Musings

Have you ever seen the movie Being John Malkovich? The main character, Craig (played by John Cusack) has always wanted to be a famous puppeteer, but he “pushes the issues” in his street corner shows and can’t seem to get a break. Through a truly bizarre twist of fate, Craig discovers a portal that takes you into John Malkovich’s brain. Craig realizes this is the ultimate kind of puppetry – and John Malkovich the actor becomes a living breathing puppet.

At one point, Craig (as Malkovich) visits Malkovich’s agent. Craig makes Malkovich say, “I want to stop being an actor. I want to be a puppeteer.” The agent does not even hesitate. “Great, you’re a puppeteer. I’ll make some calls.”

I think about this scene often, even though it’s really pretty silly and even though it’s from a movie that’s on the stranger side of the spectrum. I think about people who are pretty done with what they are doing. For a lot of people, it seems like the feeling is, “I need to destroy what I have been doing to start fresh.” But the scene from Being John Malkovich makes me think there is an alternative. “John Malkovich” used his power as an actor to change careers rather than walking away from Hollywood altogether. Even though it’s fictional, I think there’s something to that notion.

For a real-world example, consider this very blog site. Now if you’re new here, you might not know this, but for the last two years, this blog was very different from the way it is now. It was pretty much all over the place, for one thing. It was mostly about social media, with some “musings” on marketing, current events, and other stuff. Throughout 2012 I’d been feeling sort of done with that approach. I wanted to have more of a focus and I wanted to talk about other stuff here. I had two options. I could just delete my site and start over or I could rebuild here, keeping some elements (like all of the writing I’ve done over the last two years) but changing the look and feel of the site. I didn’t have to take subscribers to a new URL I didn’t have to destroy my online identity. I simply rebuilt using things that were still in existence.

How can you apply this to your life? Perhaps you have a job you’re not super happy about. Are there ways to take what you are doing and revamp it so that you can feel more content? Are you in a relationship that is rocky? Instead of walking away from the person, are there parts of the relationship that are good that you can focus on and then go from there?

There is a picture that has been circulating around Facebook. It’s a picture of an older couple and it says, “People ask how we’ve stayed together for so long. We come from an era when if something was broken, you fixed it.” There are some things, of course, that are not fixable. But sometimes I think we give up a little too early these days. Sometimes I think we destroy because it can seem easier than rebuilding. What do you think?

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Awhile back, I mentioned on Facebook that I was getting ready to eat some Neapolitan ice cream. Somebody said, “What adult chooses that flavor of ice cream? Isn’t that a kid flavor?” Factually, there is one single reason why I am particularly fond of Neapolitan ice cream and mint chocolate chip ice cream. They both remind me of my grandma.

When I was little, I would spend a LOT of weekends with my grandma. We were simpatico, my grandma and me. Maybe because we both had the same first name. Unfortunately, my grandma died when I was just 7 years old, so I never really got to know her as I wish I could remember her now. We never had particularly deep conversations of course. What I am left with are memories of foods that we shared together. Ramen (called Oodles of Noodles at the time) is one of my big comfort foods because my grandma used to serve me a heaping bowl of the stuff for lunch. I’d sit on her couch, TV tray over my lap, and I’d slurp that stuff up. I remember this distinctly. We’d drink iced tea together, the special family recipe, while we played board games. My grandma would make sausage gravy and biscuits for breakfast and she’d make Texas Sheet Cake for dessert.

I still remember how all of these foods smelled and tasted. When I taste those foods or think about those smells, I am instantly transported back to my very young childhood days.

This is not just the case with my grandma. When I am not feeling well I always remember the poached egg on toast my mom used to make for me (she’d also cut up the toast into remarkably even, perfectly shaped squares that were somehow just the right size for my mouth). When I get home from work after a really long day in the middle of winter, I remember sitting down to my mom’s special chili or my dad’s spaghetti.

All of these foods are reminders of love. People who loved me who are no longer here. People who have loved me who are with me still. When I think of these foods, when I smell them or eat them, I am taken back to all of  the special memories that occurred when that particular food was around. Mint chocolate chip ice cream is a trip to the mall with my grandma. Beef barley vegetable soup is a Saturday night when I was a kid, my mom, brother and me huddled in front of Jean-Luc Picard while my dad, the Star Trek outcast, ate elsewhere (but we still told him how delicious his soup was). Creamed Herring is  brunch at my dad’s parents’ house on a Sunday morning.

These associations will I think always exist for me. The things you taste and smell seem so real, it seems hard to believe that the people you associate with those sensations won’t just pop through the door. It seems like the realness of the food should be able to eradicate any distance problems we might be experiencing. Just sit down and enjoy this favorite meal with me. Just one more time.

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A lot of times bloggers focus on how to help other people. We offer advice, admonitions, paths and channels and organizations and all sorts of other helpful information. But there is something that I don’t see a lot of information about, and that is how to accept kindness or help. You wouldn’t think this is something that people would need help with, but my experience, both in my own life and in watching others, has demonstrated that there are a few ways people can react upon receiving a kindness that can actually leave a bad taste in the giver’s mouth. These include:

• Not being appreciative because you were hoping that the help or kind word would come from someone else

• Not being able to acknowledge the kindness because your outlook on life is too dark

• Lamenting a lack of help or kindness even after receiving same (this can relate to the above, too)

• Getting angry when someone offers help (this can be a pride thing or perhaps a feeling that your privacy was intruded upon)

There are two reasons why learning to accept help or kindness with grace is extremely important. One reason has to do with others and one reason has to do with your own self.

Have you ever reached out to help someone going through a hard time only to see them lament that “no one cares” or “no one has reached out to help me in my time of need”? It kind of bums you out, right? You took time out of your day/week/month, you told the person or showed the person you cared, but clearly your actions or words did not leave a big enough impression. Now, that’s not a great feeling to have, and even more to the point, you might not feel like helping that person the next time around. “They’re intent on being miserable,” you might think to yourself.

This is how people can feel about YOU if you do not accept kindness with grace. They can feel like being nice to you is a waste of time because you do not appreciate it. Now, this does not mean that you have to fall on your knees and kiss the ground a kind person walks on. However, showing gratitude, even more than expressing gratitude, is important for those who reach out to you. It makes them feel like you see that there are people pulling for you. It makes them want to do more, in fact, because people who care about you want to see you happy.

Even more important than that, however, is that accepting kindness with grace forces you to allow beauty and goodness into your heart, especially during a time that may be hard for you. Acknowledging a kindness increases the chances that you will really understand what it is you have received. Understanding that can help you grasp how much people care about you. And understanding that – well, it can make a big difference for you. If people you care about are pulling for you, you must have some good traits. You must have made a good impression on those folks. You must be valued and valuable. At no other time is it more important to embrace these truths than when they seem hardest for you to believe.

Allow people to be good to you. Allow people to help you. They are not doing it because they think you “need” it or because they think you’re a loser. They’re doing it because they care.

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When I was in maybe sixth grade or so, I would always take the bus over to my mom & dad’s office (little did I know I’d be working there some 20 years down the road, but that’s a different story). One day, we had a substitute bus driver. For whatever reason, this bus driver was just the butt of all jokes for my whole ride on the bus. I have no memory if it was a man or a woman, I have no recollection of what they looked like. What I do remember is that when I got off the bus that day, I turned around and raised my middle finger at the bus driver. Who knows what I was thinking would happen as a result, but most probably I saw an opportunity to try to gain acceptance among my peers. Flicking off an adult was certainly not like me (hence, in my head, cool). It was edgy, it was mean, and it was in line with how everyone else was feeling and acting at the time.

My walk from where I was dropped off to the actual office was probably about 100 feet. By the time I actually stepped inside my mom’s office I was in tears. I felt wretched, and in fact, as you can tell (since this was now a LONG time ago), the memory has not dimmed all that much. I am still ashamed of it. Also, not shockingly, I did not become homecoming queen in the aftermath of this action. Nobody came up to me the next day and said, “Wow, you’re cooler than I thought. Let’s be friends.” It was a cruel and wasted effort that was empty of meaning. I am sure the bus driver thought of me as another ungrateful, snotty kid.

This event came to mind in the wake of the story about bus monitor Karen Klein. Karen, like the bus driver I flicked off, was just trying to do her job, but she was met with hatred and abuse from a bunch of kids she was trying to look out for. Those kids probably also were participating so that they could gain acceptance. One day, they may deeply regret their actions, and they will even have video footage of that black mark on their personalities. Thank goodness YouTube wasn’t born yet when I was a kid.

Online and offline, we are often presented with an opportunity to tear someone else down as a way of (seeming) to tie ourselves closer to someone else. If there is a group that often picks at a person, our brains tell us that also picking on that person will make us a part of that group. There are three things you need to ask yourself when these situations arise.

1. Is the acceptance of these people worth abusing someone else for?

2. Will you be accepted by these people if you pick on that person?

3. If you are accepted to some extent, will you be happy?

My gamble as a kid clearly did not pay off. In the online world, it’s even easier to do the equivalent of flipping the bird. You can ridicule people, lambaste people, gossip, or even lie about others in order to try to make headway with others. Ask yourself those three questions. If you end up regretting your action, it will be a regret that will stay with you for a LONG time. You can take my word for it.

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When Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd were in the early days of their courtship, they were part of a group in Springfield that was known as the Coterie. Apparently one of the members of this group was a guy who was a real character, so much so that Mary wrote up a funny rhyme and submitted it to a newspaper. Much to her surprise, as well as Lincoln’s, the poem got published. Even more surprising, the man the poem was about contacted the newspaper publisher demanding to know who had written this insulting piece. Lincoln took the blame and was promptly challenged to a sword duel, if you can believe that. Luckily a friend intervened and nobody was hurt. Abe and Mary decided the whole thing was so embarrassing they’d never talk about it again.

In the online world, it’s really easy to say something preachy or something funny at another person’s expense. We get a big reaction when we’re funny. We spark good conversations when we use a specific example to prove our points. Sometimes that specific example is something another person has done, wrong or right. When we are using another person to show how NOT to do something, we approach it like the Lincolns. We don’t exactly say who we’re talking about, right? We insinuate things. We leave little clues. But most of the time, no names are given. We stir up a mess of wasps and because we didn’t mention a name, we feel like we kept the person relatively anonymous.

I know this because I have done this myself. I have written posts or tweets or Facebook updates about something someone did or about something someone did NOT do, but I didn’t use their names or links to their websites or anything like that. I figured I could vent or make a point and because I wasn’t using a name, there was no harm. However, I think I have been lucky. It would be easy for someone like that friend of the Lincolns to suddenly challenge me and ask why I was bad-mouthing them. And it could happen to you, too.

In life, whether online or offline, I think we need to take more care in saying only what we can say with great conviction. If you TRULY believe that someone’s website is crap and you want to use them as an example of what not to do, don’t just quote some of the parts that you think are horrendous. Name them. First of all, it’s easy enough for people to search for the quotes you copied and figure it out anyway, but also, if you are so certain what they are doing is wrong, you should not be afraid to name them. If you don’t feel strongly enough about it to be bold, then perhaps you are feeling a sting of conscience. Obliquely referencing a person or a company is the online version of talking behind someone’s back. If you can’t say it directly to them, perhaps the best move is to refrain.

I am not saying that people should do more call-outs or that people should be MORE mean. But I guess I would say that in this era of Google and Twitter search and Facebook search, you never really can hide the identity of someone you’re raking over the coals, right? People can figure it out. People can alert them. If that makes your palms sweaty, perhaps you should refrain. Perhaps you do not really believe strongly what it is you were going to say. Perhaps you were just looking for a reaction. There are better ways to get one.

Don’t you think?

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I was contacted today by Rasa Dawson, Senior Organizer for Community Engagement at OxFam America. Rasa told me a very interesting story. Like many good stories, it involves a conflict with something evil (in this case starvation), some heroes (you could be filed here), and the ending…well, we have yet to see if this story will have a happy ending.

What we’re fighting

The battle in this story is against starvation in the Sahel region of Africa. You can read all about the problems plaguing this region here at the Oxfam page. The bottom line is that if action is not taken soon, up to 18 million people will be facing the painful pangs of starvation.

The heroes

Unfortunately, this growing tragedy is not getting much media attention, so OxFam has tried to do outreach via celebrity contacts and social media. So far, Kristin Davis, one of the stars of Sex in the City, and Djimon Hounsou (perhaps best known for his work in Amistad) have succeeded in raising an amazing $12,000 for the Sahel region. Rasa told me that the community that has developed on each of the actors’ donation pages has been extraordinary to watch. The power of social media has truly been engaged. But they could use more of your help.

How you can become a hero

It’s very simple. You can visit Kristin Davis’ page or Djimon Hounsou’s page. Click a dollar donation amount. It should take you, oh, about a minute, maybe.

If money is a bit tight for you but you still want to help, write up a blog post like this one and ask your network to spread the word. Or share this post to help me spread the word.

Lots of ways to help. Lots of good we can do together.

So let’s do it!

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