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 nekaj leti sem bila na letališču JFK, pripravljena za vkrcanje, ko sta k meni pristopili dve ženski, ki, mislim, ne bi bili užaljeni, če bi slišali, da ju opisujem kot majceni stari predrzni italijansko-ameriški babnici.
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?"
Višja med njima, nekje do tule mi je bila, primaršira k meni in mi reče: "Ljubica, nekaj te moram vprašati. Ti imaš nekaj opraviti s tisto Jej, moli, ljubi stvarjo, ki se dogaja zadnje čase?
And I said, "Yes, I did."
In rekla sem: "Ja, imam."
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)
Ona pa udari svojo prijateljico in gre: "Vidiš, sem ti rekla, to je tista punca. To je tista punca, ki je napisala knjigo, ki temelji na tistem filmu." (smeh)
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.
To sem torej jaz. In verjemite, izredno sem hvaležna, da sem ta oseba, ker je bila vsa ta Jej, moli, ljubi stvar zame velik preboj. Me je pa tudi pustila v res kočljivem položaju, ko sem kot pisateljica šla naprej, ugotavljala, kako za božjo voljo bom še kdaj napisala knjigo, ki bo kogar koli navdušila, ker sem že vnaprej vedela, da bodo vsi tisti, ki so oboževali Jej, moli, ljubi, izjemno razočarani, pa naj napišem kar koli, ker pač to ne bo Jej, moli, ljubi. Vsi tisti, ki so sovražili knjigo Jej, moli, ljubi, bodo prav tako razočarani, pa naj napišem kar koli, ker jim bo to ponudilo dokaz, da sem še vedno živa. Torej sem vedela, da ne morem zmagati, in ker sem vedela, da ne morem zmagati, sem za trenutek resno razmišljala, da bi preprosto zapustila igro in se preselila na podeželje in redila korgije. Če bi to storila, se odrekla pisanju, bi izgubila svoj ljubi poklic, zato sem vedela, da je moja naloga, da najdem nek način, da zberem navdih za pisanje naslednje knjige, ne glede na njen neizbežno negativni izid. Morala sem torej zagotoviti, da bo moja kreativnost preživela svoj lasten uspeh. In na koncu sem našla ta navdih, in to na najbolj neverjetnem in nepričakovanem mestu. Našla sem ga v lekcijah, ki sem se jih naučila prej v življenju, o tem, kako lahko kreativnost preživi svoj lastni neuspeh.
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."
Naj se vrnem in razložim: edina stvar, ki sem si jo kdaj koli želela biti je bila biti pisateljica. Pisala skozi vse otroštvo, skozi vso adolescenco, ko sem bila najstnica, sem pošiljala svoje zelo slabe zgodbe New Yorkerju, da bi me bo odkrili. Po univerzi sem se zaposlila kot natakarica delala sem in pisala, močno sem se trudila, da bi me objavili, in nisem uspela. Ni mi uspelo ničesar objaviti skoraj šest let. Skoraj šest let sem vsak dan dobivala samo pisma zavrnitve, ki so me čakala v nabiralniku. In vsakič je bilo uničujoče in vsakič sem se morala vprašati, če bi kar prenehala, ko še lahko, in se predala in si prihranila to bolečino. Potem pa sem našla svojo odločnost in to vedno na isti način: rekla sem si - ne bom se predala, domov grem.
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.
Razumite, da zame iti domov ni pomenilo, vrniti se na kmetijo moje družine. Zame iti domov pomeni vrniti se k pisanju, ker je pisanje moj dom, ker ljubim pisanje bolj kot sovražim neuspeh pisanja. Pisanje sem ljubila bolj kot svoj ego, kar v bistvu pomeni, da sem pisanje ljubila bolj kot samo sebe. In tako se mi je uspelo prebiti.
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?
Čudno je, da sem se 20 let kasneje, v norosti uspeha Jej, moli, ljubi, zalotila, da se spet identificiram s tisto mlado natakarico, ki ji nič ne objavijo, s tem, kdo sem bila, razmišljala sem o njej in se spet počutila kot ona, kar ni imelo nobenega smisla, ker si ne bi mogli biti bolj različni. Ona je nizala neuspehe, jaz pa sem presegla svoja najvišja pričakovanja. Nič skupnega nisva imeli. Zakaj sem se nenadoma počutila kot 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.
In šele kot sem poskušala to razvozlati, sem končno začela razumeti čudno in malo verjetno psihološko povezavo med načinom, kako izkusimo velik neuspeh, in načinom, kako izkusimo velik uspeh. O tem takole razmišljam: večino življenja živiš izven sebe, tu, v sredini verige človeške izkušnje, kjer je vse normalno in pomirjajoče in ustaljeno. Neuspeh pa te grobo katapultira daleč proč tja v zaslepljujočo temo razočaranja. Uspeh te prav tako grobo katapultira prav tako daleč, daleč sem, v enako zaslepljujoči sij slave in priznanja in pohvale. Eno od teh dveh usod svet nepristransko vidi kot slabo, drugo pa svet nepristransko vidi kot dobro. A tvoja podzavest je popolnoma nesposobna razpoznati razliko med slabim in dobrim. Edina stvar, ki jo je sposobna čutiti, je absolutna vrednost te čustvene enačbe, natančna distanca, kako daleč od samega sebe vas je vrglo. V obeh primerih obstaja resnična nevarnost, da se izgubiš v notranjosti psihe.
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.
Obakrat se izkaže, da obstaja tudi isto zdravilo za samoobnovo, in to je, da moraš spet najti pot domov, tako hitro in gladko, kot le lahko. Če te zanima, kaj je tvoj dom, je tule namig: tvoj dom je to, kar na tem svetu ljubiš bolj kot samega sebe. To je lahko kreativnost, lahko je družina, lahko je iznajdljivost, avantura, vera, služba, lahko je vzgajanje korgijev, ne vem, tvoj dom je tista stvar, ki ji lahko posvetiš svoje energije s tako edinstveno predanostjo, da končni rezultati postanejo nepomembni.
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.
Zame je dom vedno bil pisanje. Tako sem se po čudnem, vznemirljivem uspehu, ki sem ga imela z Jej, moli, ljubi, zavedla, da moram storiti isto stvar, ki sem jo počela ves čas, ko sem bila prav tako dezorientirana izguba. Morala sem se spraviti na delo in to sem storila. Tako sem leta 2010 lahko objavila strah zbujajoče nadaljevanje svojega romana. Veste, kaj se je zgodilo s knjigo? Bila je polomija in z mano je bilo vse v redu. Pravzaprav sem se počutila neprebojno, ker sem vedela, da sem prekinila urok in našla svojo pot nazaj domov, k pisanju zaradi samega užitka. In po tem sem ostala v svojem domu pisanja, napisala še eno knjigo, ki je izšla lani, in ta je bila res lepo sprejeta, kar je prijetno, a ne bistveno. Bistveno je, da spet pišem novo in potem bom napisala še eno in še eno in še eno in še eno in mnoge bodo polomije in nekatere bodo morda uspešnice, a vedno bom varna pred nepričakovanimi viharji izida, da le nikoli ne pozabim, kje zares živim.
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)
Glejte, ne vem, kje zares živite vi, vem pa, da je nekaj na tem svetu, kar ljubite bolj kot sami sebe. Nekaj vrednega, mimogrede, odvisnost in zaljubljenost ne štejeta, ker vsi vemo, da ti dve nista varen kraj za življenje, kajne? Edina zvijača je, da morate identificirati najboljšo, najvrednejšo stvar, ki jo ljubite, potem pa zgradite svojo hišo prav na njenem vrhu in se ne premaknite od tam. In če bi bili nekoč nekako pregnani iz svojega doma zaradi velikega neuspeha ali velikega uspeha, je vaša naloga, da si izborite pot nazaj domov na edini možen način, in to je, da sklonite glavo in počnete marljivo in predano, s spoštovanjem in čaščenjem, katero koli stvar že ljubezen naslednjo prikliče. Preprosto storite to in to počnite še in še in še in absolutno vam lahko obljubim iz dolgih osebnih izkušenj v vseh smereh, zagotavljam vam, da bo vse v redu. Hvala. (aplavz)