As I was about to start writing my thoughts on this quote this morning, I came across this post on Facebook:
I know that in two years someone will probably mention his name and I will deny that he was ever actually important because I will have forgotten all about him. Facebook will tell me I have a memory to look back on and I will laugh at this status. I may or may not remember who it’s about… but right now… this hurts. He sought me out when I knew nothing but his name. He wanted to spend so much time with me. He wanted me to move in with him, wanted me to get a tattoo he designed, and he tried his last name with my first. Then, just like that I wasn’t good enough. I didn’t live up to his idea of the girl deserving of the pedestal he placed me on. Ugh… mess with my self esteem for fun, why don’t you?
It is from a friend of mine, Emilie Disney. I know her because years ago our families knew each other at church, she was friends with one of my daughters.
Time –
It tells a way too common story of someone being blindsided by someone. I mean, how can you know the ropes and not be tied up when everything seems perfect, right? Time is the answer. The key thing to know here is that her suitor said all those wonderful things within a two week period of time. TWO WEEKS. But one wants to believe, right? He was persistent and persuasive and she was seduced by it. And then all of a sudden, he was done.
Luckily, while she is trusting and sincere, she is also smart and mature. She knew inside that something was off when he moved that fast. It was red flags popping up. It didn’t take her long to realize she had dodged a bullet, or at least was just grazed by it and received a flesh wound not needing extreme medical attention!
Experience is the Teacher –
And now she is a more experienced woman. She has learned the ropes to a more sophisticated degree. She won’t get tied up again that easily, that is for sure. And that’s how it is, right? You don’t learn the ropes from reading a book on relationships. You learn the ropes by having relationships. That is how we learn.
BUT, just in case you don’t want to go through it yourself and you do want to learn from other’s experience….if some guy promises the moon within two weeks? Be wary, no matter how seductive he is.
One of my favorite lines in any song is “Sometimes we’re blinded by the very thing we need to see.” It’s in ‘The Last Word’ by Mary Chapin Carpenter. She’s one of my all time favorite singer/songwriters. She never fails to bring real and raw meaning into the world with her poignant lyrics and powerful music. This song also happens to be on one of my all time favorite albums, Stones in the Road. If you haven’t ever listened to it, I really do believe you are missing one of the most perfect albums ever made.
My Blind Spots
Hearing those words made me start to look at my own blind spots, which is hard, since they don’t want to be seen. Actually, that isn’t true. The spot itself, as is shown in my drawing, is actually what we do see. We see it so big and bold that we don’t see beyond it. We don’t see what it’s hiding.
We can even be enamored of our own blind spots, as when we brag about our ignorance on a certain subject, or our lack of talent in some area, as if it is a badge of honor instead of something to pay attention to and move beyond.
What both the quote and the lyrics say to me is that you see what you want and need to see; infatuated love, the possibility of wealth, the dreams of fame for example, and seeing those things so big can blind you to seeing the emotional desperation, the selfish greed, or the empty loneliness that might come along with those things.
Desire
In other words, desire often begets blindness. So I try to ask myself as often as I can, what is it I am desiring here, and how is that changing, and perhaps warping, what it is I am paying attention to?
Many years ago I did a napkin drawing of the actual lyrics I mentioned above. Here it is. it is one of the earliest of the napkins drawn for the world instead of just for my daughters. it’s from 2009.
When I was in High School I was in the second tier cool group. We weren’t in the ‘popular bad boys’ group, we were the ‘make everyone laugh until they blew milk out their nose’ group. We were the group who would do anything funny to get attention. Once, when we were in art class and working with clay I made a giant penis. Why? Because I could and I knew everyone would think it was funny. And they did. Well, except for the teacher. She came over, grabbed the dick and folded it in two, breaking it, right in front of us. This of course made the whole thing even funnier. We seriously laughed until we couldn’t breathe. I probably went to the Principals office, I don’t remember. But it was worth it.
For Girls
But who was I being funny for? I assume there had to be another guy there in the classroom that day but I would never have known. I was doing it for the girls. That’s what mattered to me. And to show you my amazing gain in maturity and wisdom over the years, it’s still what matters to me.
Getting Attention
But it wasn’t just about being funny to get attention. It was about making plans to fight a rival at the baseball diamond across from our elementary school. It was about dancing better than some other doofus at the school dance. It was about finding some really cool shirt or pair of pants I knew would impress. It was about doing daredevil stunts.
A Dark and Stormy Night
Once it was about walking around with a baseball bat in the dark when a girl was scared about a mystery figure supposedly lurking outside her apartment. It turns out her college roomies and she invented the story to get us boys down the street to come out and act macho for them. Sheesh, what college kids will do. I did get my one and only kiss from that girl as a result so that was cool.
They Know It When They See It
Now that I am older and wiser (depending on who you speak to) I have seen that this is a pretty universal trait. Men do funny and stupid things to impress women. I used to try to explain this to my younger female friends then I realized that women see it almost every day and don’t need it explained. They know it.
That’s why the eye roll was invented after all, right?
I did a drawing of a woman at Starbucks today. I didn’t know her. All I knew was she was writing on her laptop and had a journal style book open with writing in it. She did some sort of writing I assumed, but didn’t know what sort.
What Was She Thinking?
I was Periscoping as I was drawing, so I was talking out loud to my viewers. As I finished the drawing I added a thought bubble above her head. I asked my viewers, “I wonder what she is thinking” and a thought occurred to me. What if I had the woman I was drawing fill in the thought bubble above her head instead of me making something up? I thought it would be a pretty cool idea. And so I asked her. What would she choose to say she was thinking?
This is what she wrote, “I want people to know the wild and free love of God. Because he loves them!”
Atypical
I asked her some questions at that point, about the seeming contradiction between typical Christian talk and the words ‘wild and free’. Wild and free are not two words typically thought of when considering Christianity. As a matter of fact, most of the time those words would scare many Christians. They would make many a Christian wary of what was really meant by those words. Are they code for sin and licentiousness? Are they a way of avoiding personal accountability? What exactly do those two words mean when attached to God and the love of God?
Dreary Morals
I am pretty well-versed in the vocabulary of Christianity but I was sort of at a loss about what she meant. Then I saw the drawing below again, which I did a few days ago but had not posted, and it clarified it for me.
For me it’s about love and joy. It’s not about making your life, or the life of others, one of drudgery and obedience for no reason. It’s not about legalism, it’s not about a list of rules, it’s not about a set of cosmic instructions you must obey or you go to hell. It’s about enjoying and sharing your life, your creativity, your interests. It’s about acting as if you believe that.
Hate and Hurt
What it’s not about is giving yourself permission to hate, to be immoral or to hurt. If those things ever do feel ‘free or wild’ to someone, they are temporary and at the expense of others. That isn’t true freedom. And it isn’t being wild in a positive sense either. Being wild in the positive sense is about being courageous enough to be who you want to be, even if it seems ‘wild’ to someone else. Even if they disapprove. Because an individual’s disapproval is not your own disapproval and it’s not God’s disapproval.
I have a theory that if you are an artist, you are an artist whether you create art or not. This is because what counts is that you have an artistic mind.
Practice
In practice no one will ever call you an artist unless you actually create art. This is because without the creation of art, the artistic mind atrophies and dies.
Works
My favorite passage in the New Testament of the Christian Bible is this passage in the book of James:
‘So too, faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.’ James 2:17-18
What do you want to be?
You become what you practice. Practice art, you become an artist. Practice running, you become a runner. Practice love, you become a lover. It doesn’t matter what it is, if you want to become something practice is the only way to become it.
Hiring and promotions in business works like this all the time. It might be political considerations in a University President’s office. It might be a stylistic or theoretical dislike on the part of one of the senior executives at the firm. The reasons can be valid and real, but they can also lead to a compromise candidate that isn’t as well qualified as the ‘best’ candidate.
Creativity
It happens all the time in art too. How? By the artist deciding they must bow to pressure from a gallery director, or a studio head, or the media marketplace. They want to create one thing but they are told it won’t sell so they compromise and create a Frankenstein instead. Part their vision but part other people’s visions as well. The result might sell but is probably not nearly as unique or authentic a creation as would have been created if the artist were left alone to create what they wish.
Is this a bad thing? not always. But it is something that often diminishes originality to the point that you end up with something bland and uninteresting. And that’s a shame in my book.
I just finished reading a book called ‘The Innovators’ by Walter Isaacson. I highly recommend it. It’s the history of the computer and digital revolution. It’s an amazing story of people trying something that people before them said couldn’t be done. It’s the story of people fiddling around in their garages and workbenches; experimenting, failing, experimenting again and again, sometimes not even really knowing specifically what it is they are reaching for. They knew it had never existed before and that is exciting. It’s the story of collaboration, trusting others on a team to be both rigorous in their work and open minded in their willingness to attempt things that have never been attempted. It’s the story of people respecting and understanding ideas and inventions already in existence but not being limited by those same ideas and inventions.
This Is How It’s Done
One of the hardest things for a person who has been at the same company a long time to do is let the new people make their own discoveries about what works and doesn’t work in the business. This is also true of parents with kids and of coaches with athletes. In these cases we think we can see the best way to do something, whether it’s how to close a sale, cook a roast or do an exercise. We know because we have done it so many times, right? It’s good to have training in place so new workers can know how something is done properly. It’s good to have your child in the kitchen with you so you can show them how to prepare the roast properly. It’s good to show the athlete how to lift the weights properly.
This Is the New Way It’s Done
But there comes a time when they have ideas of their own. Maybe they see a flaw in your method. Maybe they have figured out a shortcut. Maybe something about the process just doesn’t make sense to them. Or maybe they are bored and just want to try something new. What do you do then? You let them try the new ideas. Of course, we aren’t talking about allowing something dangerous. But something new and untried? Why not?
When Claire the Clarinetist was finished playing she could have chosen to leave the altar as do many of the other orchestra members. But the orchestra was arranged today so that she was facing directly towards the congregation (usually she is facing sideways) and she thought it would be fun to just sit there and see what the pastor sees every week.
Chapter Two – NO
The first thing she noticed was the raven-haired woman in the front row trying to control her kids. Her husband was also there but he was having no interaction with any of them. She had seen this happen again and again with this family. The mother had to do the hard work of interacting with the kids constantly and the father did nothing. She wondered if they would ever be friends. She thought, “No.”
Chapter Three – YES
As Claire looked at them longer she realized something else. The mother was getting the hugs and the smiles from the kids. The father was not. He may have been missing the hassle, but he was also missing the love. Now when she wondered if they would ever be friends, she thought, “Yes.”
Chapter Four – I DON’T KNOW
She then cast her eyes on an elderly man. He looked alert, with sparkling eyes. He had on a very nice sweater. She wondered about him, who he was, who he had been. She imagined him as a young man. She wondered if they would have been friends back when he was her age now. She thought, “I don’t know.”
Chapter Five – I KNOW
Her attention was pulled back to the sermon. The Pastor was telling a joke. It went on way too long and when the punch line finally came it was terrible. The whole congregation laughed though. All except the elderly man. He rolled his eyes. That is when she realized she would have to go meet him because they would be good friends. She thought, “I know.”
Chapter Six – MAYBE
She looked up into the balcony and noticed a striking blonde woman. One of the spotlights aimed at the altar was directly behind the woman and it lit up her big blonde hairdo like a halo. She could tell, even from a distance, that she had on impeccable clothing. She looked like she had a lot of money. She wondered if they would ever be friends. She thought, “Maybe.”
Chapter Seven – MAYBE NOT
As she continued to watch the woman in the balcony she noticed her looking back at her. Then she leaned over to the woman next to her and whispered in her ear. When she did that, she gestured toward the altar and pointed her finger. They both smiled and suppressed a giggle. The Clarinetist knew she had been pointing at her. She thought, “Maybe not.”
Epilogue
Claire eventually met the woman in the front row. They became good friends. She would babysit their kids once in a while when the couple would go out on date nights. It turned out they were very old fashioned but very much in love. He was kind and thoughtful to his kids, though not particularly warm. She adored her husband and greatly appreciated his ability to discipline the kids with love.
Clair did go and meet the elderly man. They became good friends. He started attending the noon concerts she did once a month with her little quintet she had. He was a widower, having been married 57 years before his wife passed away. Claire played his favorite song at his funeral 5 years later.
Claire ran into the blonde woman in the church bathroom a few weeks later. The blonde woman said, “I just want you to know how much I admire your playing every Sunday. My friend and I sit in the balcony and just adore the entire orchestra. We both like to sit up there because the acoustics are best. We can hear your clarinet very distinctly. We always make sure to point you out to each other when we think you have an exceptionally cool outfit on.”
My friends in business, some as high up as VP, but most in middle management, have often told me over the years how little their bosses realize how much work they have done and currently do. Those bosses may have come to power in the past few months, and know nothing of the many years this person saved, expanded, corrected, instilled, encouraged, adapted, innovated, created, built, adjusted, revamped, and competed to make the division or the company what it is today. These friends may have had someone above them recognize their efforts during a year end review that ends up in a file somewhere. But the new bosses will very likely not read those reviews, deeming them irrelevant. It can be very frustrating for them.
Now
On the other hand, as a running coach who leads four sessions a year, I can’t tell my runners that the last session was great and expect them to be satisfied with that. The current session has to be great otherwise my bragging about past achievements means nothing. Now is what matters.
Balance
It’s good to recognize other’s accomplishments. It tells them they are doing a good job and are appreciated. That is important. But, in another sense, it’s also good to not pay too much attention to those past accomplishments because they are not what will cause the business to succeed today and into the future. For that to happen you have to perform today. Of course, both can take place, and that is how it should be. Recognition of past efforts is what makes a person want to continue to put out effort in the present and into the future.
One might think that it is critical when you reach a certain point of success that you up your game and push your level of excellence, going beyond ‘good enough’. But the truth is you can’t wait until you reach any particular level of success to do that. If you don’t push for excellence and originality from the very beginning chances are you won’t ever reach a high level of success. If you do somehow reach that level of success, you will have a hard time sustaining it.
