Leadership

Coupla interesting things I thunk:

1) The difference may be intimacy. With the "mainstream" being perfectly comfortable with physical intimacy, and physical vulnerability--very evident at my gym--and the counterculture being very comfortable with an emotional intimacy and vulnerability--being creative, baring one's soul in small settings, etc.

And feeling like a fish out of water in each other's world--and sometimes disparaging it. The beauties calling the geeks losers and the geeks (the self-proclaimed losers) calling the beauties losers. Because for each group the other is lacking on what they consider a priority.

At my gym today, I realized that people there are making themselves as physically vulnerable as any poets would be doing emotionally at a reading.

But I don't want to decry beauty or emotional truth. Even though each side is relatively certain that the two are mutually incompatable.

They're not. And maybe that's the best way I can describe what White Gold and The Love Artist are about. They want it all. I, we, demand it all. I refuse to be insecure just because I bare my soul and I refuse to be overly proud just because I work out.

Each side has the gaps it has written off as unimportant and each side has things at which it excels and each side has payoffs--and each side has social credentials. Very well negotiated social credentials. And each side is convinced that life is 2-D.

And that having it all is a fairy tale.

But it's not of course. We just haven't gotten there (en masse) yet.

White Gold figures to be the lynchpin. The cornerstone. As this new 3-D culture--both beautiful and honest goes worldwide in a few short years. And for the first time we'll have a culture that is both aspirational and inspirational.

And, forget all that money hoopla, we'll get to be--ourselves--both emotionally straight--present--and physically straight--healthy and stand up: happy.

Oh yeah, and it'll pay at a rate that makes everything 2-D look like the low energy work it is. Cause if you think you're life is currently hard (or easy), peep this: even Tiger Woods feels harried! Even Oprah and Martha have an inner workaholic.

And none other than The Rolling Stones have to tour incessantly--at 65(?)--to maintain their lifestyles and continue to grow financially as artists.

Makes me tired just thinking about it.

[BTW, if you think that the norms go by appearances--what looks good--and the freaks go by emotions--what feels good--then you probably haven't really seen or felt the true "winners" yet. If my choices are Jack Welch tight or Keith Richards loose--and I'm not just talking about the skin on their faces here--please mark my ballot "any other way at all"!]

2) I can see now why I haven't gotten to the next level yet. I'm was considering a few compromises. Still thinking that it was THEM that I'd need to put my undiscovered ass on. I should have listened to my friend TG last year when he asked why I thought I needed thems.

The truth of the matter is, that even if I allow Random House's name on the inside title page as a distributor, it will devalue my book. Make it just another homoginized THANG. Like a really good Griffin & Sabine. No, no no no no.

NO! Eben, stop trying to please people. And please yourself.

It's not that you haven't compromised enough, but that you haven't yet become uncompromising enough to last on their turf. Because if I know you, you'll at least take their meetings. And their meme, their doubt, their sickness is thick.

And so deep it has nothing to do with intentions. Or even being nice. Or likely even kind. They just aren't there. God bless them.

Better just to pay them an extra dollar to distribute it silently. Or just distribute it myself. It's not like I don't have people who run multinationals. It's not like I don't have lawyers who are already negotiating huge whatevers. Techs who are already building multi-million hit web pages.

The back end is simple these days. Just outsource and manage it.

What no one's got is content. Fresh, lovely, real, shining, overfloweth content. Which is why they have to continually reassure us that what we're buying is "authentic". (Now that's a 7 year old comment).

Actually now they skip the "authentic" label unless they're middlin'--the smarter ones assure us they're ironic and sarcastic, which is supposed to connote that they "get it" or actually have a heart of gold and have been wronged by this cruel world just like us.

This would be all but the most stand up "creative" bands. Freudian slip--I mean brands.

HA!

Re-do your math. The world ain't cruel unless you demand it so.

And whether you live in the material/financial world or the cultural/spiritual world--that, my friend is a flawed business plan. (If you cheerfully inhabit both, please let me know! --Let's get some money!)

3) Saw an article about supermarkets in India worrying folks about all the "wonderful" small shops. Lord help me if I even think about glorifying the chaos that passes for India's system of manufacturing and distribution.

I'm all for local and private and personal ownership. And all for organized labor and decentralization. And absolutely love ideosynchra-see. But to have 40% spoilage of perishable goods in a country where people routinely go to bed hungry--and where you can see the ribs on even dogs with owners--seems to me more of a crime than development.

I guess management would be the physically vulnerable lot that I work out with. Great business folks. And can keep their cool in a meeting, during a strike, or in the Super Bowl.

And being from that myself, I always thought I wanted less of it as well. But to scrap what we have learned, what WE ARE here in the West seems to me such a teenage answer. (And one that can only be delivered while in some way shape or form living at home?) And it seems to me to get us little more, at it's apex, then punk rockers killing themselves off--after having succeeded--and Charles Manson.

But, as we know, there's no reason not to use just as much structure--just as much heirarchy and management as you'd like. And leave the rest open for actual true fun. Because having parents that are more like friends doesn't really leave one able to have any fun.

Even though no one ever says no.

------

A bit reaching at points, but that's where I am today. Oh--the second part of the India thing--we must not be afraid when the economy signs the hit on our jobs. We must not face the increased pass rush with a single quiver of trepidation.

For the lord giveth and the lord taketh away. And Spring growth requires FIRST winter's death. So we'll be even alive enough to feel the warm sun-lit moss under our feet. NOT because we've been bad and are subject to 4 months of chilly house arrest.

Because we grew so much last year that we started to get ahead of ourselves--thought we'd just pack it in a live in the future--when we have that even bigger house. When the sex is even juicier. Our TV bigger and movies twenty times better. And able to afford eating out every night.

Even though we want and like to cook.

So, unless we are absolutely sure that we are here to be a shop owner, a middle manager, a factory worker, a frustrated graphic designer--whatever it is exactly that you are--then we must not flinch when it all comes crashing down around us.

We might even enjoy it if that doesn't get too masochistic--too kinky.

For growth--LOVE--is on the way. Being delivered ahead of schedule. I mean right on time. But before we think or expect. --Without the work we dread is necessary. Success is near. What we really, really want replacing what we really wanted.

Happens every year, and every decade. And every century. And every millenium. You can figure where we are right now.

And our job is just to say thank you. And be who we want.

Cause in five minutes we'll largely be highly skilled, autonomous, creative and intelligent AND RELAXED members of the world's economy. Third millenium folks. Third dimension folks. Leaders even, though our jobs will be more inspirational (3-D) than motivational (2-D) and so will not have much of the overt "control" that current leadership relies upon.

How do I know this? I watched the Super Bowl. And two loving spiritual, upright men coached like warriors and accepted the outcome like angels. In the most violent sport we have--they have risen to the top of the game--despite ALL odds (and that's a big all)--to inspire the least reachable, most physically-minded, most competitive men in the US. As determined by brute force.

So I know it's coming like gangbusters to business. And will make the last 2000 years of history look like little more than a "gentlemen start your engines!".

But we've got to let it happen.

Which requires what?

Making what you want and buying what you want.

Knowing that it's inevitable.

Even when you don't believe.

That it's possible.

That's the definition of leadership.

Anyone can believe when it looks possible.

That's why that's not called leadership.