Top Monkeys, Part 2. (This Time It's Personal)
I've been thinking more on Top Monkeys (and some of you have too I think). When I got back from Omega, Graham allowed me some processing time. He asked, "Did you think that you and Lynda Barry would meet and totally become friends and then she would come back to New York and sleep on our couch?" I looked at him, eyes wide with shock, "YES!!!" Was it THAT obvious?
The experience last week rattled me. It rattled me because it challenged what I believed WOULD happen. It made me face some beliefs I have in how the world works. Through much reading about the creative life, mostly through blogs, but also in books, I've had this feeling that if I just do THIS right and if I just BELIEVE in this way, MAGICAL THINGS HAPPEN and then my life WILL CHANGE. I honestly believed that I was MEANT to meet Lynda Barry, and to somehow get BLESSED by her into MY REAL LIFE. This may sound totally stupid, but it's the truth. This is what you don't allow to happen, when you believe you are meeting something close to a DEITY: The Deity may get grumpy and FREAKED OUT. The Deity may not WANT to be a DEITY at ALL. The Deity may get ANGRY and RED FACED, which will SCARE THE HECK OUT OF YOU. The Deity may just be in the WRONG PLACE. What you go to find is the GREAT AND POWERFUL OZ, but what you find is a small human behind the curtain, working the gears. It's called REALITY, people.
I'm often jealous of people who seem to have spiritually evolved lives, who seem to have magical things happen to them all the time. I feel like everyday I check myself: am I living in the flow or am I out of the flow? Am I doing it right? NOW am I doing RIGHT? How about now?
It can be a little exhausting.
Last week made me face up to the fact that I put way too much importance on other people's processes. I always think somebody else has it all figured out, because they are so visibly AWESOME. I've read and studied on artist's lives my whole adult life. I say it inspires me, but what I am really saying is that it gives me ideas on how life should be. I'm looking at them, dead or alive asking, HOW SHOULD I BUILD MY LIFE? I'm 33, and it's about time I take some responsibility. My story isn't going to look like anyone else's. The popular kids have issues. Paris Hilton is a young woman who gets a period every month. Lynda Barry is someone who gets mad and uptight easily. But that's not what we see--we see what we want to see. I considered myself ENLIGHTENED to these facts, but it wasn't until I pined and begged and stole to be in a room with a woman I had worshipped, and found myself PINING and HOPING and WAITING for that moment to get the GREEN LIGHT to the MAGICAL WORLD that I realized how much it CONTROLLED me and my decisions.
I came back tired of begging and pleading to be seen. I wanted to go home to where I was already known and cherished. I called Graham from Omega and said, "Just tell me I'm a good person." I needed to be reminded that just because Lynda Barry didn't see me, it didn't mean that I disappeared.
And as they say, when your expectations haven't been met, you haven't broadened your scope. In a way, the experiences with Lynda Barry DID bless me into another world. It blessed me into a world, where the field is leveled, and everybody has the answer--FOR THEMSELVES.
The experience last week rattled me. It rattled me because it challenged what I believed WOULD happen. It made me face some beliefs I have in how the world works. Through much reading about the creative life, mostly through blogs, but also in books, I've had this feeling that if I just do THIS right and if I just BELIEVE in this way, MAGICAL THINGS HAPPEN and then my life WILL CHANGE. I honestly believed that I was MEANT to meet Lynda Barry, and to somehow get BLESSED by her into MY REAL LIFE. This may sound totally stupid, but it's the truth. This is what you don't allow to happen, when you believe you are meeting something close to a DEITY: The Deity may get grumpy and FREAKED OUT. The Deity may not WANT to be a DEITY at ALL. The Deity may get ANGRY and RED FACED, which will SCARE THE HECK OUT OF YOU. The Deity may just be in the WRONG PLACE. What you go to find is the GREAT AND POWERFUL OZ, but what you find is a small human behind the curtain, working the gears. It's called REALITY, people.
I'm often jealous of people who seem to have spiritually evolved lives, who seem to have magical things happen to them all the time. I feel like everyday I check myself: am I living in the flow or am I out of the flow? Am I doing it right? NOW am I doing RIGHT? How about now?
It can be a little exhausting.
Last week made me face up to the fact that I put way too much importance on other people's processes. I always think somebody else has it all figured out, because they are so visibly AWESOME. I've read and studied on artist's lives my whole adult life. I say it inspires me, but what I am really saying is that it gives me ideas on how life should be. I'm looking at them, dead or alive asking, HOW SHOULD I BUILD MY LIFE? I'm 33, and it's about time I take some responsibility. My story isn't going to look like anyone else's. The popular kids have issues. Paris Hilton is a young woman who gets a period every month. Lynda Barry is someone who gets mad and uptight easily. But that's not what we see--we see what we want to see. I considered myself ENLIGHTENED to these facts, but it wasn't until I pined and begged and stole to be in a room with a woman I had worshipped, and found myself PINING and HOPING and WAITING for that moment to get the GREEN LIGHT to the MAGICAL WORLD that I realized how much it CONTROLLED me and my decisions.
I came back tired of begging and pleading to be seen. I wanted to go home to where I was already known and cherished. I called Graham from Omega and said, "Just tell me I'm a good person." I needed to be reminded that just because Lynda Barry didn't see me, it didn't mean that I disappeared.
And as they say, when your expectations haven't been met, you haven't broadened your scope. In a way, the experiences with Lynda Barry DID bless me into another world. It blessed me into a world, where the field is leveled, and everybody has the answer--FOR THEMSELVES.
posted by Summer Pierre at
1:50 PM
6 Comments:
good post, what more can I say....I ditto a lot of it....
I really love this post, Summer. Very honest. I have a theory that most people think they want to be famous...but I believe in actuality what we most crave is to be KNOWN. And sometimes that includes being known by people who are famous. ;)
That class sounds amazing and so different. Down with the top monkeys! I'm sure it would be hard for me to be in that non-celebrity class atmosphere*, and it makes me VERY curious to see what people produced, or what I would produce under those circumstances.
Of course, I haven't written officially or been in a writing class forever, but spending the last seven or so years surrounded daily by tomes of the written word makes me feel like I am still part of that world.
Thank you, as always, for your honesty in your self-examination.
I'm also glad you liked my little gift. Isn't it fun when getting packages in the mail?! Especially when they are filled with books!
Summer ... on the one hand, I'm sayin' a big 'POOP!!' -- because I so wanted you to have the quintessential Omega experience, with the beautiful setting, down-to-earth people, and a warm and wonderful facilitator. When all those things come together, you (I) can come back from a week like that floating on air, and so full that my soul is renewed (... only for a time, but still).
I think in some ways Omega has fallen victim to the cult of celebrity, too, to some degree. Nowadays, you really can't get in there to teach unless you've written a book (and preferably one that sells a lot of copies, too) ... it wasn't always that way, I don't think. Nothing against people who've written books, but I know some people who haven't written books and are absolutely amazing facilitators and guides ... who are present, engaging, wise, respectful, warm, and still maintain their own sense of space, if you know what I mean. On the other hand, just because someone has written a wonderful book doesn't mean they can speak well in public, or facilitate a group in a positive way ... they're two different things, but somehow we tend to think that if someone has written a great book, then they must be the embodiment of it in every sense of the word, and that simply isn't true in all cases. Anyway, I only attended Omega for the first time in 1995, so I wasn't there for the beginning, but it does seem to me like they've become more of a business and marketing machine, and published authors whom people have heard about attract paying students, unlike someone who may be a fantastic teacher but isn't a household name. Actually, my first experience at Omega was with someone who hasn't published a book (you could still get in like that back then, and besides, she had been their marketing director for a time, so she had an in), and, she was a fantastic teacher, and it was a transformational week, and she and I *did* become good friends and we remain so to this day. We just exchanged email today, in fact. So, that's only to say that your 'fantasy' wasn't completely unrealistic. It *can* happen; it's just that it didn't ... and I think the fact that so many of their instructors now have this big following because of their books, etc., make it almost necessary for them to maintain a distance in these types of situations. Kinda sad in a way.
Anyway, enough about that.
So, what I'm saying is, on the one hand I'm sort of grieving for you and with you, because I feel like you got cheated out of the 'Omega experience.'
On the other hand, the experience you did is so incredibly valuable, Summer ... to put more value in yourself, in your own ideas, your own process, your own way of expression ... rather than on somebody else's. It's in great part why I stopped doing coaching. Your path, and your process, and your creative expression are unique in all the world, and they are not going to follow the same path as anybody else's. It's a big fat drag, but it seems we have to stumble and fall and figure things out for ourselves ... otherwise, the path just won't fit. We'll be wearing somebody else's suit. So, in that sense, you got a lesson that's way more valuable than being noticed by Lynda Barry, my dear. You got that Summer is all you need, when it really comes right down to it. There may be wonderful tools, mirrors, companions, and everything else out there to give us company along the way, but at the end of the day, it's all in YOU baby!
"I'm often jealous of people who seem to have spiritually evolved lives"
YOU have a spiritually evolved life, my dear. And it's not because you have a great blog or because you write cool songs and people like them. It's because you choose to follow your own true path. Maybe it leaeds to true love; maybe it leads to "success" as someone someplace (maybe even you) defines it but that's just the gravy. The SEARCHING is what makes it spiritual. Thanks for continuing to share your search!
Summer....
You are a "Top Dog"....
I'm completely amazed by all you've accomplished and I feel that I was lucky to have met someone like you; in a real setting, like work.
You're awesome and don't forget that. People often strive to be better then they are and that's what's helped us to progress in the world. It's a natural desire, but just don't forget that you're always looked up to by someone else. ;)
Post a Comment
<< Home