Musings

Back in 2000, Ed Harris produced and acted in a movie called Pollock, which, per the name, told the story of artist Jackson Pollock or “Jack the Dripper.” I don’t remember a whole lot about the movie – it was pretty depressing, if you must know – but there is one scene that has always stuck in my head. Despite all of his neuroses, Pollock eventually found not only fame and success but also several people who cared for him and supported him with devotion. There is a scene in the movie where Pollock is in a gallery, surrounded by admirers, and all of a sudden he looks up and over to his wife, who stood by him even when things weren’t going well. He nods to her. Then he goes back to his conversation. It’s extremely understated, and if you had been in the scene you probably would not even have known it had happened.

I think this is how true influence is really measured.

There are all sorts of ways to give a nod to a person. You can do it physically, of course, like in that scene. You can tell someone that they really helped you out or opened your eyes to a new perspective (that’s quite a direct way to go about it). In the online world, the “mention” is the thing. Unfortunately, a lot of ways I used to give the nod to people online have become shrouded in yuckiness. For example, I used to really like making lists highlighting people for various reasons, but now there are so many lists and so many lists that are clearly just link bait that the effort seems cheapened somehow. The same holds true for “Follow Friday” on Twitter. So many people just list a dozen names that the actual feeling behind the nod is kind of lost. That’s too bad. I think if it were easier to give meaningful nods, there might not be so much confusion about who the “influencers” are.

To me, influence is not always something you can pinpoint. Have you ever watched the movie Hugo? Hugo influences an older man he barely knows and doesn’t like. It ends up benefitting both of them in the end, but it all happens in indirect, serendipitous ways. Hugo gets a nod (not to spoil too much), though not by name. In a lot of ways, it’s like the scene from Pollock. Understated yet powerful.

In my two years in the online world, and in my 30-some years of life on this earth, I’ve been influenced by countless people, from my parents to my high school speech team coach to my driving instructor, the lovely Wally. I’ve been influenced in ways that cannot be measured by things like retweets and “conversations.” I’ve been influenced to try or not try new things. I’ve been influenced to change my perspective or to develop a new opinion. I’ve been influenced to take part in a cause or in an effort. Giving a nod to all who have influenced me would be great neck exercise. But quantifying this influence? I’d never be able to do it. I wouldn’t know where to start. What is the value of believing you can do something? What is the value of accomplishing something you were afraid to even try?

Do not aim for the Klout Score, the Ad Age Power 150, the PeerIndex score, or that Kred number. Aim for something more valuable and less tangible. Aim for the nod.

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Part of my July 4th celebration this year was to watch the HBO miniseries, John Adams. The series seems to do a pretty good job of portraying the rocky friendship of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, who in a lot of ways were sort of like the odd couple. Jefferson was a Virginian, Adams was a Massachusetts man. Jefferson was not highly religious while Adams was. Jefferson owned slaves, Adams did not. Through it all, however, they managed to admire each other and became close friends.

Sadly, politics got in the way of that friendship. If you can believe HBO’s presentation of events, Adams felt that Jefferson failed to support him properly. Jefferson felt that Adams was too much controlled by Alexander Hamilton, whom Jefferson believed was loathsome. Eventually, both men did and said a lot of things that they regretted. It was only tragedies in Adams’ late life that drew them back together.

In watching these scenes where the men sort of drifted around the fact that they felt let down by each other, I realized that we  have the same problems today. We all have our own expectations of people. We all define “friend” differently. I wonder if we would fare better with people if we indicated to them, gently and without judgment, what friendship means to us. We certainly end up cooking boiling pots of resentment when they don’t live up to our expectations or hopes, but how can they be the friend of our dreams if we don’t say, “By the way, I’d like it if you…”

People often tell me that my expectations of people are too high. I’ve been told that my whole life, in fact. That may be true, but what I can say for sure is that I never sit down with a person and say, “You know, it really bummed me out that you never contacted me when you knew I was going through a hard time.” I just let things simmer, and I either drop it off eventually or let it build into a giant snowball that eventually gets me to talk. This is not, I think, the best way to go about things. I have never told anyone, “You know, I think we’re at a point in our friendship where if you see someone attacking me, it’s fair I expect you to come to my defense.” We never have “the talk” like couples do as we are making friends.

Maybe we should.

All of this gets more complicated, of course, because the online world makes friendship harder to define. Are you truly FRIENDS with everyone you’re connected to on Facebook? We use words like “friending” and “unfriending,” but are all of those people in the same category as your friends from high school or college? Do we no longer have hierarchies of close friends, bosom buddies, acquaintances, and work connections? Should we set expectations with all of those people?

John Adams clearly expected that Jefferson, as his friend and VP, would support him no matter what. Jefferson clearly expected that Adams, knowing Jefferson’s hatred of Hamilton, would bow to Jefferson’s judgment regarding the man’s character. Both were let down. Would their vitriol still have built to a crescendo if they had taken the time to explain these things to each other? Is conflict amongst friends truly inevitable? Must all bridges be burned, eventually?

Do you set expectations with your friends? Why or why not?

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On July 4th Eve (if there is such a thing) I was determined to stay up late because I wanted to sleep in late on Wednesday for the holiday. My plan seemed to be going smoothly until I randomly woke up at 6:45. I tried to go back to sleep, but I had this desire to get a run in before it got too hot. “Oh, you don’t need to run anymore,” I thought to myself. “You’ve been doing such a good job of exercising this year, take a break.” This is what prompted me to get out of bed and do a 3-mile run.

Why did that thought process have that effect on me? Because it is worrisome, and I think we give in to that kind of thought process far too easily and far too often. When we leave school at whatever level, we think, “Ah, well you’ve put in x number of years learning. That’s good enough.” When you exercise and start to lose weight, it’s so very easy to say, “Ah, well, you’ve more than worked out enough to earn this brownie sundae.” When your kids reach 18, you might have a fleeting thought that you’ve taken them to adulthood and so you’re done.

Factually, as soon as you start proclaiming to yourself that you’re done with one thing or the other, you are giving up on yourself. Think of it this way. After you leave school, have you learned everything in the world you could ever want to learn? After exercising for awhile and improving your eating habits, have you gotten into the best shape and the best mindset you could ever possibly achieve? My guess is probably not. There is always another author to read. There is always another field of study to explore. There is always a new exercise to try or a new level to test yourself on. Always.

Refusing to say “I’m done” is not about ambition. It’s about a commitment to living life to the fullest. It’s about leaving all of the doors open, and all of the windows, too, for that matter. It’s about remembering that you are human, imperfect but capable always of improving.

Yes, it’s true, I’ve been doing a lot of exercising since the beginning of the year and I’ve lost about ten pounds. But I still can’t easily complete a half-marathon. I still have a lot of Yoga and Zumba moves that I need to figure out, and then there’s a whole new layer of stuff I can’t even imagine trying to do right now. And besides, I’m not where I want to be fitness-wise yet. So I woke up and I ran.

What is something you have proclaimed you’re “done” with? Are you sure you’re done, or did you give in a little bit to that nagging voice that wanted you to quit? Maybe it’s time to revisit that skill or that field or that…whatever it is. Maybe it’s time to expand yourself. Maybe it’s time to recommit.

What do you think?

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Today is the birthday of the United States of America. I often wonder on this day, as I do on many other holidays, whether people really contemplate what today is all about. America is one of the younger countries in the world, comparatively speaking, but I fear we have already lost a lot of the importance tied to what today really should, by all rights, mean.

Today, I’m thinking about what it means to me to be an American. Like many Americans, I have parts of my family that can be traced back for generations. My ancestors ranged from Rhode Island and Pennsylvania down to Virginia and Tennessee. Somewhere along the way Native Americans (Cherokee) came into my family tree, and they had been here for thousands of years. But also like many Americans, I have parts of my family that have only been American for a short time. In fact, five of my eight great-grandparents were not born in the US. Four were born in Russia and one was born in Switzerland. I know precious little about what their lives were like. I have very few family relics. What items we do have, the meaning has been lost in most cases. As an American I’m sort of like a newly potted plant. I have some deep roots, but not a whole lot. I lean on my identity as an American and can’t depend on a sense of self coming from the past.

As an American on America’s birthday, I am worried for my country. That might seem strange to those of you who feel like the US thinks of ourselves as indestructible. That’s part of the problem. But I fear most that hatred is beginning to reign supreme. Perhaps hatred has always been at the core of the US. African Americans and Native Americans would likely say so. The hatred I see now is not seemingly based so much on skin color, but rather on a sense of people needing to feel that their views are 100% accepted. In the Ken Burns Civil War series, historian Shelby Foote notes that Americans have always been masterful at compromise. I fear we’re losing that. I fear we are losing our capacity for civil discourse. Especially when it comes to the issues that matter most.

I have a lot of wishes for America. I hope that we can continue to emphasize our capacity to do great good. I hope we can come through this election season as a single country, though I’m beginning to wonder. I hope we can make peace with our past and build for a stronger future. I hope Abraham Lincoln remains Abraham Lincoln and not just a vampire slayer. I hope we can remember how big we are and that there is room for plenty of perspectives.

I have a lot of hopes for America. I have a lot of worries, too. My worries for my country stem from the love of my country. I want it to be the best. I want it to be what our founding fathers dreamed it could be in 1776. Onwards and upwards, America. Seize the Day.

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Have you ever watched The Joy Luck Club? There are so many tremendous scenes, but one has always stuck in my head. One of the daughters whom the movie focuses on has been left by her husband. He comes by to visit and to see their daughter and she always makes him his favorite dessert – peanut butter pie. Her mother is staying with her one day when she is buying the fixings. The mother chastises her. “You are saying that you are worth nothing more than this pie he gets to eat. That is your value.” You can watch the full part of this plot here.

The real problem Rose has is that she thinks from the first time that she meets her husband (ex-husband) that he is better than her. He’s cute, he comes from a well-known family, he’s rich. The fact that he comes on to her immediately flusters her even though she’s brilliant in her own right, and she spends most of their life together losing herself in the wake of whatever he wants. I have a feeling that in one way or another, this story would resonate with a lot of people. You are going along and all of a sudden a person whom you feel is really important starts to pay attention to you. You feel flattered, flustered, excited, confused, lucky, even. And you are instantly hit with a worry. “What if they find out I’m not good enough?”

People come up with all sorts of ways to fight off what they feel is that inevitability. Some people make things like Rose does in the movie. Some people change their religions or change their personalities. In the worst case scenario, some people even succumb to abusive relationships, almost as if they expected things to go that way. The other person is so much better than them, after all.

Until you value yourself enough, you will signal to people that your worth is only in how you measure it. If you change your religion, your value is only as good as your new beliefs are deep. If you make things your value is only the value of those things. If you let yourself remain in an abusive situation, your value is the same as a punching bag.

When you find your value, when you know it and embrace it, you will no longer feel that nagging feeling that you need to make up for something. You will no longer feel “lucky” when people like you. You will no longer be surprised that people whom you like and respect like and respect you back – and for who you truly are. You won’t need pie or an act or anything but yourself.

What are you telling people your value is? Are you sure that’s the message you want to send? Are you sure that’s the message you want to believe?

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When George B. McClellan took over the Army of the Potomac in 1862, he could not believe how disorganized and unprofessional the men were. They did not report to their posts, most had no training of any kind, and a lot of them were drunk. In a rather short period of time, McClellan trained them, gave them new shiny uniforms, and made them proud. He told them that he felt towards them as a father feels towards his children, and he told them that he was going to take care of them.

The problem, of course, is that these men were not just “sons.” They were men who needed to go to the Confederate States and do some fighting. They had to be risked. That was what they had volunteered for. But McClellan was not interested in seeing his men cut to pieces. Instead he had them dig trenches. He waited, telling Lincoln and others in DC that the force he was facing was too big (he actually had a force that far outnumbered anything the Confederacy could muster). Unfortunately, McClellan and his men could only win the war and reap the rewards if they did what they most did not want to do. They had to go out and let people shoot at them. They had to shoot back. The war could not be won until the war had officially begun.

In life, we often must take steps that we greatly fear or that we greatly regret we have to take. These things stand in our way, preventing us from reaching the end that we ultimately are hoping for. Getting the job of your dreams means that you have to go to your boss, who you really adore, and hand him/her your resignation. Allowing your child to grow up may mean letting them participate in the wackiness that can be the public school system. Going on a big trip may mean skimping and saving on other things for a long time.  Saving a life may mean risking your own.

How do you decide to plow ahead through these steps you fear, these steps you really do not want to take? You must ask yourself if what you are striving for is worth the sacrifice. General Ulysses S. Grant didn’t want to see his men die, but more than that, he didn’t want the war to languish on. He wanted the Union to win and he wanted to speed up the process. To make that happen he sacrificed many lives. Rosa Parks didn’t want to get arrested or abused, but it was more important to her at that time to take a stand by staying seated. Is what you are striving for worth that turmoil?

The second question to ask yourself is how you can prepare for the steps you do not want to take. Who can you call on for reinforcements? How can you lessen the blow? How can you reduce the strain those steps will take on you? Strategizing almost always makes things appear less scary. Knowing there is an end-game will help you endure.

What are you stopping yourself from doing in the face of steps you do not want to take? How can you overcome that hesitation to get where you want – or need – to go?

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