It is a big deal, being famous.

Most folks who self-identify as actors work quietly, whether they want to or not. All but the a fraction of the top 1% will toil away in obscurity, only a handful of those will end up recognizable to anyone for any length of time, and fewer yet of these will have a fame that lasts beyond the 15 minutes of critical media mass they get.

Who the hell cares?

Well, for starters, the thousands of actors living in L.A.

Wait—what am I saying? There are probably tens of thousands living in L.A., and that’s just counting the openly declared. Secretly, they probably number in the hundreds of thousands, and if you widen your net to stretch past the state line, mostly likely millions. Scratch a Mitty, find a McConaughey, or at least, that would seem to be the deepest hope of the denizens of reality television.

I know a bit about fame because I’ve seen it up close & personal. I have worked with famous people, and for famous people. I have known many regular people who became famous. (It doesn’t work the other way, you know—once famous, always once-famous.)

Even more pertinently (and potently), I come from a long line of people who wanted to, but never quite became, famous. A grandfather who wanted fame so desperately, he kept his young son (who also wanted it, at least for a while) from becoming famous. A mother who once traveled 2,000 miles across the country to sit in a Beverly Hills hotel lobby on Oscar night, so convinced was she that an upcoming lead role in a major motion picture was meant for her.

And the apple (that would be yours truly) did not fall far from the tree either way you slice it: I wanted fame; fame, as it turned out, did not have much use for me.

There are many embarrassing admissions one might make on the road to the Truth, but one of the most excruciating has got to be this taste for fame. It is profoundly uncool: a state seething with need, and we all know how wildly attractive a feature is need*. For most of us, the desire to gaze diminishes in direct proportion to the subject’s need to be gazed at: the faster you chase me, the harder I run. The exceptions—those few who wanted fame so badly they could taste it, and were actually rewarded with it? Most are wildly, profoundly gifted, which is compelling. At a distance, anyway, and in the kind of dosage that celebrity requires of its celebrants.

I thought I was done with this need for fame once I set acting aside. As if. Those of you familiar with the treating of symptoms vs. the addressing of root causes are having a hearty chuckle now, no doubt.

It followed me, this back-clinging monkey, into the blogosphere, helpfully hitting the “refresh” button when we’d visit Sitemeter. How many people clicked on my site today? How about now? How about now?

Today, despite my best efforts to CHILL, ALREADY, I feel it seeping into the groundwater of my new playground, Twitter**. What started out as a fantastic way to stay or even get connected (not to mention an Exercise in Writing Short) and morphed into a dangerous, if entertaining, diversion now seems to be devolving into a three-ring circus of smartmouthing, spambots and webcockery. I hold out hope, but it grows fainter as the weeks pass.

Did I say “pass”? I meant “fly by.” Because that’s what’s been happening to my weeks, along with the months and years they turn into. And the weeks are made up of days, which are made of minutes and even seconds—precious, precious seconds—that are chewed up by the hundred-thousand in pursuit of stuff which in and of itself, is ultimately meaningless. Don’t believe me? Ask yourself the question I just heard Jack Kornfield ask in my earbuds during my morning walk today: “Which parts of your life make you the happiest? I’ll bet they’re pretty simple.”

I gave it some very quick thought and confirmed: dog hugs. Falling asleep when you’re tired. Ice cream. The first hit of coffee in the morning. Sex, especially with someone you love. Hell, most anything with someone you love. Does it need to be a beach on Hawaii, or can it just be some of the time you’d have carved out getting there?

That’s the thing of it: most of fame is about getting there, and upon arrival, turns out to be like Gertrude Stein’s characterization of Oakland (there’s no “there” there). And its intangibility is matched only by its evanescence. Ask anyone who’s tried to sell it, or reclaim it, or even hang onto it.

On the other hand, if fame is a by-product of something you’d be doing anyway, much of its fraught-ness disappears. It might even be seen as kind of a pesky nuisance, albeit with a few bitchin’ perks.

I’m thinking a lot about this because I’m moving away from something I knew would never get me any acclaim (graphic design) to something that not only might, but must in some measure if it’s going to support me in my old age (writing). Fortunately, it doesn’t have to support me; there’s a long and fine tradition of writers toiling away in relative obscurity, supporting themselves with day jobs. Wallace Stevens, for one. Bukowski, for another. When I start to think it would be easier if I could just be famous NOW, dammit, I think of them, and think again.

Maybe it wouldn’t be easier.

Maybe it would just be different.

That said, I’d be lying if I told you I’d lost my taste for fame. I still see myself sitting on Oprah’s couch, my latest book between us. (From this blog to her ears…please.) I see myself answering calls to have my essays in publications, instead of having to make them. And I know that with the right level of fame, that dream I have of me, a laptop and an ocean view materializes on a much more spectacular part of coastline, and that when the sun sets or a chill comes on, I can continue to enjoy it from the comfort and privacy of a much more spectacular abode.

I will write, though, no matter what. Should I never have any more readers than I have right now. Should I somehow piss off the lot of you and have only imaginary readers.

The bitch goddess exists in my line of sight, but I lay garlands at her feet no more. Well, maybe just a token daisy every now and then, to keep a hand in.

For the most part, I’d rather spend the time writing, in there here and now. For you, I hope. For me, I must…

xxx
c

Image by SteveMcN via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

*And it only gets worse with age. What can be amusing or even charming in the young (those crazy young people with their hubris!) is cringeworthy in the old (back away from the Speedo, Eurotrash grandpappy.)

**For you non-nerds, Twitter is a 140-character-per-post, social media messaging service that is as addictive as it is wonderful. More onTwitter later, I think. I’ve been promising various people an article on it for weeks now.

********

UPDATE: Dreamhost is, once again, experiencing wonkiness. Sorry for the lost comments earlier; I’ve reconstituted what I could, and did me PLENTY OF SWEARING while I did it. (Not at you; I love you guys!)

UPDATE (07/16/08): Bonus extra fantastic link on the inanity of chasing fame, which is probably not anything you want to get caught with, anyway. By Brad Warner, aka the Zen Punk Monk (oh, he’d kill me for reducing him to a catchy handle, but come on—it’s so great!)

TOPICS: fame, life.

As with many who self-identify as Survivors of Well-Intentioned-But-Ultimately-Fucked-Up Parenting, the confounding mix of messages I received in my formative years served to demagnetize my self-esteem compass for decades to come.

“We expect a lot from you” really meant You will not be good: you will be excellent. Or else.”

“You can do it!” was mainly true, most of the time. Unfortunately, the critical phrase—“…and without any help, or it doesn’t count”—was left unspoken but did its damage anyway.

What has been the hardest thing to reconcile, however, is the idea that I should take pride in my accomplishments, but not too much.

W as the kids say TF?!

Not being able to discern between appropriate rejoicing and vile showboating has the same effect as not knowing which fork to use: you end up giving a wide berth to a lot of invitations, just to be on the safe side.

Safe may be safe, but it’s hardly fuel for growth. With the possible exception of Emily Dickinson, no one ever changed the world by making it smaller (and one could argue that even though her physical world was profoundly limited, that chick was 100% down with the Truth.)

Safe is also not very joy-making. I’m not a happiness addict—well, okay, I am, but I’m 12-stepping my way out, and besides, “happiness”—or really, “pleasure”, as it’s come to mean—has relatively little to with living in a joyous state, which I’m going to come right out and call “ability to live in the moment and thrive because of it.” Safe is about keeping things as they are, and any boob will tell you that it’s impossible to reside permanently in a state of pleasure. The ice cream melts. The orgasm passes. Crafting the buzz is theoretically possible, but even if you spend the time to become a Jedi knight of the bong, aren’t you eventually going to have to do something else with your life, if only to replenish your stash?

The Youngster, who in many ways was wise beyond his years, had a great saying: “Don’t save happy.” It is one of the World Champeen Sayings precisely because of its obliqueness-to-brevity ratio.

Don’t hold back on a compliment. Don’t be stingy with a loving impulse.

Pointless to hold on to a snowflake, or a gallon of whipped cream—they won’t keep.

And those gift cards? If you’re living in most other states besides California, land where the consumer reigns supreme, they expire, dude; use them.

I think the application of this rule works beautifully both for people with no self-esteem issues and for those of us who feel like tooting our own horns means forever branding ourselves as That Asshole. Slow and judicious application is the trick to digging your way out.

For example (WARNING: HORN-TOOTING ALERT!!), last year I was approached by a representative from a fairly large publishing house about writing a book.

(Hang on—gotta wait for my heart rate to go back down.) (Okay…)

The odds of this actually culminating in my being hired and paid actual cash money to write this book are long, and the steps along the path to getting there are many. Still, one cannot deny that it is a fantabulous thing just to be asked, and on the basis of nothing more than a bunch of blog posts. If a friend told me that, I would think it was hot stuff.

So that’s what I did: told a (few) friends.

And when I got the word back from my contact that she liked the chapters? Again, I told a few friends.

And when I heard that it had cleared the next hurdle of my contact’s boss, the editor? Friends got told.

It was not, shall we say, easy. My heart raced and my face flushed every time I said it out loud.

But to not say it out loud—at least to some one—is no longer acceptable. It’s something I need, for now, if for no other reason than it is, for whatever reason, difficult out of all proportion.

There is another reason, though: if I hold back and play it safe, how can I be of any use to you, who might need a nudge to break through your own personal roadblock? If I can’t deal in the Truth, how can I expect to anyone else to give it to me straight?

If I don’t move forward—if you don’t, if each one of us doesn’t—how will the world?

The truth is, something will always be hard. When a thing gets easy, if you’re living your life out loud, you move on to the next thing. You climb a bigger mountain or tackle a bigger equation or break a tougher record. Cynicism prevents me from dragging out that confounded Marianne-Williamson-not-Nelson-Mandela quote one more time, but it’s true, cheese factor and all.

Being small doesn’t serve. It just takes up less room on an airplane seat.

xxx
c

Image by Mike_fj40 via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

TOPICS: change, life, self-promotion.

Some things are simple. Some things are easy. (And, it should go without saying to anyone living in the early part of the 21st Century, some things are neither.)

There are even rare times—those Kojak-parking, traffic-lights-synchronized, buy-a-lotto-ticket days when you’re really, really cooking with gas—that things are both simple and easy.

But the quickest route to heartache is confusing simple with easy. Because in the context of goals, they couldn’t be more different.

A (good) goal can be expressed in terms that are fairly simple: get married; lose 10 pounds; balance checkbook. Rarely, however, is that simple goal an easy one to accomplish. How do you go about finding someone you’d even want to marry, much less create a relationship that leads to marriage? If 10 pounds is so easy to lose, why are people constantly having to lose the same 10?

And don’t get me starting on the #%@^ checkbook.

I’ve found myself running up against this simple-is-not-easy maxim repeatedly lately, and to an extent that is pretty deeply humiliating. In fact, the sheer act of writing this piece is pretty deeply humiliating: what ordinarily flows easily is resisting with a stubbornness and tenacity the likes of which I’ve not experienced since I had to create bullshit “science” copy for a P.O.S. hand lotion. “Micro-particles absorbed quickly and easily, leaving no smooth, hydrated skin with no greasy film” my ass.

What’s triply frustrating (because it’s hot as a troll’s nasal cavity today, and that’s two) is that this is the first time in my life where not-easy is proving really…well, hard.

Working my way up the adhole chain in my 20s? Not particularly easy—there were long hours and mountains of shit to shovel—but nothing like this.

Becoming a working actor? Or dumping that to hang out my own shingle?

Leaving my marriage? Getting over the Crohn’s?

Hard, hard, hard & hard, to be sure.

At least, that’s what I thought, until I ran up against this.

And what, pray tell, is this “this” of which I speak?

Exactly.

It gets exponentially more difficult when you know what the goal is philosophically (”To be a joyful conduit of truth, beauty and love”) and even particularly (to help people find their Truth by sharing my own journey through writing and speaking) but there are no paths laid out. Or the paths take the shape of sweeping, Yoda-esque maxims (”the change, be”). This is a fucking poet’s life, for chrissakes; who signed me up for this?!

I did, of course, with each choice I made along the way. Start choosing truth and there’s no going back to the other. Take the red pill, and taking the blue pill is no longer an option. Some days I’m fine with it; most of the days, however, are really, really not-easy lately.

Friends help. Tribe members, especially a good mix of old and new. Those who’ve known you a while help show you that the excruciatingly incremental growth you’ve been experiencing is actually mildly impressive; those who are new to you accept the You you’ve grown into, and make Future You seem achievable.

Routines help. I’ve instituted a daily walk in the morning for a week now. For a non-morning person, this not only constitutes a huge achievement, but creates some (healthy) shape to my day.

Speaking of achievements, I can’t overstate the importance of folding relatively easy, short-term projects into the mix. Getting a sinkful of dishes or the kitchen floor washed . Burning through a to-do list or a time-delimited assignment. Saving up for something. Planning even a small party.

Writing a blog post.

I’m profoundly grateful for the small, hardy group of fellow travelers that have assembled here at communicatrix. The feedback I get in the comments and via email helps keep me going, both because it feeds me and keeps me on my toes. There is always something new to think about or puzzle out or grapple with.

I am glad we’re walking the goddamned path together. Even—or especially—when things get a little hard…

xxx
c

Image by emdot via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

TOPICS: change, life.

This is dark days, my friends.

Not an hour goes by where some cold chill of a fear doesn’t pass over my heart and threaten to bring me down. This election. This war. This economy, and what it’s doing to people. The never-ending, always-on stream of bad news and…well, what it’s not doing to people.

I read a good book over my 10 days away in Chicago by a crazy young hardcore punk zen monk. It gave me odd comfort, along with some perspective. Perspective, because things have always been crazy: they were crazy when Gautama Buddha set out on his quest; they’re crazy now.

Comfort, because one really persuasive answer, while not exactly easy, seems pretty straightforward: accept responsibility.

For yourself.

For the things under your control, that help shape the world—your anger, your fear, your not-niceness. Your living-in-smallness. (Oh, and by “you”? I totally mean “me.” So we’re clear.)

While a Twitter-friend assures me we’re not technically in a recession, the fact is almost beside the point: our fears, my fears, are telling us we are. And, as another new nerd-friend says, the answer lies in addressing the fears head on, and with grace and compassion. Be here now. Love thy neighbor…actively. Ground yourself in the truth of you.

I thought about all this stuff over and over these past several days. It was hard not to. Between the overwhelming generosity of all my friends, old and new—who lent me their homes and spare bedrooms, who took time out to meet with me, who bought me meals and drinks, who showered me with love—and the long, long walks I took all over my beautiful native city, one thing got hammered home time and time again: enjoy this moment, right now. This soft bed, this slice of pizza, this drizzle of rain, this “L” train that showed up at exactly the right time, this hug, this laugh.

I have a mission statement that I’ve had for a while, which I mentioned recently—”To be a joyful conduit of truth, beauty and love.” But it is also nice to have a platform: some slightly more actionable ideals to root your ass in the here and now, and the way you’d like the next here-and-now to be. When I was Chief Nerd of my Nerdmasters club, my platform was thusly:

1. Have fun.
2. Leave things better than we found them.
3. Start and end the meetings on time.

I chose them because, for whatever reasons, we’d let these things slide during the administrations before mine, and…well, it kind of chapped my hide. But the exercise of addressing these things week after week—of plotting a path that would make the platform real—both helped me realize it and why things slip away to begin with: because we are focused on other things. My presidency was far from perfect, but dammit, we had fun, that room and the people in it were better off when we left each Thursday night, and we got to the bar in time to get the drinking underway at a reasonable hour. Plus we learned what needed to happen next time. What still needed to be worked on.

What projects lay before us.

For the next few months, I’m committing to my own platform. I want to honor (and, god willin’ and the creek don’t rise) wrap up my previous commitments. I want to revisit my Best Year Yet plan I so earnestly began in January. I have new projects, including one promise I made with a lovely lady in Chicago, that I intend to see through.

And beyond that, I am going to adopt and adapt my Nerdmasters platform from last year as my personal platform for the rest of this one:

1. I will have fun.
2. I will leave things—myself, my people, my projects—better than I found them.
3. And I will start and end my days on time. (Uh…after this one.)

I have some other ideas for how to tell Mr. Fear to take a hike which I’ll share as time goes on and I actually start putting them into practice. In the meantime, I’d love to hear what’s going on with you: what are you doing to grab your life by the horns, and what can the rest of us learn from it?

xxx
c

Image by tcd123usa via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

TOPICS: change, fear, life.

So…here’s the deal: I suck.

No, really—I do. I suck, and at lots of stuff: Getting regular exercise. Returning phone calls. Housekeeping (and I have the 4″ dreadlock of hair extricated from between the center prong of my rolling desk chair and the filthy carpet to prove it.)

But forget about the stuff that will put me in an early grave with a friendless funeral. I also suck at many of Your More Important Things in Life. Stuff like patience. Focus. Generosity. General abundance thinking. (Because spending a year and a half of your life hungry, cold and only allowed to use three sheets of toilet paper—for #2—can really firm up a scarcity mindset.)

And yeah, yeah: I know that I’m not the only one. No offense, but that is SO not the point.

Nor am I better or (nor?) worse than anyone. Again, completely irrelevant. Except, of course, that it’s one of the things I’d like to stop sucking so much at. I want to be cool with being me, rather than comparing myself to all of you lovely people (or the losers sitting next to you, for that matter.)

I also have some presence of mind left with which to note that I’m not a hopeless case. I don’t need to check myself into a program or call my emo sponsor or take off on a vision quest. Which is good, because until they allow for overnight motel accommodations, including nightly hot shower, vision quests are off the table.

No, in my time of need, I turn to…you!

Yes, you, dear Internet friends. You and the patented, communicatrix 21-Day Salute™, a one-two punch guaranteed to shake me out of my funk, knock out the cobwebs and get my head screwed back on straight. One part accountability, one part discipline, one part observation, my salutes keep me honest while (hopefully) keeping you entertained. In other words, just because I’m working on my shit doesn’t mean the swearing has to stop.

Here’s what does have to stop: me.

For 21 days, I’m going to apply my attention to stopping in bad, uncomfortable, sad, angry, pushy, greedy, icky moments to—ever so briefly, for the most part—ask why. But that’s not all. I’m also going to just STOP! randomly and check in to see what’s the happ.

Like just now, f’rinstance, I stopped and asked myself what was going on.

Tightness. Legs crossed tight, jaw tensed up, butt perched at end of incredibly expensive, ergonomically-designed, rolling desk chair like it was a $5 stool.

And why?

Too much coffee. Anxiety over whether I can stick to a 21-day salute™ when I’m leaving town in 16. Creeping Loser-itis over not getting enough work done.

I could go on, but that’s not the point of today’s entry. Today’s entry is about STARTING to STOP. Committing to stopping, to observing (hopefully without too much judging), to doing things slightly differently.

Kind of a Method-meditation mashup for everyday life.

And maybe at the end of it, I’ll have a bigger project to work on. Maybe I’ll have some clarity on a few things. Maybe I’ll just learn that I’m really, really bad at stopping… noting… readjusting. Since I just found myself in the exact same clenched, tensed, ready to launch myself into the blue yonder, I’m gonna say… “yes” on bad.

No matter! The stopping starts now!

Aaaaaand now!

And again, now!

(I thank you in advance for bearing with me on this.)

xxx
c

For those of you who are new to communicatrix and the 21-Day Salute™, there’s a writeup here, along with descriptions of each of the salutes I’ve done since the blog launched. Excelsior!

Image by JeffKao via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

TOPICS: 21 day salutes, change, life, meditation, Stop! Sucking!.