I should be you

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140/365 Envy

The mind gets a lot of crazy ideas.  (Well at least mine does, and I sus­pect if you pay atten­tion, you’ll find that yours does too.)

In recent weeks, it’s taken to sug­gest­ing that I should be some­one else. Now who this per­son is varies, depend­ing on the day, my mood, and what I’ve been read­ing or think­ing about.  And the fact is, if you lined up all the peo­ple my mind tells me I should be, you’d find that their behav­iors and beliefs are often quite clearly at odds. But my mind doesn’t care about that. It’s quite con­vinced that it’s entirely right—and it’s out to con­vince me too.

My mind has been espe­cially insis­tent since dis­cov­er­ing The Flu­ent Self, a blog-cum-transformational play­space cre­ated by Havi Brooks.  “You should be Havi,” my mind clam­ors. “She is doing such inter­est­ing things, and she talks about them in such inter­est­ing ways. You should be her not you! I can help you do that.”

It’s taken some time, but I am finally get­ting my mind to accept that this is not going to hap­pen. A major break­through came when I showed my mind this video of Havi doing her Shiva Nata yoga prac­tice wear­ing a pink wig.

“You see that?” I said to my mind. “That is Havi. That is not us. We can learn from her. But we are never ever ever going to be her.”

On hear­ing this, my mind became a bit dis­con­so­late, though after watch­ing the video twice, it allowed that it was likely true.

As is often—if not always—the case, the trick is to find some­thing between the all and the noth­ing. What does my mind’s crush on Havi have to tell me? For one thing, it’s about my need to be more play­ful. It’s about doing more to find my tribe and build­ing a com­mu­nity. And maybe it even means trav­el­ing to Port­land to attend Rally (Rally!)

It also helps to remind myself that how­ever crazy in love my mind may be with some­one else’s life or work, there are oth­ers to whom my own life and work speak in sim­i­lar ways. This came home to me a few months back, when I became friendly with a writer I’ve long admired. I was thrilled when she told me she liked some­thing I’d writ­ten but then rushed to send her an essay that I thought was way better—one of my all-time favorites penned by another writer.

Some days later, I got this care­ful response:  “As for X’s piece…honestly? Between us? It’s not really my thing .… I hope it’s okay to say that—she’s clearly a smart writer.” The fact that this writer I so admired could pre­fer my piece to the one I’d just sent came as a revelation.

As it hap­pens, my mind is still not entirely con­vinced that I shouldn’t aspire to Havi. But I’m pre­pared to wait. Soon it will be on to some­thing else. (And if not, I still have the video.)

© 2012, amy gut­man. All rights reserved.

28 thoughts on “I should be you”

  1. Thanks for mak­ing me aware of Havi. What you say about ‘crazy in love with another’s life or work’ is very telling. Dis­cov­er­ing that even though the work (or life) is bark­ing up your own tree you can’t hope to cop it (or top it) can hap­pen instan­ta­neously the falling in love with the work. I write ‘bad songs that say so much,’ among other things. (I do a few art forms. And indulge in a few forms within broader cat­e­gories.) But today I dis­cov­ered the ‘reformed whores.’ Such delight! Still, it comes with the barbed real­iza­tion that I’m out-done. I let my lit­tle light shine, but still, I can’t help wishin’ my light was a pair of female geniuses with decent singing voices. I’ll get over it. But allow me to enjoy my messy breakup. Okay? It’s my mind. I’ll indulge it if I want to.


    Ken Beck recently posted..The Things You Share (Micro Fiction)My Profile

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  2. amy! how delight­ful to find you via Havi and the real­iza­tion that being other peo­ple wasn’t really work­ing as well as i’d hope!

    i can’t wait to poke around here a bit more and go find your books :D

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  4. Ah, the com­pare and despair syn­drome! I still recall the moment I looked at a blog, I think it was Cubi­cle Nation (but not sure) and the post fea­tured that famous moment in the film “Moon­struck” when Cher slaps her coun­ter­part (I think it was Nicloas Cage) and says, “Snap out of it.” Ditto for com­pare and despair.
    Diane Dolinsky-Pickar recently posted..The Great McK­in­sey Hoax: From Some­one Who Fell For It ONCEMy Profile

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    • Thanks for read­ing, Diane. I guess I see it a lit­tle differently–I think there’s a lot to learn from pay­ing atten­tion to what we yearn for. If we sim­ply tell our­selves to “snap out of it,” I think we tend to miss things. Plus, as one of my med­i­ta­tion teach­ers once said, “We can’t just order our­selves around.” For me, a more reflec­tive and gen­tle approach–along with a healthy dose of humor–seems to be more help­ful.
      amy gut­man recently posted..Pat­tern recognitionMy Profile

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  5. It’s just nor­mal admir­ing some­one but envy­ing them, it’s really a no no. Just set them as an exam­ple or an encour­age­ment. :)
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    • Still mulling! I am think­ing I’ll likely decide + write about it over the week­end. At the moment, lean­ing towards, assum­ing places are left by the time I’m ready to com­mit. :-)
      amy gut­man recently posted..And vs. OrMy Profile

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  7. Hey Amy — I found this post from uhm… Twit­ter­stalk­ing… but it’s very sim­i­lar to my process. Every time I meet some­one new online I am like, “OH! I want to be him/her/it!” and I have a total internet-crush obses­sion syn­drome that (thank­fully!) fades after a while. What I get out of each of these expe­ri­ences, though, is rec­og­niz­ing the parts of me that are in res­o­nance with that per­son. In some crazy way, I man­age to turn want­ing to be other peo­ple into fig­ur­ing out how to be more me.

    I’ve never been a wig per­son, but obsess­ing over­fol­low­ing Havi has def­i­nitely recon­nected me with my silli­ness and my inner five-year-old who still loves crayons and blan­ket forts. She’s also helped me define my fas­ci­na­tion with com­mu­ni­ca­tion and the power of lan­guage and how lan­guage shapes and is shaped by our expe­ri­ence of the world. I was strug­gling to put together my own per­sonal theme, and real­iz­ing the qual­i­ties that drew me to her helped me define my own interests.

    But that’s me. ;-)

    You should check out freckledbrilliance.com She’s doing shiva nata classes in NYC (and pos­si­bly maybe other things.….? *oooh, mys­tery! sus­pense!*)
    Sarah recently posted..This Post Is Not About ButterMy Profile

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    • Thank you, Sarah–and: EXACTLY! So glad that you found me and com­mented. I’ll hope to con­tinue the conversation–it seems like we have a lot in com­mon, plus I’m curi­ous to learn more about you. I won­der where you live and if you’ve ever been to Rally. Also, what sort of nomadic trav­els are in store for you–perhaps I’ll learn more from your site. In the mean­time, thanks again!!
      amy gut­man recently posted..And vs. OrMy Profile

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      • Ooh, so glad Havi linked to you — I for­got to sub­scribe to com­ments and would com­pletely have missed your awe­some response!!

        I live in Stam­ford, CT and no, I have not been to rally, but am 95% sign­ing up for the June one… some­time this week. If it’s not sold out. etc. I’m headed to Taos for a few months this sum­mer to fig­ure out the plan and what future nomad-ing is in store… wish I could tell you more (because that would mean I knew more) but I can’t (because I don’t.)

        It is so lovely to con­nect with you! Look­ing for­ward to more soon… :-)
        Sarah recently posted..This Post Is Not About ButterMy Profile

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    • Thanks so much, Lynne–& of course I have to laugh re: the “being me” part. I won­der why our minds tend this way? I have been play­ing around with the notion of a tiny lit­tle adjust­ment in perspective–sort of cock­ing my head slightly to one side–finding the angle from which I CELEBRATE every­one instead of want­ing to be them. (In the mean­time, I’ll just take your arm courage and strength, if that’s okay with you ;-) )
      amy gut­man recently posted..And vs. OrMy Profile

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  10. I’ve been won­der­ing why I laugh every sin­gle time I hear the GEICO “Whee-e-e-e-e-e-e-e!” Whether I actu­ally see the com­mer­cial or not, I can see the “glee­ful” piggy in my mind’s eye and it stirs some­thing inside me. Havi’s site made me real­ize that rarely am I play­ful … with full aban­don. At 63, I’m so com­fort­able with who I am and the life choices I’ve made. I’ve had a phe­nom­e­nally adven­tur­ous life. But I wouldn’t use the adjec­tive “play­ful” to define myself. And you’re right, those sights and sounds of pure glee make me (momen­tar­ily) reassess the “me” that I am.
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  11. Cindy Sher­man rein­vents her­self with each photo. Maybe some of these peo­ple you want to be are wait­ing to become char­ac­ters in your next novel.

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  12. When I got to the Rally (Rally!) link (after spend­ing sev­eral min­utes perus­ing the site, exclaim­ing “Wow! Cool!”, dream­ing…) I started laugh­ing. I had the same reac­tion yes­ter­day when I saw your FB sta­tus on the Cres­cent Drag­onwagon work­shop. Which is to say that this was a glee­ful recog­ni­tion of the same syn­drome within myself, con­stantly try­ing on dif­fer­ent ver­sions of me, not all new and improved.

    How many times in my life have I tried this? Too many to count. How many times have I let it hide or devalue my authen­tic self? Thank­fully not as many these days as when I was in my 20’s and 30’s. The cool part is that now, even though the appeal of some crazy ideas dim quickly, I feel much bet­ter about hav­ing the courage to try some­thing, to find part of me — or to trust my intu­ition & reject some­thing that clearly isn’t a good fit. I used to think that I would have been a much hap­pier per­son if I had learned that 20 or 30 years ago, but I don’t any more. Can’t change it; wouldn’t want to if I could. It is who I am and all con­tributes to my explo­rations and a con­tin­u­ally expand­ing sense of self.

    Another great post, Amy.
    Anne Camille recently posted..St. Francis/WingsMy Profile

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    • Thank you! I love that you describe your recog­ni­tion as “gleeful” :-)

      And I really do think I may try to attend Rally. (Rally!) Can’t help but being really really really curi­ous …
      amy gut­man recently posted..And vs. OrMy Profile

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        • I think Havi Brooks is really interesting–I just pur­chased her Art of Embark­ing e-book/recorded class as a way of dip­ping my toe in and find­ing it fruit­ful mulling. Rally (Rally!) is so far away and pricey, not sure when/if that will hap­pen but I’m def­i­nitely keep­ing it in mind.
          amy gut­man recently posted..And vs. OrMy Profile

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          • I loved Havi’s FAQ expla­na­tion of what to do if you think the cost is too high. It made me thought­fully con­sider my ini­tial whiney reac­tion when I read about it (why is it so far away! Couldn’t it be some­where eas­ily, e.g., cheaply, acces­si­ble for me like NYC or Chicago where I could stay with friends?). Then, it made me think about choices we make and how those things that we think are stum­bling blocks aren’t always. My cur­rent crazy adven­ture idea, now start­ing to come together in a real plan for this May/June, is to walk approx. 500 miles across north­ern Spain from the Pyre­nees to the Atlantic. So, clearly, the dis­tance to get to Port­land wasn’t my real issue (though cost of both for me would be, at least in the same cal­en­dar year). When I started think­ing about walk­ing the Camino de San­ti­ago, I had a ton of voices in my head say­ing “You can’t do that!”. And I still am hear­ing that as I tell peo­ple what I’m plan­ning. Time, cost, trans­porta­tion, hik­ing equip­ment, phys­i­cal fitness/stamina: all issues that I’m work­ing through.

            I’m not try­ing to dimin­ish the very real issue of finances, but to say that if your heart and brain tell you that you should go to one of Havi’s work­shops, keep work­ing on solu­tions to those issues so that you can go, maybe not next month, but next quar­ter, or next year. If it’s part of a busi­ness plan (heck, maybe it doesn’t even need to be that defined) maybe you could do some­thing to raise funds on Kick­starter.
            Anne Camille recently posted..Not a tree to meet in a dark alleyMy Profile

  13. One approach might be to assign these peo­ple all roles in your men­tal col­lec­tion of cheerleader-gurus, a la Bar­bara Sher.

    But pink hair and glit­ter? I’ll take you any day — even if you don’t so much as comb your hair!

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