Author Archives: oinsketta

The best laid plans

I had an assistant who is a performance artist.   A bright young man who graduated from a prestigious art school, I’d pinned some hopes on him going forward.  I was hoping he’d help me bring the program to the next stage, help me expand to new venues, possibly run a workshop himself.

It disappointed me that he never replied to any of the short emails I sent him.   I’d send him a promo, or a pitch, and there would be silence.  He worked well in the workshop, and I paid him $40 for what looked like a good time, and towards future work together.

I thought to take him aside at the last session and hit him with a quick hypothetical:

You’re doing a show, and several friends are in the house, and at the end there is no applause, only silence.  Afterwards you ask your friends why they didn’t applaud and they say, impatiently “we all know how talented you are, the show was great, why do you need our validation?”

I thought it would be a good way to make him hip to the sorrow of that persistent silence.

He had the last word, though; he never showed up for the final session.  Nor did I get so much as a tweet from him.

I guess he really wasn’t the guy I was looking for.

Moving the chains

Football as a metaphor for life– smash mouth, knee to groin refs don’t see, rain, mud, sleet, hail, hostile or indifferent crowd.  Moving the chains, trying for the first down, fourth and four, a ridiculous gamble if it backfires.   Now the wet grass is ice, now it’s quicksand.  Slowed down footage of the run, the hit, water flying in a shower of frozen droplets at jaw shuddering contact.  Broken rib, the knees hitting the frozen field, we have…. they’re trotting on with the chains to measure and… short by two feet.   Better luck next time.

Insight

You do not usually get it looking to the subjectivity within.  It comes from without– sometimes you get the comment from a knowledgeable stranger that turns a light on in a dim corner.

“Oh, that’s a great idea,” says the stranger, “but I had no idea of it from your messaging.”

Good to know, you think, it’s called messaging.  And back to the drawing board to make it clearer still.

Grit

I heard a recent TED talk about grit being the key to success.   The speaker defined it as passion and perseverance for very long-term goals.  Talent is no substitute for dogged determination when undertaking something as ambitious as changing the world.  A person with grit is prepared to fail over and over again to get to the place they are trying to arrive at.

“Aren’t you afraid of burn-out?” asks a well-meaning friend, after I described the many facets of the work ahead of me.   I am not afraid of burn-out, I think, letting the wall in front of me go out of focus.

“Isn’t the fact that you haven’t been able to recruit anybody passionate about what you are doing depressing to you?  I mean, people should realize by now that your theory works.  You’ve shown the great potential of the program over and over, I mean, shouldn’t you have at least one trustworthy ally by now?  Isn’t this depressing to you?”  I am asked.   No more depressing than the fact that I am asking this myself, the well-meaning friend long gone from the phone.

In America we have the myth of the Rugged Individual.   This person has grit, true grit. This person is tough, with endless inner resources, prepared to do whatever it takes to succeed, undeterred about the necessity of doing huge things alone.  This person will kill you, if it comes to that.

“Would you kill for this idea of yours?” asks an abstract, distracted, watch checker.

“Only you, baby,” I think, out of the box.

The idea is to become like the psychopaths who prevail at any cost, only without forgetting that I am here to be part of a supportive community, not a rugged individual.  That I am here to model patience, and humor, and the optimism necessary for all learning.

“Well,” says the skeleton of the DU from his grave on top of the hill, “it’s no wonder you struggle with this.   I had no role models for showing love, and you had none for showing grit.  As I apologized for– I put great obstacles in front of you and your sister.  Instead of nurturing either of you I was busy competing with you, trying to crush you in a senseless war of survival I had no insight into.   I did apologize for that, didn’t I?”

You did, old man, and it was good of you.  Now, if you will excuse me, I have work to do.

Mood Music

It can be a challenge, keeping the mood steady, positive, relaxed, especially when there is no particular schedule to keep you on task and distracted.    My mother was probably depressed for most of her life, though she didn’t often succumb to it in any noticeable way.   She did housework, cooked a delicious dinner every night, raised my sister and me, went off to work every day when we were old enough to fend for ourselves.   This routine kept her busy and her mind off the kind of fearful musing that would occupy it when she had too much time alone in her final years.

“I’m afraid your nephew might be subject to depression,” she told me when the kid was about three.   “Sometimes he’s just so down, he won’t look you in the eyes, it seems like he’s sleep walking.  Then we take him to Lester’s and the waitress brings him a cookie when we sit down.   He eats the cookie and suddenly he’s like this” and she does a wild dance.   Eyes suddenly wide open and mischievous, manic grin on his face, moving like Carmen Miranda with a pair of castanets, swinging long arms from side to side, snapping his fingers, mugging.

I wish I had a movie of my mother doing this imitation.  She would often oblige and reprise a remark or imitation and she was not shy in front of the camera.  If only I’d had one when she told me about my nephew’s amusing mood swings.

The challenge for all earthlings, getting the mood music right.  Is it easier to dance with music that moves you?  Of course.  But how to keep the right music playing in your head– or how to learn to dance to music that might not move you as much as other music?

Here’s one to try– patience.   The hardest thing in the world, perhaps, and maybe the most necessary thing.   With patience ridiculously hard things can be accomplished.  Without it easy things are sometimes too hard to master.   The funny thing about patience, or maybe not, it must be absolute to do much good.   Being patient 99 times and enraged one time won’t butter the biscuit, as they say.  

But 99/100 is still a very good score, particularly when we’re talking about something as crucial as patience, so don’t lose patience with yourself.  It is like anything you would master, takes constant practice until you can do it every time.

It’s not like the world is teeming with masters.  But if you would be one, begin learning to master your moods first.

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Comment from discussion of Jim Fallon’s talk on the psychopath’s brain

Oct 8 2011: This is just so wrong. “Brain Damage”? No. How about, evolution! I’m sick of ‘specialists’ trying to talk about us like we have brain damage or must have witnessed some sort of huge disaster in our lives to be void of emotion. Personally, I feel I operate on a higher level. Emotional connections are limitations to greatness and offer no positive effects to life. While it may make you feel better to consider yourself ‘normal’ and see me as a ‘brain damaged psycho’ all you are really doing is swimming through the pool of reality with your eyes closed. Maybe it’s just because those of us with this “brain damage” are able to set goals and don’t get distracted by petty emotional problems like the rest of you. Maybe time for you all to take a look at the evolution chart and have a good hard look at where you think it is headed, because human society no longer needs communities for protection from each other so the emotional ties are the modern version of the appendix; and as such is no longer required.

the video and the other comments are here

Smart ALEC

ALEC,  the American Legislative Exchange Council, is a little known, very influential, law-making and lobbying group.  Funded by money from the Koch Brothers and others of their magnitude, ALEC recruits state law makers to sponsor model legislation written by ALEC.   This model legislation often benefits a certain industry or corporate interest.   One piece of legislation written by ALEC, and the language is virtually identical in the 21 other states that have passed their own version of the law, is Florida’s Stand Your Ground Law.

Under this law a man with a suspicion has a right to get out of his car, with a concealed gun, and confront the person he suspects.  If the person confronted does not treat him respectfully, tells him, say, to go fuck himself, the man with the suspicion is free to raise the ante, even grab the suspicious person.  If an altercation follows, and he feels in danger, he then has the right to kill the person with his gun, particularly in situations where it is his word vs. the dead man’s and there are no other eye witnesses.  True fact.   The NRA loves this law, so do firearm manufacturers.  Here’s some more history of this law.

Food for thought

There are big differences between thoughtless insensitivity and cruelty.   Thoughtlessness happens quite often, and it can be considered an accident when it does.  Mindfulness is rare, we live in a world of clashing, competing distractions.  Everyone is sometimes thoughtless.  The best of us apologize when our thoughtlessness hurts somebody else.

Cruelty is planned to inflict pain.  It is almost always done out of a sense of justice, but there is little justice in cruelty.  Cruelty is dreamed up by people who suffer, and it leads to more suffering.  Bad shit, cruelty.

Aspiration

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When I state my desire to remain mild in the face of aggravation I express an aspiration.  That I’m often able to remain mild is a source of happiness to me.   When I am less than mild, I understand I need to do better.  It is an ongoing aspiration, difficult but well worth cultivating.

I have to believe that as I master remaining mild fewer people will feel compelled to test my resolve.  Like a yogi in the forest calmly regarding an approaching tiger.  Except, that comparing those who provoke to approaching tigers is an insult to a great cat.