Here I am, after another fit and stop and start, beginning anywhere again. This idea works well in conjunction with another favorite - from Confucius: "It doesn't matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop." I try to keep that one in mind, because I feel time's pressure always at my door - I've got far more ideas for things than I have time to make things manifest. (Plus, lots of my qi, my life force, goes into my work; good in one way but draining). So it's easy to get discouraged, but one must keep on moving forward, even if it's just baby steps.
There is also a third quote, rounding out the wisdom trifecta here, which really will make things work even if you kind of blow the first two, and don't begin at all and don't keep going, which is this: "Whatever is happening is the path to enlightenment." That means, no matter what is happening, it's what needs to happen, what is meant to happen, what is supposed to happen and so on and so forth. You get the idea: once you accept that what is, IS - why then, you can start to relax a little. It's only when one must constantly hold on to everything that you can't get a grip.
It's brought into focus one of the qualities I am most grateful to have, which is the ability to feel (appropriate, timely) emotions, when they are happening. I express them, and then I move on. That last part is especially important - move on, PAST that emotion. This is what kids do - they fall down, they cry for a minute, they get distracted by life and then it's all over and they are on to the next thing. I think that is a healthy way of acknowledging and expressing emotions, and it's a skill that I learned in therapy. It was THE skill I learned, really - there's more to it, of course, but that core ability is useful in essentially all situations.
That doesn't mean I don't feel fear, and what I wanted to come here and talk about is overcoming fear, or at least apprehension, or maybe just a bit of depression - old-fashioned melancholia, the blahs, the blues, the who cares. They all share a sort of downer spirit, and as much as I approve of balance, they are the ones I try and move through as quickly as possible - better to face it and get through than to linger around, worrying. And that's how I tend to deal with it - get over that inertia or reluctance as soon as you can (begin anywhere) and then just move on through.
It's a sort of volunteer philosophy: decide to do it before you're forced to do it, and do it first. If you are in a situation where you know know everyone there, including you, is going to have to do the thing (whatever it is: that class presentation, that team-building trust fall) and volunteering just means you go earlier rather than later, I say - go right away, and first is best. Why? For one thing, if it's the type of situation where there's a good and bad way to do whatever you've been asked to do, there's a good chance someone (or a few or many someones) will be watching you and passing some form of judgement. In other words, going first can only help - if you turns out you were the worst of all, no one will know until afterwards, and you still get kudos for going first. You get the credit of having guts. You get a reputation for being a confident person, and when people perceive you as confident, they give you lots of credit and tend to support you consistently over the long run.
For another thing, going first gets it out of the way. The more time you have to fret and stew and compare to others as they take their turn, the worse you will do. Well, that's true for me personally. Volunteering - either going first when everyone has to do it either way OR volunteering when someone has to but most will get out of it, (like who's going to clean up the bathrooms at the facility after the Anarchist Book Fair: the time it was me, everyone else applauded me at the end, glad it wasn't them - though it wasn't that bad) also means you get the reputation for being willing to take it for the team. Not in a negative way - I mean in the noblest sense, like Faramir: volunteering is a chance for you to show your quality, and that's not a right but a privilege not everyone gets, a juicy opportunity to show their quality in a definitive way.
I was thinking today of something that happened to me when I was in Europe, a story which I wanted to tell but have not yet because it seems like there's so MUCH to it - as if it must be led up to properly, properly placed in context with the rest of my journey (India and Europe: it happened to me after Mumbai but before Almafi), must be teased out and shown to be, as it felt to me, inextricably bound up with all that gone before and all that had gone after, but one can't tell the WHOLE story of one's life; one must pick and chose, necessarily. Otherwise, telling the entire story of one's life is basically the same as living one's life - think of your life as a performance piece for an audience of one, with no intermission. So how can I start? Begin anywhere, John Cage urges me, so that's what I am doing.
On my Mediterranean cruise last year, after Istanbul, the ship stopped in Turkey, to visit the ancient Roman site of Ephesus, and if that makes you think of Paul and the Ephesians, you're on the right track; it's THAT Ephesus. It's very famous because it was quite important in history, being the bustling center for an area which has inhabited since the Neolithic age, but also an important Roman city. Now, it's famous for being the best-preserved ancient Roman city, or one of them. There is a main road, and the facade of a grand library still standing (it's famous; if you saw it, you'd recognize it), two theaters - the smaller Odeon that seats 1,500 and the larger 24,000 seater Theater - plus recently uncovered Terrace Houses, which are spectacular. Ephesus was one site we chose to do on our own rather than opt for the hassle-free but generic cruise ship shore excursions - we had to negotiate for a taxi, a task which fell to me, of everyone in the group, and a task which I did rather badly (we got ripped off, but the guy was a pretty good driver and decent semi-guide) - and so I had to read up on the site, to know what to do.
Don't miss the Terrace Houses, was the consensus. It's a separate entry, extra ticket, but spend the $12 or whatever the equivalent is. Everyone makes it clear, because people still lamely skip it - you spent $1000's to get to and eat and sleep in Europe and then you skip the attractions or pleasures because they cost too much? Never understood it, myself. But I know better than to go down that road, so we got Terrace House tickets, and it blew my mind - whole complexes of Roman homes, courtyard after courtyard, bedrooms and kitchens and entryways with fountains, all stacked on top of each other (terrace = built into the side of a slope). The details - the mosaics, the fountain columns still intact - were amazing. As you ascend, the view becomes progressively more spectacular AND - get this - it's all covered over with a modern giant roof, which is fantastic because even in October the heat was tough - I hear that in peak season, people pass out at Ephesus all the time. It's that kind of heat and unrelenting sun.
More than any other ruins I have been to - from Pompeii to the Pyramids - this place really evoked a sense of place and time. The Temple of Karnak in Luxor is immense, but simply one building complex, much of it gone. The pyramids don't give you an idea of how people lived but how the kings died. The Pond du Gard is impressive engineering but wasn't a gathering place, just infrastructure. The Roman Forum definitely evokes Rome but it's still a relatively small area. I don't know - for some reason, Ephesus blew my mind. It was like I could really imagine myself there.
One famous view shows tourists streaming down a broad, column lined avenue, and the sweep you get is magnificent; Ephesus is built on a very long, gentle slope - you start at the top and walk your way down - as you look down that street with the famous library (two stories, STILL), you can almost see the centurions and senators and slaves and prostitutes walking next to you. Indeed, I like to squint to blur out the sports jerseys and fanny packs, and pretend I myself am there. A lady of means or the like. And it almost works, I can get really close. Ephesus had this magic in spades - this ability to evoke the living past.
I was also in a really good mood that day. Maybe I was almost done with taking my malaria pills, or maybe I was just relieved at having finally had a good time in Istanbul, city of impossible imagination, impossible expectations, maybe it was just because it was me, my Dad and his two witty, intelligent friends, gentlemen both and fine traveling companions - we slogged through Egypt together. For whatever reason, I felt alive and excited in Ephesus. It was thrilling to be there.
We came soon to the Odeon, a primer for the bigger theater I knew we'd be seeing - I'd done my reading, had my special "see how it looked then" touristic laminated brochure, so I knew there was a small one and a big one, both of them reputably fine, really well-preserved. And famous, famous for their acoustics.
Do you know where I am headed with this?
Yes, we got to the Odeon and as my father and his companions wandered the stairs and stage, I went to down and - couldn't not resist - sang a short phrase. I don't know what. The few folks there reacted with favorable sounds and energy. It was fun. We saw the marketplace, the temple, the whatever, until, there it was, at the end - it's the Big Finish: the Theater, far bigger than you think it will be. It was damn impressive. And also, even MORE famous for its acoustics. And then, I knew I really could not resist, but it was a bit daunting. This was a main attraction. Tour groups, people everywhere - it was too big to be noisy, there was a hot still hushed almost museum calm, not easy to interrupt, to summon sound from nowhere and break the silence.
Breaking the silence, that was the thing. We were wondering and wandering and no one had tried it yet - there wasn't a line of bold visitors lined up to belt out a line or two of a song or speech. Perhaps it wasn't done, wasn't quite the thing to do. No one knew. Others must surely be thinking what I was. Someone just had to get it started. Someone had to have the balls to go out there. Go stand on that stage and belt something out.
It would be fun for everyone. We all wanted to hear it. We had all read about the fabulous famous acoustics, our guides had informed us, but no one was going to get to experience that, to enjoy this final display of Roman ingenuity, unless someone had the balls to get their ass down on the stage, face 24,000 stone seats and crowds of unsuspecting tourists. It was up to me. Go first if you have to go, and if you don't have to go but someone has to, go then too. It's my creed. It's my belief, it's a core value. And when you feel a core value getting tested, you have to respond and rise to the occasion.
What would I sing, my mind raced through and discarded possibility after possibility. Something too modern - I pictured a moment of "What good is sitting alone in your room" or "All you need is love" and that didn't feel right. I could not offhand think of a folk song, something that would pass as madrigal to the undiscriminating ears (mine would be included there), but that was more along the lines of what seemed called for. What about a hymn? I had a song I wrote, my best song which is actually a kind of amazing song - I say this without ego, it was one of those "came from the ether" songs - and it was, in its original form, an acapella tune, appropriate paean. I had a good verse that was fairly short, but self-contained, a stanza that would stand out fine on its own, would hold up, and went from a dark but realistic place to a place of joy and hope. That seemed about right.
So I took my place center stage, I tilted my head back, threw my arms out a little to get a really good breath, steeled my courage and in the most powerful voice I could muster (and by the way, I can on occasion muster a really powerful voice - sometimes when I sing, it's shocking how much power I can channel, but it's rare. Would my voice fail me, squished up from nerves?) and sang this:
Darkness before, darkness to come
Behold the rising of the sun
The space between is where the work gets done
Cause that's how the game is played
And then I opened my eyes, and everyone was clapping, and I took a little bow before scurrying off. There was no time to stay and appreciate it, as it had been hard enough to get the deed done in the first place; lingering seemed somehow ungrateful, oddly. I obeyed my instincts that had brought me thus far. My dad had been up in the audience. We could hear you perfectly, he said. He's never one for compliments, rarely for amateur artistic attempts for sure, so this was practically an unqualified rave, coming from him. It was neat, he intimated. Others had said "great job" or "that was cool" as I made my way back to the way out. It had been a pleasant, shared experience by everyone there. I pictured them going home, remembering when that girl sang in the Theater at Ephesus. Remember how amazing the acoustics were?
But more than that was the chance to participate in doing something that you know your ancestors did, in the place you know they did it. How often does one get to do that? It's the reason people go to ancient temples to pray - the energy of doing that thing in that place gets strong over the centuries, millennia. This is one of the very best things about travel - following in the footsteps of those who came before. Singing on the Ephesian Theater stage. Walking the Curetes Street. Worshipping at the Altar of Apollo in Delos - a spot that was so sacred, for hundreds of years, that it enjoyed peace as no one dared, on either side, to attack it, for fear of angering the gods. It's why people kiss the Blarney Stone or Oscar Wilde's tombstone. Or walk the road to Santiago. Even going to the Anne Frank House to grieve. It's comforting. Tradition. Continuity. Community across time.
What's not to love? What is fear of making a fool of oneself in some stranger's eyes compared to that? That's my ultimately motivation: the risk/reward. What's the risk of doing what I did? Potential embarrassment in front of people I never will see again. And why be embarrassed, anyway? It would be a noble attempt if done from a place of purity of desire. I wanted connection. That would be the reward. A fantastic memory. A moment maybe given to others. A moment of triumph, because fear presented and was confronted. I went ahead and did not stop - there was no time for baby steps, a leap was required, and as our taxi was waiting, I had no time to deliberate and worry, so it was just back to beginning anywhere, not waiting for the perfect moment, but creating the perfect moment. That was the potential reward - the risk was nothing by comparison. So I did it.
The story of my spontaneous song, that's the one I wanted to tell, and I began anywhere, but the story is over now. I hope you enjoyed it; now I'm ending anywhere.
There is also a third quote, rounding out the wisdom trifecta here, which really will make things work even if you kind of blow the first two, and don't begin at all and don't keep going, which is this: "Whatever is happening is the path to enlightenment." That means, no matter what is happening, it's what needs to happen, what is meant to happen, what is supposed to happen and so on and so forth. You get the idea: once you accept that what is, IS - why then, you can start to relax a little. It's only when one must constantly hold on to everything that you can't get a grip.
It's brought into focus one of the qualities I am most grateful to have, which is the ability to feel (appropriate, timely) emotions, when they are happening. I express them, and then I move on. That last part is especially important - move on, PAST that emotion. This is what kids do - they fall down, they cry for a minute, they get distracted by life and then it's all over and they are on to the next thing. I think that is a healthy way of acknowledging and expressing emotions, and it's a skill that I learned in therapy. It was THE skill I learned, really - there's more to it, of course, but that core ability is useful in essentially all situations.
That doesn't mean I don't feel fear, and what I wanted to come here and talk about is overcoming fear, or at least apprehension, or maybe just a bit of depression - old-fashioned melancholia, the blahs, the blues, the who cares. They all share a sort of downer spirit, and as much as I approve of balance, they are the ones I try and move through as quickly as possible - better to face it and get through than to linger around, worrying. And that's how I tend to deal with it - get over that inertia or reluctance as soon as you can (begin anywhere) and then just move on through.
It's a sort of volunteer philosophy: decide to do it before you're forced to do it, and do it first. If you are in a situation where you know know everyone there, including you, is going to have to do the thing (whatever it is: that class presentation, that team-building trust fall) and volunteering just means you go earlier rather than later, I say - go right away, and first is best. Why? For one thing, if it's the type of situation where there's a good and bad way to do whatever you've been asked to do, there's a good chance someone (or a few or many someones) will be watching you and passing some form of judgement. In other words, going first can only help - if you turns out you were the worst of all, no one will know until afterwards, and you still get kudos for going first. You get the credit of having guts. You get a reputation for being a confident person, and when people perceive you as confident, they give you lots of credit and tend to support you consistently over the long run.
For another thing, going first gets it out of the way. The more time you have to fret and stew and compare to others as they take their turn, the worse you will do. Well, that's true for me personally. Volunteering - either going first when everyone has to do it either way OR volunteering when someone has to but most will get out of it, (like who's going to clean up the bathrooms at the facility after the Anarchist Book Fair: the time it was me, everyone else applauded me at the end, glad it wasn't them - though it wasn't that bad) also means you get the reputation for being willing to take it for the team. Not in a negative way - I mean in the noblest sense, like Faramir: volunteering is a chance for you to show your quality, and that's not a right but a privilege not everyone gets, a juicy opportunity to show their quality in a definitive way.
I was thinking today of something that happened to me when I was in Europe, a story which I wanted to tell but have not yet because it seems like there's so MUCH to it - as if it must be led up to properly, properly placed in context with the rest of my journey (India and Europe: it happened to me after Mumbai but before Almafi), must be teased out and shown to be, as it felt to me, inextricably bound up with all that gone before and all that had gone after, but one can't tell the WHOLE story of one's life; one must pick and chose, necessarily. Otherwise, telling the entire story of one's life is basically the same as living one's life - think of your life as a performance piece for an audience of one, with no intermission. So how can I start? Begin anywhere, John Cage urges me, so that's what I am doing.
On my Mediterranean cruise last year, after Istanbul, the ship stopped in Turkey, to visit the ancient Roman site of Ephesus, and if that makes you think of Paul and the Ephesians, you're on the right track; it's THAT Ephesus. It's very famous because it was quite important in history, being the bustling center for an area which has inhabited since the Neolithic age, but also an important Roman city. Now, it's famous for being the best-preserved ancient Roman city, or one of them. There is a main road, and the facade of a grand library still standing (it's famous; if you saw it, you'd recognize it), two theaters - the smaller Odeon that seats 1,500 and the larger 24,000 seater Theater - plus recently uncovered Terrace Houses, which are spectacular. Ephesus was one site we chose to do on our own rather than opt for the hassle-free but generic cruise ship shore excursions - we had to negotiate for a taxi, a task which fell to me, of everyone in the group, and a task which I did rather badly (we got ripped off, but the guy was a pretty good driver and decent semi-guide) - and so I had to read up on the site, to know what to do.
Don't miss the Terrace Houses, was the consensus. It's a separate entry, extra ticket, but spend the $12 or whatever the equivalent is. Everyone makes it clear, because people still lamely skip it - you spent $1000's to get to and eat and sleep in Europe and then you skip the attractions or pleasures because they cost too much? Never understood it, myself. But I know better than to go down that road, so we got Terrace House tickets, and it blew my mind - whole complexes of Roman homes, courtyard after courtyard, bedrooms and kitchens and entryways with fountains, all stacked on top of each other (terrace = built into the side of a slope). The details - the mosaics, the fountain columns still intact - were amazing. As you ascend, the view becomes progressively more spectacular AND - get this - it's all covered over with a modern giant roof, which is fantastic because even in October the heat was tough - I hear that in peak season, people pass out at Ephesus all the time. It's that kind of heat and unrelenting sun.
More than any other ruins I have been to - from Pompeii to the Pyramids - this place really evoked a sense of place and time. The Temple of Karnak in Luxor is immense, but simply one building complex, much of it gone. The pyramids don't give you an idea of how people lived but how the kings died. The Pond du Gard is impressive engineering but wasn't a gathering place, just infrastructure. The Roman Forum definitely evokes Rome but it's still a relatively small area. I don't know - for some reason, Ephesus blew my mind. It was like I could really imagine myself there.
One famous view shows tourists streaming down a broad, column lined avenue, and the sweep you get is magnificent; Ephesus is built on a very long, gentle slope - you start at the top and walk your way down - as you look down that street with the famous library (two stories, STILL), you can almost see the centurions and senators and slaves and prostitutes walking next to you. Indeed, I like to squint to blur out the sports jerseys and fanny packs, and pretend I myself am there. A lady of means or the like. And it almost works, I can get really close. Ephesus had this magic in spades - this ability to evoke the living past.
I was also in a really good mood that day. Maybe I was almost done with taking my malaria pills, or maybe I was just relieved at having finally had a good time in Istanbul, city of impossible imagination, impossible expectations, maybe it was just because it was me, my Dad and his two witty, intelligent friends, gentlemen both and fine traveling companions - we slogged through Egypt together. For whatever reason, I felt alive and excited in Ephesus. It was thrilling to be there.
We came soon to the Odeon, a primer for the bigger theater I knew we'd be seeing - I'd done my reading, had my special "see how it looked then" touristic laminated brochure, so I knew there was a small one and a big one, both of them reputably fine, really well-preserved. And famous, famous for their acoustics.
Do you know where I am headed with this?
Yes, we got to the Odeon and as my father and his companions wandered the stairs and stage, I went to down and - couldn't not resist - sang a short phrase. I don't know what. The few folks there reacted with favorable sounds and energy. It was fun. We saw the marketplace, the temple, the whatever, until, there it was, at the end - it's the Big Finish: the Theater, far bigger than you think it will be. It was damn impressive. And also, even MORE famous for its acoustics. And then, I knew I really could not resist, but it was a bit daunting. This was a main attraction. Tour groups, people everywhere - it was too big to be noisy, there was a hot still hushed almost museum calm, not easy to interrupt, to summon sound from nowhere and break the silence.
Breaking the silence, that was the thing. We were wondering and wandering and no one had tried it yet - there wasn't a line of bold visitors lined up to belt out a line or two of a song or speech. Perhaps it wasn't done, wasn't quite the thing to do. No one knew. Others must surely be thinking what I was. Someone just had to get it started. Someone had to have the balls to go out there. Go stand on that stage and belt something out.
It would be fun for everyone. We all wanted to hear it. We had all read about the fabulous famous acoustics, our guides had informed us, but no one was going to get to experience that, to enjoy this final display of Roman ingenuity, unless someone had the balls to get their ass down on the stage, face 24,000 stone seats and crowds of unsuspecting tourists. It was up to me. Go first if you have to go, and if you don't have to go but someone has to, go then too. It's my creed. It's my belief, it's a core value. And when you feel a core value getting tested, you have to respond and rise to the occasion.
What would I sing, my mind raced through and discarded possibility after possibility. Something too modern - I pictured a moment of "What good is sitting alone in your room" or "All you need is love" and that didn't feel right. I could not offhand think of a folk song, something that would pass as madrigal to the undiscriminating ears (mine would be included there), but that was more along the lines of what seemed called for. What about a hymn? I had a song I wrote, my best song which is actually a kind of amazing song - I say this without ego, it was one of those "came from the ether" songs - and it was, in its original form, an acapella tune, appropriate paean. I had a good verse that was fairly short, but self-contained, a stanza that would stand out fine on its own, would hold up, and went from a dark but realistic place to a place of joy and hope. That seemed about right.
So I took my place center stage, I tilted my head back, threw my arms out a little to get a really good breath, steeled my courage and in the most powerful voice I could muster (and by the way, I can on occasion muster a really powerful voice - sometimes when I sing, it's shocking how much power I can channel, but it's rare. Would my voice fail me, squished up from nerves?) and sang this:
Darkness before, darkness to come
Behold the rising of the sun
The space between is where the work gets done
Cause that's how the game is played
And then I opened my eyes, and everyone was clapping, and I took a little bow before scurrying off. There was no time to stay and appreciate it, as it had been hard enough to get the deed done in the first place; lingering seemed somehow ungrateful, oddly. I obeyed my instincts that had brought me thus far. My dad had been up in the audience. We could hear you perfectly, he said. He's never one for compliments, rarely for amateur artistic attempts for sure, so this was practically an unqualified rave, coming from him. It was neat, he intimated. Others had said "great job" or "that was cool" as I made my way back to the way out. It had been a pleasant, shared experience by everyone there. I pictured them going home, remembering when that girl sang in the Theater at Ephesus. Remember how amazing the acoustics were?
But more than that was the chance to participate in doing something that you know your ancestors did, in the place you know they did it. How often does one get to do that? It's the reason people go to ancient temples to pray - the energy of doing that thing in that place gets strong over the centuries, millennia. This is one of the very best things about travel - following in the footsteps of those who came before. Singing on the Ephesian Theater stage. Walking the Curetes Street. Worshipping at the Altar of Apollo in Delos - a spot that was so sacred, for hundreds of years, that it enjoyed peace as no one dared, on either side, to attack it, for fear of angering the gods. It's why people kiss the Blarney Stone or Oscar Wilde's tombstone. Or walk the road to Santiago. Even going to the Anne Frank House to grieve. It's comforting. Tradition. Continuity. Community across time.
What's not to love? What is fear of making a fool of oneself in some stranger's eyes compared to that? That's my ultimately motivation: the risk/reward. What's the risk of doing what I did? Potential embarrassment in front of people I never will see again. And why be embarrassed, anyway? It would be a noble attempt if done from a place of purity of desire. I wanted connection. That would be the reward. A fantastic memory. A moment maybe given to others. A moment of triumph, because fear presented and was confronted. I went ahead and did not stop - there was no time for baby steps, a leap was required, and as our taxi was waiting, I had no time to deliberate and worry, so it was just back to beginning anywhere, not waiting for the perfect moment, but creating the perfect moment. That was the potential reward - the risk was nothing by comparison. So I did it.
The story of my spontaneous song, that's the one I wanted to tell, and I began anywhere, but the story is over now. I hope you enjoyed it; now I'm ending anywhere.
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