As a Renaissance man, I do many things. No single one of those things is “it” for me. My “one thing” (as Billy Crystal would say) is being a Renaissance man. I love being amazing. For me, that is my passion.
When I was a magician for a living, the fact of being a magician was close enough to “Renaissance man” to satisfy me. Even that was not enough when I was only being a magician, as I was during the long runs. Then, I was no longer a builder, a designer, a writer, an entrepreneur, et cetera. I was just a magician, doing the role. Even being a magician is not enough: I need to be a real magician.
From the beginning of my dark time, I began telling myself that I need to focus on one thing. So I can have security. So I can pay child support. So when the authorities looked at me I would appear to be normal. I had taken under advisement my ex-wife’s admonition to “get a real job.” (It’s also what that guy yelled out during a show at the Great Escape.) My son and daughter had things to say about my “awesome job” when I worked for Galaxy. And of course, there is my mother’s influence, steeped in middle-class values. (And to think— she sells weeds!)
The metamessage was: don’t be a real magician, don’t be a renaissance man, you have to pick, stifle, settle, suffer along.
The moment I accepted this message, I started dying.
From that moment forward, I have had a great deal of trouble with self-motivation. Go figure. Enthusiasm has been very hard to come by. I could, and would, get very enthusiastic about some project or area, but only to have it die out quickly, and usually before the project was finished.
At about the point that I would get a project fully figured out, I would lose interest and start casting about for a new project. I have a girlfriend who is amazed at my every ability, so I get an early payoff early in the project cycle by creating the effect of being perceived as amazing, and being acknowledged as such. If my goal is to “be amazing”, girlfriend amazed = done and paid. Time to move on.
She, of course, has different goals from mine. She wants “dones”, money, stability and a future. While I want these things too, I am at a point in life where I have proven to myself that I am weak, powerless and insipid — so it is wholly enough for me when I am paid in amazement! (My mother pays really well in this department, too.)
So, insight realized. It is not actually enough to have amazed a woman or two because I know how amazing I can truly be. Amazing a tiny audience does not satisfy me, for I need to amaze a large audience, perhaps a world audience. Further, I predict even that would not be enough. To “be amazing”, I need to amaze myself. It’s been a while since I’ve really done that, (but coming up with that tricky formula in that spreadsheet last Friday was pretty good.) If I fail to amaze myself, then I convince myself that I am weak, powerless, and insipid.
It’s time for me to start stretching the envelope, to be all that I can be and to live up to my moniker of Awemaker. I must renounce the safety of dormancy. I know who I am, and for me “What Is Greatness” means allowing people who come up with an abberated solution of limiting me out of an intention that is nothing but good but can’t possibly understand who they’re dealing with, allowing them to be who they are but not letting them affect who I am and what I’m doing.
To “be amazing” seems like an intention in search of a goal. I know when I move beyond my own confusions, I have all of the good goals firmly in place, so I will use my superpowers to achieve those goals and ends. What seems more important right now from where I have been living is getting into games after having fallen for in the games condition of hiding and trying to blend in, unbeknownst to me. I believe the reality of the situation is, however, that accepting responsibility is the very thing that unlocks the superpowers. Yes, I’m sure that’s the way it really is.
Incident: there I was at about eight years old inside of a series of boxes decorated to look like a robot. It had two boxes on the sides attached by a pivot point and rigged with strings so I could move them like arms from the inside, where I was, being the robot. My goal, or so I thought, was to pass off this artificial robot as being real and intelligent. When I had my mother’s friend write a question on a card and insert it into the slot, I would run a vacuum cleaner (computational noises, and covered the sound of the typewriter) while I typedthe answer on the back of the card. Then, stopping the vacuum, I rang a bell and stuck the card back out of the slot.
My mother’s friend was highly impressed and called me a genius. (I remember using wit in the answer.) It was at that point that I came out of the robot and my mother said to me, in essence, that I was the next Jesus Christ and asked me to save the world. While I appreciated the amazement and praise which was my goal, I have been at odds with that further goal that my mother charged me with ever since.
It’s weird, but I thought I only ever wanted to be amazing. I never wanted to be a hero. It’s looking like these two things might go together after all. Oh boy, the dreaded responsibility. Can one be a hero by being amazing? There is no better way to get the world’s attention. It appears that the giant boots would feel just right if I ever decided to fill them. So the real decision is to “be amazing” or to “be small” and it looks like I’ll be making that decision in every little thing that I do.
Being small is too much effort for me, too painful and too frustrating. It’s a burden I just can’t put up with anymore. It’s no damn fun. “Being Small” is, for me, the definition of indulgence.
This post marks the real beginning of The Sleepers Wake blog.