So, a few years ago I was at JFK Airport about to get on a flight, when I was approached by two women who I do not think would be insulted to hear themselves described as tiny old tough-talking Italian-American broads.
Pred pár rokmi som bola na letisku Johna F. Kennedyho a chystala som sa nastúpiť do lietadla, keď ma oslovili dve ženy, ktoré by sa určite neurazili, ak by som ich opísala ako drobné staré hrubo hovoriace taliansko-americké ženské.
The taller one, who is like up here, she comes marching up to me, and she goes, "Honey, I gotta ask you something. You got something to do with that whole 'Eat, Pray, Love' thing that's been going on lately?"
Tá vyššia, asi potiaľto, pochoduje ku mne a začne, „Zlato, musím sa ťa niečo spýtať, máš niečo dočinenia s tou celou vecou ‚Jedz, modli sa, miluj‘, o ktorej sa teraz hovorí?"
And I said, "Yes, I did."
A ja som povedala, „Áno, mám.“
And she smacks her friend and she goes, "See, I told you, I said, that's that girl. That's that girl who wrote that book based on that movie." (Laughter)
A ona pleskne svoju kamarátku a hovorí, „Vidíš, hovorila som ti, že je to to dievča. To je to dievča, čo napísalo tú knihu podľa toho filmu." (Smiech)
So that's who I am. And believe me, I'm extremely grateful to be that person, because that whole "Eat, Pray, Love" thing was a huge break for me. But it also left me in a really tricky position moving forward as an author trying to figure out how in the world I was ever going to write a book again that would ever please anybody, because I knew well in advance that all of those people who had adored "Eat, Pray, Love" were going to be incredibly disappointed in whatever I wrote next because it wasn't going to be "Eat, Pray, Love," and all of those people who had hated "Eat, Pray, Love" were going to be incredibly disappointed in whatever I wrote next because it would provide evidence that I still lived. So I knew that I had no way to win, and knowing that I had no way to win made me seriously consider for a while just quitting the game and moving to the country to raise corgis. But if I had done that, if I had given up writing, I would have lost my beloved vocation, so I knew that the task was that I had to find some way to gin up the inspiration to write the next book regardless of its inevitable negative outcome. In other words, I had to find a way to make sure that my creativity survived its own success. And I did, in the end, find that inspiration, but I found it in the most unlikely and unexpected place. I found it in lessons that I had learned earlier in life about how creativity can survive its own failure.
Takže to som ja. A verte mi, som veľmi vďačná, že som tou osobou, lebo celá tá vec „Jedz, modli sa, miluj“ bola pre mňa prelomová. Ale taktiež som ostala v ťažkej pozícií, ako sa ďalej autorsky posunúť, prísť na to, ako dopekla znova napíšem knihu, ktorá by niekoho uspokojila, pretože som už dopredu dobre vedela, že všetci tí, čo milovali „Jedz, modli sa, miluj“, budú neskutočne sklamaní zo všetkého, čo napíšem neskôr, pretože to už nebude „Jedz, modli sa, miluj“ a všetci tí, čo nenávideli „Jedz, modli sa, miluj“, budú neskutočne sklamaní zo všetkého, čo napíšem, pretože by to bol dôkaz, že stále žijem. Takže som vedela, že nemôžem vyhrať a toto poznanie ma donútilo na chvíľu sa zamyslieť, či nemám skončiť a presťahovať sa na vidiek, kde by som chovala psy. Ale ak by som sa vzdala písania, prišla by som o moje milované povolanie, takže som vedela, že mojou úlohou je nájsť spôsob, ako získať inšpiráciu, aby som napísala knihu bez ohľadu na nevyhnutný negatívny výsledok. Skrátka, musela som nájsť spôsob, ako moja kreativita prežije vlastný úspech. A nakoniec som našla tú inšpiráciu, ale na tom najnepravdepodobnejšom a celkom nečakanom mieste. Našla som ju v ponaučeniach, ktoré som sa naučila v živote, o tom, ako kreativita môže prežiť svoj vlastný neúspech.
So just to back up and explain, the only thing I have ever wanted to be for my whole life was a writer. I wrote all through childhood, all through adolescence, by the time I was a teenager I was sending my very bad stories to The New Yorker, hoping to be discovered. After college, I got a job as a diner waitress, kept working, kept writing, kept trying really hard to get published, and failing at it. I failed at getting published for almost six years. So for almost six years, every single day, I had nothing but rejection letters waiting for me in my mailbox. And it was devastating every single time, and every single time, I had to ask myself if I should just quit while I was behind and give up and spare myself this pain. But then I would find my resolve, and always in the same way, by saying, "I'm not going to quit, I'm going home."
Trochu sa pristavím a vysvetlím, že som v živote chcela byť jedine spisovateľkou. Písala som počas detstva, počas dospievania, už ako tínedžerka som posielala moje veľmi zlé poviedky do The New Yorker-a dúfajúc, že budem objavená. Po vysokej som pracovala ako čašníčka v bistre, stále som pracovala, stále som písala, stále som sa snažila o publikovanie mojich prác a nedarilo sa mi to. Zlyhávala som v publikovaní takmer 6 rokov. Takmer 6 rokov, každý jeden deň, som dostávala samé odmietnutia, ktoré na mňa čakali v schránke. A vždy to bolo zdrvujúce, každý raz som sa samej seba pýtala, či mám skončiť, pokiaľ sa mi nedarí a či sa mám vzdať a ušetriť sa tejto bolesti. Ale potom som našla riešenie, a to vždy rovnaké, tak, že som si povedala: "Neskončím, idem domov."
And you have to understand that for me, going home did not mean returning to my family's farm. For me, going home meant returning to the work of writing because writing was my home, because I loved writing more than I hated failing at writing, which is to say that I loved writing more than I loved my own ego, which is ultimately to say that I loved writing more than I loved myself. And that's how I pushed through it.
A musíte pochopiť, že pre mňa odchod domov neznamenal návrat na rodinnú farmu. Pre mňa odchod domov znamenal návrat k písaniu, lebo písanie bolo mojím domovom, pretože som ho milovala viac ako som nenávidela zlyhávanie v ňom. Skrátka, písanie som mala radšej ako svoje vlastné ego, čo v podstate znamená, že som milovala písanie viac, ako samú seba. A takto som sa cez to dostala.
But the weird thing is that 20 years later, during the crazy ride of "Eat, Pray, Love," I found myself identifying all over again with that unpublished young diner waitress who I used to be, thinking about her constantly, and feeling like I was her again, which made no rational sense whatsoever because our lives could not have been more different. She had failed constantly. I had succeeded beyond my wildest expectation. We had nothing in common. Why did I suddenly feel like I was her all over again?
Ale divné je, že o 20 rokov neskôr, počas bláznivej jazdy „Jedz, modli sa, miluj“, som sa začala znova stotožňovať s tou nepublikovanou mladou čašníčkou z bistra, ktorou som bola, neustále som nad ňou premýšľala, a cítila som, že som ňou opäť, čo nedávalo absolútne žiaden zmysel, lebo naše životy nemohli byť odlišnejšie. Ona bola vždy neúspešná. Môj úspech predčil aj tie najväčšie očakávania. Nič sme nemali spoločné. Prečo som sa zrazu znova cítila ako ona?
And it was only when I was trying to unthread that that I finally began to comprehend the strange and unlikely psychological connection in our lives between the way we experience great failure and the way we experience great success. So think of it like this: For most of your life, you live out your existence here in the middle of the chain of human experience where everything is normal and reassuring and regular, but failure catapults you abruptly way out over here into the blinding darkness of disappointment. Success catapults you just as abruptly but just as far way out over here into the equally blinding glare of fame and recognition and praise. And one of these fates is objectively seen by the world as bad, and the other one is objectively seen by the world as good, but your subconscious is completely incapable of discerning the difference between bad and good. The only thing that it is capable of feeling is the absolute value of this emotional equation, the exact distance that you have been flung from yourself. And there's a real equal danger in both cases of getting lost out there in the hinterlands of the psyche.
A až keď som sa to snažila vyriešiť, začala som konečne chápať zvláštne a nepravdepodobné spojenie v našich životoch medzi tým, ako prežívame obrovské sklamanie a ako prežívame obrovský úspech. Premýšľajte nad tým takto: Väčšinu vášho života len prežívate tu v strede reťazca ľudských skúseností, kde je všetko normálne, upokojujúce a bežné, ale zlyhanie vás odrazu katapultuje preč z tohto miesta do oslepujúcej temnoty sklamania. Úspech vás katapultuje rovnako nečakane, ale ďaleko, preč odtiaľto do rovnako oslepujúcej žiary, avšak slávy, uznania a chvály. A jeden z týchto osudov svet objektívne berie ako zlý, druhý objektívne berie ako dobrý, no vaše podvedomie je úplne neschopné rozlišovať medzi dobrým a zlým osudom. Jediné, čo dokáže, je cítiť absolútnu hodnotu tejto emocionálnej rovnice, presnú vzdialenosť, ktorú ste hodili od seba. A v oboch prípadoch je rovnaké riziko zablúdenia v hĺbke duše.
But in both cases, it turns out that there is also the same remedy for self-restoration, and that is that you have got to find your way back home again as swiftly and smoothly as you can, and if you're wondering what your home is, here's a hint: Your home is whatever in this world you love more than you love yourself. So that might be creativity, it might be family, it might be invention, adventure, faith, service, it might be raising corgis, I don't know, your home is that thing to which you can dedicate your energies with such singular devotion that the ultimate results become inconsequential.
Ale v oboch prípadoch sa ukáže, že je rovnaký liek na sebazotavenie, a to taký, že musíte nájsť cestu naspäť domov tak rýchlo a hladko, ako len môžete. A ak sa pýtate, čo je váš domov, tu je pomôcka: Vaším domovom je hocičo na svete, čo milujete viac, ako milujete samých seba. Takže to môže byť kreativita, rodina, vynaliezavosť, dobrodružstvo, viera, služba, môže to byť chovanie psov. Neviem, vaším domovom je tá vec, ktorej venujete svoju energiu takou jedinečnou oddanosťou, že konečné výsledky sú bezvýznamné.
For me, that home has always been writing. So after the weird, disorienting success that I went through with "Eat, Pray, Love," I realized that all I had to do was exactly the same thing that I used to have to do all the time when I was an equally disoriented failure. I had to get my ass back to work, and that's what I did, and that's how, in 2010, I was able to publish the dreaded follow-up to "Eat, Pray, Love." And you know what happened with that book? It bombed, and I was fine. Actually, I kind of felt bulletproof, because I knew that I had broken the spell and I had found my way back home to writing for the sheer devotion of it. And I stayed in my home of writing after that, and I wrote another book that just came out last year and that one was really beautifully received, which is very nice, but not my point. My point is that I'm writing another one now, and I'll write another book after that and another and another and another and many of them will fail, and some of them might succeed, but I will always be safe from the random hurricanes of outcome as long as I never forget where I rightfully live.
Pre mňa bolo tým domovom vždy písanie. Takže po divnom a mätúcom úspechu, ktorým som prešla vďaka „Jedz, modli sa, miluj“, som zistila, že musím spraviť to, čo som robievala vždy, keď som bola zmäteným neúspešným človekom. Musela som sa dotlačiť späť do práce a to je to, čo som aj spravila, a tak som v roku 2010 dokázala vydať obávanú následníčku predošlej knihy. Viete, čo sa s tou knihou stalo? Bola prepadák, ale ja som bola v poriadku. Vlastne som sa cítila nepriestrelná, pretože som vedela, že som prekonala prekliatie a našla som cestu späť domov, k písaniu z čistej oddanosti. Po jej napísaní som zostala v mojom domove a minulý rok som vydala ďalšiu knihu, ktorá bola naozaj skvelo prijatá, čo je pekné, ale nie podstata. Podstatou je, že práve píšem ďalšiu a po nej napíšem ďalšiu a ďalšiu, a ďalšiu, a ďalšiu. Veľa z nich zlyhá, niektoré možno uspejú, ale vždy budem v bezpečí pred náhodnými smršťami výsledkov, pokiaľ nikdy nezabudnem, kde oprávnene žijem.
Look, I don't know where you rightfully live, but I know that there's something in this world that you love more than you love yourself. Something worthy, by the way, so addiction and infatuation don't count, because we all know that those are not safe places to live. Right? The only trick is that you've got to identify the best, worthiest thing that you love most, and then build your house right on top of it and don't budge from it. And if you should someday, somehow get vaulted out of your home by either great failure or great success, then your job is to fight your way back to that home the only way that it has ever been done, by putting your head down and performing with diligence and devotion and respect and reverence whatever the task is that love is calling forth from you next. You just do that, and keep doing that again and again and again, and I can absolutely promise you, from long personal experience in every direction, I can assure you that it's all going to be okay. Thank you. (Applause)
Pozrite, neviem, kde vy oprávnene žijete, ale viem, že vo svete je niečo, čo máte radšej, ako samých seba. Niečo, čo naozaj stojí za to, takže závislosť a zaslepenosť sa nerátajú, pretože všetci vieme, že tie nie sú bezpečným miestom pre život. Však? Jedinou fintou je, že musíte rozpoznať najlepšiu, najcennejšiu vec, ktorú najviac milujete a potom na nej postavte základy a nepohnite sa odtiaľ. A ak sa niekedy nejako vzdialite od svojho domova kvôli veľkému sklamaniu alebo veľkému úspechu, vašou úlohou je prebojovať sa naspäť domov jediným spôsobom, akým to kedy išlo, a to tak, že sa zastavíte a začnete pracovať usilovne a oddane, s rešpektom a úctou, bez ohľadu na danú úlohu tak, aby vás láska poháňala dopredu. Proste robte len to a pokračujte v tom ďalej a ďalej, a ďalej a ja vám môžem sľúbiť, z mnohých vlastných skúseností v každom smere, môžem vás uistiť, že všetko bude v poriadku. Ďakujem. (Potlesk)