The Beach Bum: 10 Tricky Philosophical Questions It Raises
7. Are We Defined By Our Careers?
Martin Lawrence plays Captain Wack, a friend of Moondog's who appears very briefly in the film. During this fleeting appearance, much of Wack's dialogue pertains to his strange love-hate relationship with his job.
In fact, Captain Wack doesn't really seem to understand his job. Over the past eight years of giving dolphin tours, Captain Wack has nearly lost his license on five separate occasions. He was saved each time by a technicality, but he's so poorly versed in the rules of his vocation that he can't tell you what the technicality was. He also doesn't seem to know much about dolphins, which causes him to lose his foot when he fails to tell the difference between a dolphin and a shark.
Despite all of this, Captain Wack intends to keep his job for as long as possible. He likes spending time on the water, and he likes that he's made enough money to purchase a rickety boat named "Success." He just doesn't like his actual job. It's a means to an end, something that facilitates the lifestyle he wants for himself, and nothing more.
Writing is similar for Moondog. He enjoys writing and sharing the occasional poem, but he's too easily distracted by life to sit down and work on the novel that will actually earn his pay.
Both characters are much more than what they do for a living, yet neither feels like this is such a problem that they need to change career paths. They simply accept work and life as two separate entities. Because they're able to see work and life as distinct from one another, they don't relate job satisfaction to life satisfaction. The result is that they're able to enjoy a great deal more of the latter.