Thank You for This Meaningless Award
Thank you for this meaningless award.
In winning it, I do not feel elevated above my other nominees in any way. We share many of the same qualities — and no award can measure a person’s true worth. So, this is not a measurement of my fellow nominees’ worth relative to me.
If any of you heard me say earlier this week that I do, in fact, feel elevated above my other nominees, I was being sarcastic. Like, wouldn’t it be funny if I really felt that way? Or it was taken out of context.
I don’t even really care about this award. I will probably throw it away tonight on the way home — out of my limo window, or more likely, out of one of my moon roofs. Or I will put it on one of my award shelves with all my other meaningless awards. And I will always hate looking at it.
I will ask myself every time I see it: “Am I the kind of guy who wins awards like that? Am I the kind of guy who has to have multiple award shelves? Am I the kind of guy who has to think about building more shelves for the award section of his house?”
Unfortunately, I am.
But in many ways, this is more yours than it is mine.
Yes, I have spent a lot of time devaluing this award, but that shouldn’t diminish the amount of pride you can all feel in winning it — all of you gathered here and watching on TV. This is literally your award.
Certainly, not all of you.
You think you can just flip on the TV or come to an award show and you win a major award? Is that the way the world works in your head?
I hope a lot of you are aren’t sitting there thinking that you actually won this. If you are, you have taken what I said out of context.
Because only most of us have earned this award. Sixty-five percent, maybe. High forties.
And even then, only figuratively.
My name is actually printed on this award, by the way. And so if any of you took it because you thought it was actually yours, you would be caught and thrown in jail pretty fast. A lot of people know my name and recognize my face, so if you were outside walking around with my award, waving it around and making a big deal about it, you would definitely spend some serious time in prison. Real prison.
And that’s not what winning awards like this is all about.
Thank you for this meaningless award.
