Yo, Macarthur, Pick Me!

I've been reading about the Macarthur Fellowship in the Tribune and schemulating like a mug. $500,000 no questions asked, no strings attached. Come on, baby!

"The MacArthur Fellows Program awards unrestricted fellowships to talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction. There are three criteria for selection of Fellows: exceptional creativity, promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishment, and potential for the fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work.

"The MacArthur Fellows Program is intended to encourage people of outstanding talent to pursue their own creative, intellectual, and professional inclinations. In keeping with this purpose, the Foundation awards fellowships directly to individuals rather than through institutions. Recipients may be writers, scientists, artists, social scientists, humanists, teachers, entrepreneurs, or those in other fields, with or without institutional affiliations. They may use their fellowship to advance their expertise, engage in bold new work, or, if they wish, to change fields or alter the direction of their careers."

Sounds like me to me. But hey, I'm not the one in charge (of cutting the checks anyway).

And wanting it and saying so probably takes me out of the running if I know the non-prophet world (and I thnk I do):

"The Fellows Program does not accept applications or unsolicited nominations."

Note to self: walk around with mouth open a little more. Try to cultivate idiot savant/humble griot thing.

I would write all about it and what I think yoobidie doo, but I'm not getting paid to blog. And I might not get paid to do anything until I bring it with the record. Lord knows y'all ain't exactly snatching up my book. And that took five years. [Just remember that almost no one bought it even at $40. Once it hits that will be a very important example of how people can't even see things they don't want to see--even if/(especially when?) they are the things they say they really really want. Everyone says they want something new and different--trust me, they don't, even/especially those who cry for it the loudest. The truly new and different is THE SAME! --Is ourself, which frightens us more than anything. Our "new and different" battle cry is one of boredom--of hoping to escape ourselves--a demand for entertaiment and relief. How else could half our kids be dressing like a walking graveyards? Once we explore every inch of the new and different we'll be stuck, lovingly, with the eternal sameness/peace that is ourselves. It's not boring, but compared to the push and pull (the drama) of drama it feels like death. And of course, once you find it you have to start doing what you want, which is even more frightening than being yourself (which you can do quietly and out of the way). Doing what you want is full-blown, real time, in front of everyone, tell your family-type stuff.]

But maybe that would take me off the list--not writing to make music to make money. Why don't I have a more complete faith? I could start with the bill I'm supposed to pay today that I couldn't pay yesterday because I had to pay another one, which I couldn't pay earlier in the week because I had to pay another. It's not month to month, or even week to week, this is the financial day to day. If something sells on eBay then I can pay the eBay bill ($200). And the credit card bill mentioned above. The good lord has provided everything I need except about $60 and I have two whole days (minus what I'll probably give at church tomorrow). : )

I really try not to worry about it because I've been led into this place. I would prefer not to not pay bills on time, or even when I get them, but who knows how far faith is supposed to carry us. It was due on a Saturday, so it's likely not even due until Monday. Which means there is still plenty of time for the good lord (and our significant economic engine) to work his magic.

And I fully realize that that is what I want to learn. If we are not to worry about tomorrow's food today then how far does that go? Ever? Really? If we are not to consider financial concerns when making our most important decisions (not to say that we shouldn't endeavor to have our undertakings be profitable, just that we shouldn't be afraid when making decisions), and we have credit at our disposal, then should we not be afraid with it? That is what I'm led to believe. Although I certainly don't recommend getting reckless with it, I live better now than when I had a job and an income. And I am much, much happier. Even when I'm not happy. And that's pretty happy. (Previously I was diagnosed with clinical depression, moderate to severe depending on when I was tested if I remember correctly).

And I believe that everything is working itself out--as I learn what I want. And the farther I go, the more I see that what I want is just to have complete faith. But never worry about anything? Really just do your best and forget it? Just so you can be present to the birds taking a bath on an early fall day while riding home on your bike from the gym? (And why the F didn't I start my post with that gem? --Is it this creep I'm battling about a lousy $800 on eBay with?)

I guess my main question is how much are we worth? What is our attention worth? Both in spiritual currency and economic? (As if they're different--spiritual being faith and economic being fiduciary--trust).

Can I afford not to worry? To enjoy my weekend? Can I afford not to?

Put another way: if I look at the long-term, I have never wanted for a single meal in my life. Never gone without a roof overhead (except by my own hand). Rarely been cold. Rarely been assualted or subjected to physical violence. Rarely been discriminated against (although I certainly have been).

So, why doesn't my mind tend toward relaxation? Why doesn't my physical being naturally relax and feel secure a representative amount of the time? I'm 400% more relaxed, faithful and secure these days than I was, but why not go all the way? Should I believe this incontrovertable fact or the grand or so in present/upcoming expenses? Or the seventy or eighty thousand in mid-term liabilities that I am responsible for (almost insurmountable given my income record--as stated quite clearly on my social security summary--but almost insignificant compared to what I feel my earning potential is)?

Why not be suprised when something bad happens? And forget about it as quickly an anomoly? I know I would be bucking the whole western critical tradition, but hey, I'm willing. Why not believe? And how deep would it go if I did? (Should it go when I do.) Why should even $8,000 cause me a moment's concern? $800,000. $8 mil. Why should I even cross the street for money if it's not what I'm here to do? Wouldn't that devalue me ultimately? Cash out my equity like Eddie Bauer (they used to be real--remember? So did Brooks Brothers, Abercrombie (Hemmingway wore them), and a whole lot of others).

So, if I am interested in building the new--the new real--why flinch at even 20 years of "market underperformance"/dire poverty? If that's what it takes? Why worry for even a second about being alone if that what it takes, and that's where I am right now? (Now we might be getting somewhere).

Maybe that's it--maybe I worry about money so I don't have to think about how much or how long I've been alone? Maybe that's what America is about.

I've been alone most of my life--relationship wise. And this has allowed me to do the work that I never would have been able to do otherwise, and I completely believe that when I can do the same work with someone else around that will be if that's what I want, and--very importantly--this solitude has allowed me, over years and years, to develop a relationship with myself
that is as fulfilling as most I've had with others--more fulfilling if you take the valleys with the peaks.

Does this mean that I advocate being alone or think that it's something to strive for? Not unless that's what you want. I've wanted more pretty much the entire time. But I've wanted more a bunch of the time I've been in relationships as well. And I imagine that that a whole lot of this "more" can really only come from ourselves and our relationship with god.

One of my big realizations around 9/11 came while I was sitting in a Starbucks in Seattle. First of all, sitting in a Starbucks in Seattle, if you come from where I come from (Seattle), is tantamount to eating Kraft Macaroni and Cheese in Italy, but I was tired of the "un"-ness of all the coffeeshops, I had given up on caffeine, and had lost my appetite for the "independent/alternative" in my early 30s just as I had lost my appetite for the "normal/mainstream" when I was a teenager.

So anyway, I was sitting at Starbucks, drinking a cup of tea. Probably not having been with anyone for a while (definitely not intimately, I had a therapist at the time and he was likely the most recent person I had had a thorough conversation with). A song came on--it may have been Willie Nelson--but with a great, almost funk, beat. I sat there listening to the snare and feeling horrible because I felt generally bombed out after 9/11 and all of a sudden I got a little glimmer of something. Boom, chuck, a-boom, chuck.

In general at that time I was trying to figure out how the events of 9/11 were love. Which was of considerable difficulty. I knew that having the buildings there was love, and having the people here was love, but how was having them gone love, and god or an airlines security guard not having prevented it love?

Boom, chuck.





A boom, chuck.

MIles Davis' famous quote about the space between the notes being what he was really playing came into my mind and Bhuuu--LING! It was like the third lemon (or BAR) come up on my slot machine. There would be no beat without silence. There would be no presence without absence.

God was "absent" so that we could live. So that we could love and make choices and be powerful--ourselves. It was because he loved us that he set us free--that we were apart. And it was because he had faith in our abilities to set everything right and live the way we wanted that he let us keep going. Without a single repremand. Without so much as a word or blink (and believe me, by this time I had berated and dared him to speak enough that he probably would have just to straighten me out had it worked).

I didn't need it--we didn't need it--because there wasn't anything wrong with me--or us. And it was only my thinking that there was something wrong that made me look outside myself for authority. And any corrective--any any--authority outside myself--even if it was telling me that I was okay--especially if it was telling me that I was okay--would have had a negative impact on what I wanted to learn--namely, that I didn't need a book, or a teacher, or a guide to live my life, just to listen to what was real with me.

This is why no self-help book can really work. It can suggest, or give you some tools (and no reason not to read it if you're feeling it, btw), but ultimately, you're good. You do know. And outside voices can easily muddy the waters.

And god isn't really self-help. Or, rather, he's so radically self-help that he lets every single action and consequence stand. In it's naked, stark, glory. He knows what works. And what you're capable of! But is so much more interested in getting people the full 9 yards--to the end zone--that he lets them feel it all, rather than coddling them along three or four yards and watching them fumble, punt or go for the field kick out of fear when he pulls back.

And it's more than this. I don't claim to know the limit or level of god's interaction with us. And I now suspect it's on a profoundly deeper and much more constant and much more constantly positive level than this (and have amassed significant personal proof), but this was the answer I needed at the time. And it allowed me to see the love in empty space. In not having squat. In having had a gift taken away. Because before I could only see the love in things. In having things--more things. In presence. In other people. In words and ideas. The silence scared me spitless--but was essential in me letting myself come forward. Even though that was the last thing I "wanted" at the time. It was also the only thing I have ever truly cared about in my life. And the easiest thing in the world to avoid with all the access to information and entertainment that I had. Or even more significantly, because those are only external mirrors--with all the drama and noise I insisted on creating and holding tightly inside of myself.

I also started to realize why we so undervalued love in our society. How the hell could we measure and pay for leavng each other alone? Who would pay more for better spaces between the beats? It seems so blatant now that people with money would pay for tv programming or a magazine with no (or just very specific--their choice) ads, but we can't even see a movie in a theatre without 15 minutes of ads and trailers before it. We have control over everything EXCEPT the most inane, crass and stupid aspects of our culture. To have a more loving economy in full bloom, we'll have to be much more confident and much less needy. (Why is it harder to turn off the radio and put on a CD than visa versa? Because you're going off the grid--entering solitude--leaving the land where someone could--but probably won't--surprise you with something new and wonderful and entering the land where you'll have to do it yourself.)

We'll need to be sure of what we want and take full responsiblity for seeking it out and bringing it into being. (And have faith that we are able). I'm not saying that we do this by ourselves, or even as individuals, or without god's help, but for everything created and consumed there must be an authority--someone responsible. This goes for feelings, artwork, junk mail, goods and services, trash, byproducts, solitude, and ideas. We can say god willed it, or inspired me, but we have to take ultimate responsibility as his actors/interpretors here on earth. Programmers can't hide behind audiences or shareholders. But neither can consumers hide behind what's inexpensive or available!

I'm wandering a bit, a sure sign it's time for lunch--but I still take full responsibility for everything I say. : )

My final point is that the lengthy solitude, and lengthy financial distress that it takes to learn such things is most likely just a transitional phase. There is no reason that young people can't grow up with being themself as a value and skill and there's no reason why these hard-won ideas (like not being afraid what something you truly desire costs) can't become commonplace--so commonplace that you wouldn't need to go anywhere to find them. And so commonplace that parents pass them down as values to children and society financially rewards them. (Wait, then people would joyfully pursue them as vocations--gasp!)

Bigger picture, what this means, I believe, is that we'll be in relationships that more accurately mirror the long-term state of love (and faith and financial security and spiritual health). I didn't set out once to be alone for a minute, but I'm happy to be so as long as it bears significant fruit. One of the reasons I've done what I've done is so that my partner and children will never see some of the things that I've seen. They may certainly have other things of their own to see, and I hope to share the beauty I've seen with them, but if it's in my power to turn malaria and polio into grassy fields and parks, then I really don't care what it costs. These relationships may feel a little wierd, or be a little frightening to get into compared to what we're used to, but they should reap unbelieveable benifits both individualy and socially.

(These are my next questions--to what degree does physical attraction lead us to love? Does our physical attraction change as we mature spiritually? Can we realy have everything we want? I've been staring at these suckers so long I can't even remember. Probably since high school. Make that 6th grade. Lots of good stuff left to learn!)

I'm off to Vietnamese food. Tank on Broadway. Number 10 I believe. If they call me on Tuesday (even to let me know I was in the running) I'll post a full report!!!!!! :)