let's help save the rainforest.”

That's powerful stuff. That's the kind of “six degrees” we need to tap into.

Doing good work makes you feel good, makes you feel as if you have some control over your life and your future. I have this joke motto: someone asks me, “How are you doing?” and my answer is “I'm doing what I can with what I've got.” That can work for everyone.