Regular People

Back when I was producing Rescue Me, Denis Leary and I had an ongoing joke.

We’d refer to everyone else as regular people.

Not in the sociological sense.

Not in the economic sense.

Certainly not in the moral sense.

Just… regular people.

It was our way of pretending we belonged to some elite class of intellectuals who saw the world differently than the masses. We’d say it with complete confidence, as though we had unlocked secrets unavailable to civilians.

“Oh, that’s what regular people do.”

“Regular people won’t understand.”

“That’s because they’re regular people.”

The joke, of course, was that we were probably the biggest idiots in the room.

Tommy Gavin, Denis’s character on Rescue Me, carried the same attitude. He’d dismiss people as “regular people,” as if he existed on some higher plane of human evolution.

Meanwhile, Tommy’s life was a five-alarm dumpster fire.

His relationships were disasters.

His judgment was questionable.

His emotional intelligence hovered somewhere between a cinder block and a raccoon.

Yet somehow everyone else was the regular person.

That’s why it was funny.

The people most convinced they’re extraordinary are often the least qualified to make the distinction.

I’ve started noticing this attitude everywhere.

Social media has created millions of tiny kingdoms where everyone is the smartest person they know.

Spend five minutes online and you’ll find experts in medicine who sell scented candles.

Constitutional scholars who failed ninth-grade civics.

Economic geniuses explaining inflation from the driver’s seat of a leased BMW.

And every one of them believes they’re looking down at… regular people.

Maybe that’s human nature.

Nobody wakes up believing they’re average.

We’re all the heroes of our own movie.

The problem starts when we confuse having opinions with having wisdom.

I’ve been guilty of it too.

As a television producer, I probably thought I understood audiences better than audiences understood themselves.

As a pizza maker, I occasionally catch myself explaining fermentation as though I’ve discovered gravity.

Then a customer asks for ranch dressing.

Regular people.

Until I remember they’re paying my mortgage.

Maybe the healthiest realization is that we’re all regular people.

Some of us just wear different costumes.

Firefighter.

Producer.

Lawyer.

Pizza maker.

CEO.

Influencer.

Retired guy yelling at geese.

Underneath all of it, we’re just trying to figure things out while pretending we already have.

The older I get, the less interested I am in being exceptional.

There’s something comforting about being regular.

Regular people fall in love.

Regular people raise kids.

Regular people bury parents.

Regular people build businesses.

Regular people fail spectacularly, reinvent themselves, and keep going.

That’s not ordinary.

That’s the entire human experience.

So every once in a while, I’ll still jokingly refer to someone as a regular person.

Mostly because it reminds me of Denis.

Mostly because it reminds me of Tommy Gavin.

But mostly because it reminds me not to take myself too seriously.

After all…

I’m just one of them.

Just don’t ask me for ranch dressing.

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