What would you do about the pirate situation off the coast of Somalia?

**********

There is nothing simple about the country of Somalia on the eastern Horn of Africa. It achieved  independence from Britain and Italy in 1960 and because of its important strategic location near the mouth of the Red Sea and Saudi Arabia a proxy war was fought there between the USSR and the United States during the Cold War. The Red Sea (and the Suez Canal at the north end of it) is where much of the shipping of the world travels through and certainly much of the oil that travels by tanker. Because of this valuable location the country was flooded with weapons for thirty years to change the flow of commerce and determine regional influence. Both nations disrupted the economy and the politics there for two generations to say nothing of the English and Italians before them.

**********

A young man named S walked up to my table and chairs and after briefly chatting asked me one of the most unusual questions I have been asked at the table.  

What would you do about the pirate situation off the coast of Somalia?

If you don’t know there is a serious problem with Somali pirates off the eastern coast of Africa hijacking boats and causing all sorts of problems. But it isn’t as simple as that.

I am no stranger to weird questions at the table but at least the strangest among those looking for a creative approach to something usually have a relationship to the problem.

S wasn’t Somali. He had never been an investor who had a boat hijacked. He had no connection to Somalia or hijacking or pirates at all except for having read about it and felt like it was important.

**********

Somalia, despite being a poor nation, is a country rich in natural resources. It has the longest coastline of any country in Africa so much of its economy, such that it is, relies on the sea. It also has untapped oil reserves but the colonial powers that dominated the country for the last 250 years have crippled the country and the IMF did particular damage in the late 80′s. When the country was pushed towards ruin by Western interests in 1989/1990 and in 1991 the government collapsed three things happened

1. poverty soared in the country.
2. nuclear waste started to be dumped in Somali harbors and marshes by unmarked ships and people started getting sick and dying up and down the coast.
3. unmarked trawlers started heavily fishing the coast illegally and suddenly the coastal subsistence lifestyle was no longer possible.

A confluence of forces gave Somalis little choice but to try to protect their shores from toxic dumping and from food being stolen. They started becoming pirates and using all the spare weapons sitting around the country they started taking hostages, halting boats, getting some money and stopping the dumping and the fishing. Of course some reveled and prospered in the crime but the majority are just doing their best to get by at all.

**********

I tried with S to clarify the question because while I could theoretically give a creative approach to this problem, it wasn’t very practical to S. But he persisted with his query. So I obliged by suggesting that we role play not having a clue of where we were going. He plays a pirate and I play a hostage negotiator. We never went into the history of Somalia or what actually brought the pirates into existence…we just talked.

Negotiator
So Mister Pirate, what is it that you want?

Pirate
Money.

N
For what?

P
Houses, cars, and girls.

N
And what do you want those for?

P
So I can feel powerful.

N
And why do you want to feel powerful?

P
So people wont fuck with me. So my dad wont fuck with me.

this is clearly not about pirates anymore

N
So once your dad wont fuck with you , then what?

P
Then I’ll be happy.

N
So you want to be happy?

P
Yes.

N
Ok, has there ever been a time when you didn’t have cars and houses and girls and your dad fucked with you that you have been happy?

P
Hell yes.

N
What allowed you to be happy then?

P
My faith.

N
Say more on that.

P
Job in the Bible is my hero. He had everything, lost it and took all that suffering and wouldn’t curse God and then was rewarded one hundred times over.

N
So you want to be more like Job?

P
Yeah, if I was more like Job I would stop being a pirate and realize that I can be happy right now.

This dialogue took perhaps two minutes and then stopped. S had gone from clever questioner to suddenly exposing something he hadn’t known he was looking for. He was shocked that his seemingly casual interest in Somali pirates was intimately connected to his own well being.

He wasn’t being glib when he said that this was ” a pretty good solution to the pirate problem.”

**********

We all seek happiness to be sure. The nation of Somalia has much to work out but Somalia is a metaphor. Somalia is just like us and the pirates are part of ourselves. Like Somalia we each have a rich heritage, tremendous wealth, an open door on rich thoroughfares and have also been beset by difficulties from within and without. In being beset we put up defenses. We send out pirates to protect us from the sieges that we experience in our lives – criticism, judgement, stress and the like.

These inner pirates have a job to do – protect us from the outside world. But there comes a point that they have forgotten their original rationale for being pirates – to simply be happy. They get stuck in the role of pirating and hence lose connection with the original goal.

There is a place for defending ourselves from the world. There is a place for throwing up pirates. But there must come a time for us to call them back and, like Job, and like S, give our selves an opportunity to stop the struggle and be happy now.

Perhaps this is a tall order but seeing that we are habitually struggling may open up a new door on our struggle.

It did for S. What war have you  been fighting for so long that you forgot what you were fighting for? Can you cease that to tap into your wealth?

I am pretty sure I have met the perfect woman for me. And if she isn’t a lesbian she is open to being with women. 

**********
Jennifer was late and had called about her being turned around and lost twice by that point. I didn’t mind at all, it was actually quite funny and endearing. When she finally arrived and we started talking we just found out with zero discussion that we could be playfully rude and horrible to each other in a way that made us both feel very accepted by each other.
**********

I am pretty sure I have met the perfect woman for me. And if she isn’t a lesbian she is open to being with women. But it is tricky – she is my superior at work though we don’t work in the same area.

**********
And it perhaps shouldn’t have been that way since this was a number of years ago when I was interviewing someone to be a potential housemate – one would think that a certain decorum would have been the starting point of that sort of relationship.

By the way Jennifer Haase has a great new folky album out that has the esteemed Rosanne Cash singing with her on one of the tracks…

I mention this because when A came to me at the table we playfully sneered at each other virtually right away and got to be very forward with each other. It was almost like we assumed our friendship had started at the three year point instead of the three second point.

A was a very, very pretty dyke (her term). Early 30′s Short blonde hair and a classically gorgeous face. She was dressed in white top that was 49% blouse and 51% men’s tailored dress dress shirt with a pinstripe vest and slacks to match. It was upscale butchyness to a severe and androgynous T.

She just had that  cool carriage and the sort of sexual energy that just shone out of her while raising a questioning eyebrow at you that signified both interest and playful disdain. And then she laid out what was going on with her.

I am pretty sure I have met the pefect woman for me. And if she isn’t a lesbian she is open to being with women. But it is tricky – she is my superior at work though we don’t work in the same area. We are about the same age. We get along really well. I have never met anyone like her. I was obsessed. Thinking about her all the time.

So I finally got up the nerve and asked her out. But I was rebuffed. Nicely. But rebuffed. Despite that, my obsession grew. Months later I ended up going to a conference that she was speaking at just to give myself another shot. I went to her panel discussion, I didn’t stalk her.

Well, I sort of stalked her.

We ended up having drinks alone talking about business and I asked her out again and I was turned down again. How can I stop thinking of her? It is distracting. I can’t be in other relationships. I think about her at work all the time. It’s insane. And the fact that she doesn’t want me doesn’t change one thing.

I smiled as she was telling me the story. And I teasingly replied to A

Oh, it must be hard for someone as sexy and desirable as you to get turned down -twice.?

A stuck her tongue out at me and I scrunched my nose back at her.

I said to A that this was a case of “don”t think of a pink elephant” – that once mentioned the idea of a  pink elephant indelibly sits in the mind. It was a funny trick of our language/brain connection that when negative  descriptors/instructions are given they are seen/experienced as positives. So when a parent says “Don’t spill that juice” to a child, the child sees spilled juice in their mind and then after seeing that spreading pool of  sticky juice suddenly there is a little “don’t” that gets tagged on afterward. Atheism is understood as theism – but not. So in asking “how can I stop thinking about her?” – you can’t as long as you are asking the question.

So I offered to A what might be the sort of counter approach that a good girlfriend might give. I suggested that A totally embrace the obsession. Currently her obsession was about a mile wide – all over her life – and a few inches deep. All her current obsession with Woman X was doing was disrupting her daily activities but A was getting none of the benefit.

I told A that she would have to make a very particular time that she would indulge in her obsession. Nightly at 9pm for 15 minutes. Weekly on Saturdays at 4pm – she would select the appropriate time and interval. But during the day when the obsessing distraction came up she would need to clearly tell her mind:

Not right now Mind. I promise you we will think all about her soon. I will indulge every thought but right now we are working.

At the time of her indulgence she would use that time to focus and contain her obsession. She would dress differently than she normally would – ceremonially. She would make paper cut out dolls of the two of them, draw pictures in celebration of their connection, write poems, sing songs, recite prayers, write her name on a sex toy of choice.

The whole thing was sounding pretty erotic even before I mentioned the sex toy and A was sexily biting her lower lip as I was telling her a way to actually dive deep into this thing. I implored her to feel into this experiment like “the discovery of the curve of a new lovers hip as it moves into her leg”. I teased A further “But you probably have never had a lover before and don’t know how nice that feels…”

Jackass. That is pretty cool. In truth I don’t want to get rid of the feeling I  just want to stop being distracted so badly. Thank you for not making me get rid of this.

I made a kissy face in reply.

In indulging in the obsession and actually letting it move through her body (physically and otherwise) she could stop asking the question “why can’t I have her?” because then the simulacrum would stop the mind from asking and allowing her to move on at some point.

We all have great raging fights with distractions and because the fight is constant the distraction is constant. There is no need to fight distractions we only need to create specific spaces for  distraction to live. Be friends with distractions and eventually you will both be friends.

What obsession do you need to stop fighting and embrace?

Matt, I don’t know if you remember me but we went on two or possibly three dates in 1997. I remember that you were a really good guy and I was a jerk and totally blew you off and never called you back even though you were really interesting and nice. I am so sorry I wasn’t kinder to you then. But seeing you here this weekend has shown me what a truly remarkable person you are more than even in those dates. You have helped so many people in stunning and surprising ways. I really should have dated you then.

I don’t always start off with the punchline but this is a different sort of post.

**********

In the Winter of 2009 I took a course called “Creativity and Personal Mastery” that was offered by Srikumar Rao. It was a course that was originally offered at Columbia Business School. The course is a mixture of philosophically based introspection, creativity, mindset shifting via certain exercises and practices and new leadership/business paradigms. It became one of the most popular courses at CBS that was signed up for years in advance and regularly referred to by graduates as the most significant class they took in business school.

The course moved to London Business School and Haas Business school to similar acclaim. The people who take the course tend to be really achievy, smart and thoughtful people and there is a strong alumni community with people all over the world who meet up regularly to do the exercises Rao offers and to discourse with others of like mind.

While I did not get a lot of the class in terms of content (I had practiced virtually all of the material covered and had gone over a lot of the same ground on my own and in other forums) I loved taking the class and connecting with these new people who are interested in many of the same things I am. I am very glad that I took the course and am part of the community. It has been good to me. Many great friends of mine have been made there. I recommend the course.

There are also annual alumni retreats where these smart and achievy people get together for a long weekend to connect and reconnect with each other and the work of CPM.

The last retreat was outside of San Francisco at the spectacular Stillheart Institute.

I live in New York. The retreat was in San Francisco. Just flying there was expensive. The retreat itself wasn’t cheap either. Amazingly I got a call from one of the organizers who said that there was an anonymous benefactor who claimed that my value to the community was so great that it was important that I be at the retreat and that all costs of getting to and being at the retreat were covered.

This was an amazing and generous gift.

At the retreat I certainly contributed and gave as fully as I could – just as I would have if I had paid for it myself. There was a woman there who seemed familiar somehow and by the second full day of the retreat I recognized this woman as someone I had gone on a date or two with almost fifteen years ago. I didn’t want to bring any attention to this and didn’t mention it. But I ended up being in a few different workshops with her and we shared a table with some others over dinner.

On the last day of the retreat she came up to me and said:

Matt, I don’t know if you remember me but we went on two or possibly three dates in 1997. I remember that you were a really good guy and I was a jerk and totally blew you off and never called you back even though you were really interesting and nice. I am so sorry I wasn’t kinder to you then. But seeing you here this weekend has shown me what a truly remarkable person you are more than even in those dates. You have helped so many people in stunning and surprising ways. I really should have dated you then.

I was really touched by this and we then proceeded to catch up more formally.

The point of the story is this. You can metaphorically date me now…you don’t need to wait. I am available.

T. Thorn Coyle recently said on G+

People read my blog and social media pages every day without buying any of my books, CDs, or taking a class. I’m happy to post what inspiration flows though me, but without those dedicated people who spread the word, and offer money in exchange for my effort, my public work would go away. Those who give back, I thank you from the bottom of my black heart.

While I don’t have any CD’s or classes (at the moment) the sentiment is very much the same. All the creative approaches I offer these people and write about for you… I can do the same for you.

Here is what I am offering.

Lets do a brainvergence and bring my brain to your situation.

You are contending with something big or small, personal or professional and need help looking at this certain situation in new ways.

I am thrilled to help you in any mode of communication I can do so in person, on the phone, skype, tin can with string, smoke signals, carrier pigeon…

In weird and creative ways I have helped :

name novels
deal with unrequited love
resolve disputes
a rapper find his rhyme flows
find spirit animals
cope with boredom
deal with theft in the workplace
re-imagine an oboe career
restructure a business plan
eliminate stress related stomach pains

I even helped one person with a creative approach to avoid getting murdered.

I can help you.

email me at m@stillmansays.com or call at 212 864 8728 if you have questions.

The standard session with me is a gem.
$225 for a session and a 40 minute follow up (to be used within 30 days)

If you have a more tangled knot that needs reweaving with more support and more accountability. You can schedule a series of spoonfuls of Steady Stillman for what ails you.

$650 for three sessions with three 40-minute follow ups
(each to be used within 30 days of call)

“This is something else I can blame my mother for – her cancer is ruining my comedy career.”

**********

I have been very fortunate to have been involved with the Upright Citizens Brigade since they first arrived in New York City from Chicago in 1996. I stumbled into their first show in New York by accident in the Winter of 1996 during Christmas Break in my senior year of college and was blown away by them and when I graduated in May 1996 I looked them up and signed up for classes before I even graduated. I’ll be forever grateful to Amy Poehler, Ian Roberts, Matt Walsh and Matt Besser for all they taught me in the three years they were my only teachers about comedy and improvisation – and I took classes constantly, concurrently, devotedly. They opened a vision for the world and to being on an improv stage to me that is still opening 15 years later.

Hey, did you know that I wrote a book about this?

**********

S has been a professional comedian for 12 years. We had a nice chat about New York City comedy – people we knew and liked. We did bits with each other – as comedy people do.

**********

There are innumerable things I have learned from performing and studying improvisational comedy but one thing is to play until you find the first unusual thing and then explore that. If that unusual thing is true, then what else is true? Then to look closely what a scene needs and only add that. Once you find all these things you can heighten a scene in remarkable ways. Another thing my improv teachers taught is that the only important thing in a scene is to tell the truth from the perspective of the character you are playing. Don’t try to be funny, just be truthful to that reality. There is truth in comedy and conversely there is comedy in truth if expressed in the right way.

**********

So S and I brainstorm a bit together on solutions for her which was actually really fun but nothing was clicking. She then mentioned that her mother was really sick and that was another thing that wasn’t helping her feel funny. S quipped

This is something else I can blame my mother for – her cancer is ruining my comedy career.

The delivery was just right and we both laughed. This was the unusual thing to pursue. It suddenly struck me absolutely clearly what S needed to do – Stand Up Tragedy. By eliminating her goal of being funny and doing the opposite of funny she could actually be free to be funny.

This sort of oblique approach can actually move you in remarkable ways. For example when you go from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean via the Panama Canal you will find yourself approximately 75 miles further East than where you entered it. In the short term you actually go backwards – yet it is still the fastest way to get from the Atlantic to the Pacific by ship. This is totally counterintuitive but has broad application – short term backwardness actually can move you forward in stunning ways.

Though we don’t see each other very often (sadly, since I love him and his wife so much) one of my old improv friends Ari Voukydis, a few years ago, became interested in exploring tragedy improvisationally.

He directed a great run of a show called “Harsh” that never tried to be funny while it explored very dark subjects but often was hilarious because the scenes were so real and so truthful that laughter emerged. It is said that comedy emerges from pain and I think there is much truth to this. I was fortunate to be in a class that Ari gave exploring the same subject again which gave birth to a short lived (but really good in my opinion) improv tragedy group called Bedtime Stories for Kidnapped Children that Ari coached. The women in that class and that group inspired me and I saw some of the best acting on a stage that I have ever been a part of. Some of the sickest and saddest stuff that fearlessly went there and regularly was brilliantly funny because it was true.

**********

If S stood for Stella – she suddenly got her groove back. The idea of not trying to get people to laugh was totally freeing and from there her powers of observation could explore tragedy. She instantly got the connection and said that material was coming to her right then and there. I told her some other recollections of tragic scenes that BS4KC did and we both clapped and laughed with glee as she started telling me some outlines of her sad and miserable stories.

So Ari, Ari, Christina, Megan, Crystal, Jessica, and CeCe – you changed a comedians life. She said so. But you all still inspire me too. Thanks!

**********

So where does this leave you, the reader? We seek happiness and satisfaction and all sorts of good things. So we point ourselves in that direction and go for them – don’t spare the horses. But we may end up actually taking the long route. Like the Panama Canal there may be an inner short cut we can all take that from a micro-perspective appears to go backwards. I encourage you to have the courage to look at the opposite of your goals and see if they are worth pursuing.

Let’s choose a very simple example to explore so we don’t get the wrong idea.

You want to train to run a marathon. At first blush your thought might be “the opposite of training to run a marathon is sitting on the couch eating Twinkies.” Well, maybe. But S didn’t acquiesce to stopping writing, she opened up to stop trying to be funny. She was just as willing to write. So the opposite of training for a marathon might be running simply for pleasure for all the  same time on all the days you were planning to run an 80 mile week.

S got back to me and said that her new material was killing because she wasn’t driving towards punchlines and she was just deeply expressing her philosophy about the tragic things she was seeing in the world through her wry sensibilities.

I would love to hear what some of your goals are and speculate what their opposites might be and how that might open a new direction for you.

**********************

We all think that the process of decision making is not only our own but fairly straight forward. We look at the decision that needs to be made, anticipate some likely outcome, weigh them against each other and then make the decision and then go from there. In some ways it is quite simple because we have made zillions of decisions over our many years. The majority , if not most, had very little thought at all. But in truth the process is much more interesting than that. 

*********************

N and C were a young couple in the sweet throes of young love. N did most of the talking. As they sweetly batted eyes at each other they explained that they were in still in college but graduating soon and they were pretty sure they would be getting married. But their sticking point was where to live.

C is a singer/songwriter and N is an aspiring film maker. N feels like for his career to start he needs to go to LA and C feels like her singing career needs to be in New York. They have talked about it every which way and have come to no agreement.

****************************

The decisions that we make are indeed made ultimately but there are a number of voices that can chime in and allow the decision to go forward. Some internal voices that weigh in on potential decisions are the voice of practicality,

• the voice of greed
• the voice of sloth
• the voice of fear
• the voice of action
• the voice of anger
• the voice of longing
• the voice of passion…

of course there are many others. Because we can’t reasonably use all of them for every decision we have streamlined the process. We have a few voices that we like and trust and that we use frequently in most decisions or at least particular types of decisions. There is nothing bad about this but it simply means that we end up leaning on the same advisors so we get similar outcomes. It also means that we leave out many voices. When we hit sticking points we are so practiced at asking and hearing the same voices within us that we hardly know what to do. It is as if we suddenly were forced to write with our toes – none of us are practiced at that.

***********************

I asked them a bit more about their arguments and defenses of their respective positions in the process I noticed a slim gold chain around N’s neck. There was a pucker near the collar of his shirt where a pendant would be but what it was remained unknown. But it looked like the sort of chain that was intentionally put there. It wasn’t decorative, it meant something. It had something on it that I needed to listen to. So I turned the conversation on the proverbial dime:

Are you religious?

N said he was a lapsed Catholic. I asked if he had any lingering connection to the faith of his youth. He thought and said that he had always loved Saint Anthony.

Saint Anthony is most well known for being the patron saint of lost or misplaced things and travelers but also he is a patron saint of marriage in Brazil and Portugal. N knew the first part but not the marriage part. C liked the idea that her boyfriends favorite spiritual figure was somehow looking over them.

**********************

Writing with your toes may not be really practical but generally we are pretty disconnected from  our feet. We wear shoes with thick soles that cut off any possibility of dynamic reaction to the earth. Babies have these wonderfully articulated toes where even the little toes can stretch all by itself. For most adults toe articulation and full fooe sensitivity is long gone from a lifetime of wearing shoes with chunky heels, thick cushioning and  support straps. Our feet hardly have had a chance to be feet and do what they do – adjust, grip, spread out.  It is the same with our unused and unheard inner voices. We have dulled our relationship to them and so they virtually atrophy. We have lost something that we should have.

***********************

I was excited that a new possibility suddenly seemed open to their question. I told N that since he and C had gone back and forth with little change that perhaps adding a third point into the discussion might open up new possibilities.

I encouraged N to set up a little shrine to Saint Anthony and start regularly asking him for guidance on where they should go. Just start asking and don’t assume the answer will be one of the two choices. Accept that there might be a few steps involved and see what Anthony says back.

N was reticent for a moment and said that he hadn’t prayed in years. I told him that he wasn’t praying – just asking for guidance or advice. He saw the difference and said

It can’t hurt can it? It has been a long time since I had a chat with Saint Anthony. Just talking to you made me remember how much he meant or means to me.

C said

Maybe he’ll say to just propose already!

And that was that. The two thanked me and walked away with fingers entangled.

*****************

Asking for help from Saint Anthony while sitting at a little make shift shrine is a small way to start to reconnect with a lost or exiled voice within N. It is a voice that he, by his very own admission, was one that he hadn’t heard in a long time. Creating a small ritual space can help to allow any of us to summon one of these different forgotten voices within us. They are worth calling on because we haven’t heard from them in so long that what they say can  be quite surprising. When are surprised we are open…and when we are open all sorts of things can be seen and all  sorts of things can happen.

What voices have you forgotten to listen to?

1. Things need to be disposable so that we keep on buying to spur growth which makes trash
2. Hurting nature has no cost

Trash becomes ubiquitous and it literally becomes part of the landscape by way of landfills but even more perniciously is just sort of accepting that cups and wrappers and wadded up circulars are just standard fare. While there is external trash. There is also internal stuff floating around our minds or hearts as well that functions just like trash does. This problem of inner trash didn’t come up with E when she sat down in Union Square for a creative approach with me. But the problem of inner trash will be considered in a moment.

E felt like a crunchy sort from the moment she stepped to the table. Her Birkenstocks and her Central Americany looking patterened shirt and army pants paired with her broad and handsome face was the very picture of an eco-traveler.

But E upped my impressions.

She told me that she is concerned by the amount of trash in the world. Particularly where she lives in Ecuador.

Not that I disagreed at all about the amount of trash and the problem of it – we chatted about the North Pacific Garbage Gyre and other problems of consumption and trash. But E more specifically put her finger on the problem of trash in Ecuador.

It disconnects people from nature. Here we are in this beautiful country and people who live there don’t see it. They only see it as a place to dump their stuff. And they are losing chances to save it.

It was a full and honest appraisal of her adopted country but certainly it could be applied to any nation.

So I asked her:

What are you being cut off from? What is your experience in the Ecuadorian nature?

The first word she said indicated the depth of her presence: “Open.”

She paused and continued “and connected.”

I waited a moment and felt the simplicity and richness of her simple statement. What shot into my mind was the hope that she was artistic…but I didn’t know what sort of art might be relevant.

So I asked with fingers crossed “Are you really artistic?”

E said haltingly “I teach ceramics at a college there.”

She looked at me like I had done a low grade job of reading her mind – impressive but not terribly specific.

I lit up and said

Incorporate trash into your ceramics! Make new shapes guided by the trash! Embed the stuff into clay! Reclaim traditional techniques and forms with the trash within!

E looked at me and noted

That is really interesting. I wonder about outgassing when you fire them… But it is a really good idea to repurpose the trash and render it functionally inert and use it for counter-purposes.

I had no idea about the outgassing being a problem or not at all but suggested that it might be possible to do low heat firing or sun baked firing like in traditional ceramics. E liked that addition tremendously because it solved the outgassing problem entirely – if it was indeed a problem. We suddenly went into a small riff on how traditional thick walled ceramic styles of pots and sculpture reclaimed could partially rehab the Ecuadorian landscape or the trash could perhaps be buried in bricks and used for housing. The bricks would have less clay in them but might be just a strong.

How cool is that? She said she would look into the outgassing problem but was certainly going to start seeing how trash and clay would start to work together.

This creative approach went really well but what about the notion of inner trash? We don’t want our inner environments constantly polluted by anger, bitterness, hatred, bad habits and the like. Our experience of inner trash can be the same to exterior trash.

• We can just become numb to it – it is always there.
• We can try to pick it up and tuck it away – out of sight, out of mind.
• We can rail against it’s presence and say that we should never have it in the first place.

I am sure there are others.

Trash at one point served a purpose. But it only becomes trash when it was discarded unconsciously. So one way to deal with the inner trash (which was at one point useful) that we experience is to approach it with consciousness and incorporate it into new places that fire your creativity.

Use your anger to power an art project.

Build a temple to sloth.

Write a song about being bitter

Choreograph a dance piece about hatred.

In doing so you will have a new relationship with your anger, sloth, bitterness and hatred. In being reclaimed you will have forged a relationship with it. You’ll be unlikely to trash it again in the same way.

The idea isn’t to do these exact things but to use what we have cast away unconsciously and reclaim it as our own for new purposes.

What sort of art have you made from your inner trash?

What does a person like you, doing what you are doing, think of this idea? What would you add?

I got it. I got her.It was so simple and so beautiful and I telescoped into the future and could see her in place and see her listening to people attracted to some still magnetism that she inhabits (or inhabits her). I just sat quietly while I considered this simple question.

In the pause only one thing arose in my mind and I shared it with C.

The only thing that comes to mind is to allow yourself to be a pure listener. So much so that you don’t speak. You just listen. Get a pad of paper and if someone asks you what you do – you write the response. Simply. After someone says something at the table just write a very simple reply. It would be a meditation of sorts just being silent all day.

C looked at me and soft tears welled up and seeped slowly as she nodded and said

Yes. That is exactly what I need to do. You don’t know but I have dreamed of having a part of my life where I could just be silent. I sing professionally and sometimes I wish I could just shut up.

This was such a simple addition to her already amazing idea. An addition that almost felt like a subtraction but that somehow multiplied the impact – at least in theory. A woman like that with her depth of  presence just listening to you?

So powerful.

So unusual.

C and I talked further about the power of silence but she and I exchanged something simple and so remarkable. I felt so touched by her openness and the strength of her character. We spent maybe 15 intimate minutes together but she paid me $30 and wished that she had more and told me that I “completely fulfilled the promise of my sign and more.”

We hugged goodbye as if we were dear old friends.  Hearts that are exposed resonate to the same music. So look for a “Public Listener” with a tall beautiful woman poised with a pad of paper and the openest of hearts waiting to hold all of you.

If there is something to draw from this interaction besides the simple loveliness of it is that often we look for the big fix, the big idea or the big breakthrough. But often it is small.

We are encouraged to think big and that paradigm has imperiled us economically (and in other ways). E.F. Schumacher implored “Small is Beautiful” in his book of the same name.

Similarly we feel that adding our voices, our clarity, our understanding or our truth is vital. Sometimes it is. But venturing in the opposite direction… sometimes the last word can simply be silence.

Today is a guest post from Shauna Moerke/@hr_minion and hrminion.com who formerly was a guest host on the show but called in because my presence on the show sounded interesting that evening.

I have discovered in Union Square that often the problem/question we start with often has deeper tendrils that attach to aspects we may not even be readily aware of. If we are brave enough we can follow those tendrils down and discover new things.

Please enjoy this creative approach from the perspective of someone who received it.

Enter Shauna:

I had a problem. Not an earth-shattering, life-changing kind of problem, but a problem nonetheless and it had been bugging me for months. I had asked my friends for their advice and mulled it over, but I was no closer to an answer. Then my friend Steve Boese told me he was having Matthew Stillman on his blogtalk radio show, the HR Happy Hour (full disclosure: I am the former co-host of the show), to talk about creative approaches to problems and I thought “What a perfect opportunity!”

So what was my month’s long conundrum?

I wasn’t sure where on my body I should place my next tattoo.

Hey now, no judging, I told you it wasn’t earth-shattering.

But it mattered to me and not knowing the answer was getting under my skin (pun intended). I currently have four tattoos that I have acquired over the last twelve years, each one well thought out with years in between. Ok, I’ll admit that the first one I got was at 19 and was more an act of rebellion but I have come to view my tattoos as beautiful expressions of myself and what matters to me. Thus you can understand why the simple placement of a tattoo on my body required such deep thought.

Or not, but that’s not the point.

The point is that I called into the show that night hoping for a creative idea for how to solve my problem and ended up with something much more and arguably better.

After listening to my background and asking me questions, this was Matt’s suggestion for me:

(Stillman notes here: the tattoo in question was the Chinese character for monkey)

First, have a couple glasses of wine (I was liking it already).

Second, get some old lipstick and practice writing on the part of my body I didn’t like the most (my tummy)

(Stillman notes here: I suggested writing the word “monkey”)

Third, try writing some other places as well. Now Matt admitted that he wasn’t sure what would come from this, but he thought the most important part of this exercise was to look at myself directly. He reasoned, once I was comfortable putting it anywhere, even someplace I disliked, I would know where to put it.

I thought this was a great idea.

Admittedly, I didn’t run into the bathroom and try it out right away. It took me a couple of weeks to get up the courage to actually follow through.

But there I found myself, standing in front of my bathroom mirror, in my underwear, pink lipstick in hand. And then I wrote on my stomach. Which I then couldn’t read in the mirror because it reflected backwards and was upside down. And I felt a little silly. So I reasoned I hadn’t had enough to drink.

One Moscow Mule later (Ginger ale and vodka), I was back in front of the mirror and determined to see Matt’s suggestion through.

I wrote more on my stomach, my arms, my thighs and resorted to x marks in places I could barley reach like my back. And then I felt even sillier, until I really started looking at myself.

There are always parts of our bodies that we don’t care for. Our eyes, nose, hair, legs, butt, etc. And most of the time we probably try to ignore or look past those parts. We cover them up and hope no one else notices.

Every day we look in mirrors to wash our faces, brush our teeth, fix our hair, put on make-up; but how often do we look at ourselves? Honestly and forthrightly look at ourselves? How easy do you find it to actually look at whatever flaw you think you have and not look away, cringe, or put yourself down over it?

Well, it’s a little hard to ignore your body when you have pink lipstick all over it. And it’s even harder to see all that and not smile. I am who I am, every last inch of me.

I’m not saying all my body issues disappeared in that instant, but I am saying that it is helping me come to appreciate my body more. Tattoos are beautiful and personal artwork I always have with me. What is the point of that if I can’t appreciate the canvas they are on?

So yes, Matt’s advice did help me, more than I was even looking for or was willing to admit I needed. And yes, I do know where I want to place my next tattoo even though I haven’t gone to get it yet. Where will it be? Well… that’ll remain my secret for now.

—————-

I am really grateful for Shauna exposing her experience for all of us. Her perspective opens up a  some broader principles that can be applied in other situations.

Of course the lowest hanging fruit of the principles is an approach to re-imagining the relationship we have with our  bodies. They are easily and often criticized. And while having a few drinks and writing on yourself with lipstick is hardly a silver bullet to you body issues it allows you to slow down and actually notice the whole thing as opposed to compartmentalizing our bodies. That is a step towards being whole with our bodies.

But we have other bodies besides our physical ones – emotional bodies, mental bodies, spiritual bodies and also very importantly…bodies of work.

Shauna wanted to add a tattoo to her physical body. The tattoo is a manifestation of an idea that she values and wants to literally embody and she was concerned about where it would go.

We often want to incorporate an idea into some aspect of our other bodies…we want to develop a new habit or develop a new attitude or range of emotion or put in a new feature somehow. We may not know how it fits in but we know we want it there.

The process is the same. Look at and mark as much of that body as we can. Know its curves and inlets and soon you’ll develop a new vision of its wholeness and the place for the new addition will be clearer.

Which body of yours needs reimagining? Can this gentle cartographic approach allow you to be friends with a hidden aspect of yourself?

There is a time for sleep and lack of effort and there is a time for vigilance and seeing what is actually happening in front of us.

I had a 1988 Mercury Marquis in college that had cruise control. I loved the idea of it and tried to use it but I never could leave it alone for more than a minute at a time because the road conditions or traffic would shift. It ended up being a series of buttons on the steering wheel that I never used.

A was not a steely jawed Upper East lady but she had all the tenacity and entitlement that you often find in that set.

She sat down and asked without an introduction or a hello:

How can I guarantee that my daughter will get into an Ivy League School?”

I suggested that we introduce ourselves to each other first (we did) and then I asked her why that was important to her and to her daughter.

A responded:

Options. More opportunity. Opportunities that I never had or could have had having gone to a community college. My daughter’s father isn’t involved either so any advantage is an advantage.

Her tone was searing. I try not to play armchair psychologist but it just felt like this woman at this moment was trying to make her daughter live the life she never had. I felt a wave of compassion for this young girl who wasn’t even there and I felt her sense  that the world had done her wrong. That the world was an affliction for her.

Rather than try to fix this (which I couldn’t do of course) I kept aim on the main question and I asked how old her daughter was so we might see how much time we were working with.

She just turned three.

THREE?

I asked A if she had considered what her daughter might want? What if she wanted to be a dancer or an artist and that is what brought her happiness? We were talking fifteen years away. I suggested that college might change in 15 years in some fundamental ways. Fifteen years ago the internet was just emerging into the public and now you can get a degree from Harvard in their distance learning program and hardly need to spend more than a few weeks on campus. I told her other ways that education is changing rapidly. We talked about how we both were bringing our past experiences as evidence  of a future that we hope to prepare and prepare for.

A was interested in this but said

This is great and I understand what you are saying and I hadn’t thought about some of the points you are making. I’ll need to think about some of them but a degree from Harvard is still going to be worth something and that is important.

This felt very crystalized. I still could feel A’s resistance clearly but also I could feel her pain. I went back to the original question and repeated it out loud and paused. Waiting for something to emerge.. it came:

As colleges change the criteria for acceptance into college is going to change as well. They will need and desire learners who approach their educations in a way radically different than the schools we grew up in largely. The best thing you can do is to cultivate a space and a mindset in your home that values exploration and creative failure to discover information and interests. Acknowledge effort and creativity more than specific accomplishments so that your daughter feels embraced by the process and not by the outcome.

This all spilled out. Maybe it wasn’t the greatest speech of all time but it stopped A short and there was a pause where I could see that she wasn’t thinking or about to interject something. In this space I added one more thing.

If you make your daughter aim for praise in her work and achievement she will end up feeling the need to defend that turf for the rest of her life. You are defending your turf now – the ground you have managed to secure –  you desperately want to increase it through your daughter and for your daughter.

There was another pause and A said:

Thank you. This is perfect. I’m done.

She put some money in the jar and walked off.

That wasn’t the last I saw of A.

The goals that we set can make us fall asleep at the wheel. We have set them and often forget that we must be  attending to what is in front of us. Goals can be set for noble and good purposes, for status or perceived advantage or fulfilling self-images or they can be simply for moving us from place to place and experience to experience.

Achieving a goal is a contradictory act  because in achieving it the action is over. Keeping goals soft and mutable is paradoxical but allows for the work to continue in new and dynamic ways unforeseen in the genesis of the goal.

What goals have put you to sleep? Which goals have been kept open?

There are inscrutable positions that we find ourselves in. Rocks. Hard places. Swords of Damocles hanging over us…and then it falls. There is this Shangri-La we hope to live in sans difficulties, sans sorrow with abundant happiness.

While I certainly agree with the Shakespeare quote:

Nothing is either good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.

That doesn’t mean things will be easy or happy for that matter. It doesn’t mean they won’t be either, though.

So where does that leave us?

Life is not for happiness. Nor is it for sorrow. Life is not meant for ease nor for struggle. But life has these things in them and to be present to them when they arise is to be alive and participating fully in the action of life.

In the artist section of Union Square there are a regular cast of characters who show up every day selling their wares. Many scrape a living out of it. R is the estranged wife of one of these men. I have seen her around and she has said hello before and we have briefly chatted in the past but recently she sat down to talk. She took four wadded up dollar bills and opened them up and then folded them together before she sat down. I insisted that she didn’t need to pay for anything until I did something. But she insisted.

R has been married to this man for a few years but three years ago she had a stroke which left her not able to work. She has been on disability since and has a small inheritance she uses to stay afloat. R speaks with that sort of a slushy lisp from the stroke and she apologizes for it in a very endearing way. After her stroke her husband started getting upset that she wouldn’t (but obviously couldn’t) do the things around the house any longer. He encouraged her to move in with her sister. She did that and he started seeing someone else very quickly.

She is staying married because her husband is a veteran and in three years she will start getting a pension. R says that the whole thing has been painful because all her friends know about this and she always feels embarrassed that she is staying in this relationship for a pension – which she would need but also because she knows how angry it makes her husband that she is going to get his pension. She said that it is very strange for a Jewish girl to have found solace in Jesus but she says that her Judaism and Jesus have together given her much solace.

But  she asked me

What do you think I should do?

What do you say? This story is crazy and terrible and R is totally sympathetic. I asked her if she had ever  considered connecting with a new circle of friends who didn’t know her husband. Maybe connecting over shared interests?

R said that she hadn’t made new friends in years. She basically has had a routine of who she talks to and where she goes. And I could feel the grooves that she had worn into the sidewalks from her apartment to her various destinations.

I asked her about movies or a ceramics class or playing an instrument. Something that interested her where she might meet other people. Here I was just listening to this woman. I think that she valued just that alone. She smiled in a reminiscent way and said

Do you know that I have always wanted to be in play? It doesn’t have to big or on Broadway or anything like that. But plays have weird people in them sometimes and I am a weird person.

I said that I didn’t know of any plays she could be in but I asked her what she thought about taking an acting class and seeing who she met. She might make new friends. She moved from her slumped position to the front of the seat and wondered aloud

That could be really fun, right?

I wrote down a few names of acting schools and I told her to do some research before she spent any money and to talk to  someone at the school to see their thoughts.

Should I look on the computer first?

That seemed like a good idea and then actually visit the schools and find out about an eight week course or something else.

R sweetly thanked me by kissing my hands and left the table with the same words that many arrive in New York saying:

Maybe I can be an actor.

This whole talk was beautiful and heartbreaking. As sweet and genuine as R is she is equal parts an odd duck to be sure.  I wonder how she will fare in her search. I felt like I couldn’t do much for R except listen and offer what I could where I could but sometimes that is enough.

The difficulty that R was experiencing wasn’t assuaged by our talk. But just listening to what she had to say and both of us being present to it allowed for a new door to open up that may start to change her day to day experience. It won’t necessarily change her difficult situation but it may allow for her situation not to be the overriding thing in her life.

In permaculture philosophy it is said that if your garden seemingly has too many snails and slugs your problem is not a snail/slug surplus but a duck deficiency (ducks eat snails and slugs).

All too often we try to eliminate the slugs and snails of our day to day lives rather than putting something in place that can keep  the slugs and snails in balance.

Perhaps an acting class might be the duck to R’s snails. What struggles are you simply present for? What might be the duck you would add so that you have just enough snails?