Jeg er forfatter At skrive bøger er mit job, men det er selvfølgelig mere end det. Det er også min livslange kærlighed og fascination Og jeg tror ikke det nogensinde vil ændre sig. Men når det er sagt, så skete der for nylig noget interessant i mit liv og min karriere, som har fået mig til at gentænke mit forhold til det her arbejde. Og den interessante ting er at jeg for nylig skrev denne bog, disse memoirer ved navn "Eat, Pray, Love" (Spis, Bed, Elsk) som, meget ulig alle mine tidligere bøger, gik verden rundt, og blev en mega-sensation og bestseller. Resultatet af det er at hvor end jeg nu går hen så behandler folk mig som om jeg er fortabt. Seriøst -- fortabt, fortabt! Det er som at de nu bekymret kommet til mig og siger, "Er du ikke bange, bange for at du aldrig kan overgå den" Er du ikke bange for at fortsætte med at skrive hele livet og aldrig mere vil skabe en bog som nogen som helst i hele verden vil interessere sig for overhovedet nogensinde igen?
I am a writer. Writing books is my profession but it's more than that, of course. It is also my great lifelong love and fascination. And I don't expect that that's ever going to change. But, that said, something kind of peculiar has happened recently in my life and in my career, which has caused me to have to recalibrate my whole relationship with this work. And the peculiar thing is that I recently wrote this book, this memoir called "Eat, Pray, Love" which, decidedly unlike any of my previous books, went out in the world for some reason, and became this big, mega-sensation, international bestseller thing. The result of which is that everywhere I go now, people treat me like I'm doomed. Seriously -- doomed, doomed! Like, they come up to me now, all worried, and they say, "Aren't you afraid you're never going to be able to top that? Aren't you afraid you're going to keep writing for your whole life and you're never again going to create a book that anybody in the world cares about at all, ever again?"
Beroligende, ikke sandt? Jeg husker faktisk at for over 20 år siden, da jeg i mine teenageår begyndte at fortælle folk at jeg ville være forfatter, blev jeg mødt med denne her form for frygt-baserede reaktion. Folk ville spørge, "Er du ikke bange for at du aldrig får succes? Er du ikke bange for at afvisningens ydmygelse vil slå dig ihjel? Er du ikke bange for at du vil arbejde hele dit liv med dette håndværk and der aldrig nogensinde kommer noget ud af det og du vil dø i en skrotbunke af bristede drømme med din mund fyldt af fiaskoens bitre aske?" (Latter) I kender det.
So that's reassuring, you know. But it would be worse, except for that I happen to remember that over 20 years ago, when I was a teenager, when I first started telling people that I wanted to be a writer, I was met with this same sort of fear-based reaction. And people would say, "Aren't you afraid you're never going to have any success? Aren't you afraid the humiliation of rejection will kill you? Aren't you afraid that you're going to work your whole life at this craft and nothing's ever going to come of it and you're going to die on a scrap heap of broken dreams with your mouth filled with bitter ash of failure?" (Laughter) Like that, you know.
Svaret - det korte svar på alle de spørgsmål er: "Ja." Ja, jeg er bange for alle disse ting. Og har altid været det. Og jeg er bange for mange mange andre ting som folk end ikke kan gætte. Såsom tang og andre skræmmende ting. Men når det kommer til at skrive så er dét jeg har tænkt og undret mig over på det seneste: hvorfor? Er det rationelt? Er det logisk at forvente af nogen at de skal være bange for det arbejde, som de føler, de er sat her på jorden for at gøre. Hvad er det specielt med kreative forehavender der tilsyneladende gør os virkeligt nervøse for hinandens mentale helbred på en måde som andre karrierer ikke rigtig gør. For eksempel, min far var kemiingeniør og jeg husker ikke en eneste gange i hans 40 år som kemiingeniør nogen der spurgte ham, om han var bange for at være kemiingeniør. Ingen spurgte "Den kemiingeniør-blokering John - hvordan går det?" Det blev bare ikke sagt på den måde. Men for at være fair, så har kemiingeniører som gruppe ikke gennem århundreder gjort sig rigtig fortjent til et ry som alkoholiske maniodepressive. (Latter)
The answer -- the short answer to all those questions is, "Yes." Yes, I'm afraid of all those things. And I always have been. And I'm afraid of many, many more things besides that people can't even guess at, like seaweed and other things that are scary. But, when it comes to writing, the thing that I've been sort of thinking about lately, and wondering about lately, is why? You know, is it rational? Is it logical that anybody should be expected to be afraid of the work that they feel they were put on this Earth to do. And what is it specifically about creative ventures that seems to make us really nervous about each other's mental health in a way that other careers kind of don't do, you know? Like my dad, for example, was a chemical engineer and I don't recall once in his 40 years of chemical engineering anybody asking him if he was afraid to be a chemical engineer, you know? "That chemical-engineering block, John, how's it going?" It just didn't come up like that, you know? But to be fair, chemical engineers as a group haven't really earned a reputation over the centuries for being alcoholic manic-depressives. (Laughter)
Vi forfattere, vi har på en måde det ry, og ikke bare forfattere, men kreative mennesker fra alle genrer, har tilsyneladende et ry for at være enormt mentalt ustabile. Man skal bare tage et kig på de barske dødstal, i det 20. århundrede alene blandt virkeligt fabelagtigt kreative sind som døde unge og for egen hånd. Og selv de som ikke direkte begik selvmord virker som om at de bliver spoleret af deres talenter. Norman Mailer sagde, umiddelbart før sin død, i det sidste interview: "Hver enkelt af mine bøger, har dræbt mig lidt mere." Et ekstraordinært udsagn omkring ens livsværk. Men vi blinker ikke engang, når vi hører nogen sige dette fordi vi har hørt den slags så længe og på en eller anden måde har vi kollektive internaliseret og accepteret denne opfattelse af at kreativitet og lidelse er tæt forbundet og at kunstfærdighed, ultimativt fører til lede.
We writers, we kind of do have that reputation, and not just writers, but creative people across all genres, it seems, have this reputation for being enormously mentally unstable. And all you have to do is look at the very grim death count in the 20th century alone, of really magnificent creative minds who died young and often at their own hands, you know? And even the ones who didn't literally commit suicide seem to be really undone by their gifts, you know. Norman Mailer, just before he died, last interview, he said, "Every one of my books has killed me a little more." An extraordinary statement to make about your life's work. But we don't even blink when we hear somebody say this, because we've heard that kind of stuff for so long and somehow we've completely internalized and accepted collectively this notion that creativity and suffering are somehow inherently linked and that artistry, in the end, will always ultimately lead to anguish.
Spørgsmålet jeg vil stille alle her i dag er: "Accepterer I alle denne idé?" Har I det fint med at -- fordi I betragter det på en centimeters afstand og – Jeg har det på ingen måde godt med den antagelse. Jeg synes den er odiøs. Og jeg synes også den er farlig og jeg har ikke løst til at se den gentaget ind i det næste århundrede. Jeg synes det er bedre, hvis vi opmuntrer vores store kreative sind til at leve.
And the question that I want to ask everybody here today is are you guys all cool with that idea? Are you comfortable with that? Because you look at it even from an inch away and, you know -- I'm not at all comfortable with that assumption. I think it's odious. And I also think it's dangerous, and I don't want to see it perpetuated into the next century. I think it's better if we encourage our great creative minds to live.
Og jeg ved helt sikkert, i mit tilfælde, i min situation vil det være meget farligt for mig at nærme mig den mørke sti af antagelser, især givet omstændigheden jeg befinder mig i, i min karriere lige nu. Som er -- hør her: Jeg er forholdsvis ung, jeg er kun omkring 40 år gammel. Jeg har måske stadig 4 årtiers arbejde tilbage i mig. Og det er meget sandsynligt at alt hvad jeg skriver fra nu af vil blive bedømt af verdenen, som arbejdet der kom efter min forrige bogs umådelige succes. Jeg vil sige det direkte, nu vi alle er blevet venner -- Det er ret sandsynligt at min største succes ligger bag mig. Åh, Jesus, hvilken tanke! Det er den slags tanker der kan få en person til at drikke gin klokken 9 om morgenen og det har jeg ikke lyst til. (Latter) Jeg vil foretrække at fortsætte med det arbejder som jeg elsker.
And I definitely know that, in my case -- in my situation -- it would be very dangerous for me to start sort of leaking down that dark path of assumption, particularly given the circumstance that I'm in right now in my career. Which is -- you know, like check it out, I'm pretty young, I'm only about 40 years old. I still have maybe another four decades of work left in me. And it's exceedingly likely that anything I write from this point forward is going to be judged by the world as the work that came after the freakish success of my last book, right? I should just put it bluntly, because we're all sort of friends here now -- it's exceedingly likely that my greatest success is behind me. So Jesus, what a thought! That's the kind of thought that could lead a person to start drinking gin at nine o'clock in the morning, and I don't want to go there. (Laughter) I would prefer to keep doing this work that I love.
Og spørgsmålet bliver så: hvordan? Det virker på mig som om, efter megen refleksion, at måden jeg skal arbejde på nu, for at fortsætte med at skrive, er at jeg må skabe en slags beskyttende psykologisk konstruktion. Jeg bliver nødt til på en måde at finde en sikkerhedsafstand mellem mig når jeg skriver og min meget naturlige angst omkring hvad reaktionen på mine skriverier bliver. Det sidste år har jeg kigget på modeller for hvordan det kan gøres. Jeg har skuet over tid og prøvet at finde andre samfund for at se om de måske havde bedre og mere sunde idéer end vi har om hvordan man hjælper kreative folk med at håndtere kreativitetens arvelige følelsesmæssige risici.
And so, the question becomes, how? And so, it seems to me, upon a lot of reflection, that the way that I have to work now, in order to continue writing, is that I have to create some sort of protective psychological construct, right? I have to sort of find some way to have a safe distance between me, as I am writing, and my very natural anxiety about what the reaction to that writing is going to be, from now on. And, as I've been looking, over the last year, for models for how to do that, I've been sort of looking across time, and I've been trying to find other societies to see if they might have had better and saner ideas than we have about how to help creative people sort of manage the inherent emotional risks of creativity.
Og den søgen har før mig til antikkens Grækenland og antikkens Rom Så lyt efter, for jeg skal nok få sløjfe på historien. Men i Antikkens Grækenland og Antikkens Rom var det sådan, at folk ikke troede at kreativitet kom fra menneskene. Folk troede at kreativitet was den guddommelige ledsagende ånd som kom til mennesker fra en fjern og ukendt kilde, af fjerne og ukendte grunde. Grækerne kaldte disse guddommelige ledsagende ånder for "dæmoner". Sokrates mente han havde en dæmon som gav ham visdom. Romerne havde den samme forestilling, men de kaldte den slags kreative ånd for et geni. Hvilket er godt, for romerne mente faktisk ikke at et geni var et specielt klogt individ. De troede, at et geni var en slags magisk guddommelig enhed, som boede i væggene i en kunstners bolig, lige som husalfen Dobby, og som ville komme ud og usynligt assistere kunstneren i sit arbejde og hjælpe med at forme resultatet af arbejdet.
And that search has led me to ancient Greece and ancient Rome. So stay with me, because it does circle around and back. But, ancient Greece and ancient Rome -- people did not happen to believe that creativity came from human beings back then, OK? People believed that creativity was this divine attendant spirit that came to human beings from some distant and unknowable source, for distant and unknowable reasons. The Greeks famously called these divine attendant spirits of creativity "daemons." Socrates, famously, believed that he had a daemon who spoke wisdom to him from afar. The Romans had the same idea, but they called that sort of disembodied creative spirit a genius. Which is great, because the Romans did not actually think that a genius was a particularly clever individual. They believed that a genius was this, sort of magical divine entity, who was believed to literally live in the walls of an artist's studio, kind of like Dobby the house elf, and who would come out and sort of invisibly assist the artist with their work and would shape the outcome of that work.
Så brilliant -- der er dén, den distance jeg talte om -- den psykologiske konstruktion der hjælper en med at at beskytte sig mod resultaterne af sit arbejde. Og alle vidste at det var sådan det fungerede. Så antikkens kunstnere var beskyttet mod visse ting, for eksempel for meget narcissisme. Hvis dit arbejde var smukt, kunne du ikke tage al æren for det, alle vidste at man havde det et geni havde hjulpet en. Hvis dit arbejde var en fiasko, så var det ikke helt din skyld. Alle vidste at dit geni var lidt lamt. Og det var sådan folk betragtede kreativitet i Vesten i meget lang tid.
So brilliant -- there it is, right there, that distance that I'm talking about -- that psychological construct to protect you from the results of your work. And everyone knew that this is how it functioned, right? So the ancient artist was protected from certain things, like, for example, too much narcissism, right? If your work was brilliant, you couldn't take all the credit for it, everybody knew that you had this disembodied genius who had helped you. If your work bombed, not entirely your fault, you know? Everyone knew your genius was kind of lame. (Laughter)
And this is how people thought about creativity in the West
Så kom renæssancen og alting blev ændret vi fik den her store idé og den store idé gik ud på at sætte det individuelle menneske som centrum i universet over alle guder og mysterier og der er ikke plads til mystiske skabninger som dikteres af det guddommelige. Det er begyndelsen på rationel humanisme, og folk begyndte at tro, at kreativitet udelukkende kom fra selvet i individet. For første gang i historien, begynder man at høre folk referere til denne eller hin kunstner som værende et geni i stedet for at have et geni.
for a really long time. And then the Renaissance came and everything changed, and we had this big idea, and the big idea was, let's put the individual human being at the center of the universe above all gods and mysteries, and there's no more room for mystical creatures who take dictation from the divine. And it's the beginning of rational humanism, and people started to believe that creativity came completely from the self of the individual. And for the first time in history, you start to hear people referring to this or that artist as being a genius, rather than having a genius.
Jeg må sige, at jeg synes det er en kæmpe fejl. Jeg tror det at tillade nogen, blot en enkelt person at tro, at hun eller hun er fartøjet kilden og essensen til al guddommelig, kreativ, evig mystik er en smule for stort et ansvar at placere på et enkelt menneskes psyke. Det er som at bede nogen om at sluge solen. Det fuldstændig bøjer og forvrænger egoer og det skaber uhåndterbare forventninger til evner. Jeg tror, at det pres har slået vores kunstnere ihjel i de sidste 500 år.
And I got to tell you, I think that was a huge error. You know, I think that allowing somebody, one mere person to believe that he or she is like, the vessel, you know, like the font and the essence and the source of all divine, creative, unknowable, eternal mystery is just a smidge too much responsibility to put on one fragile, human psyche. It's like asking somebody to swallow the sun. It just completely warps and distorts egos, and it creates all these unmanageable expectations about performance. And I think the pressure of that has been killing off our artists for the last 500 years.
Og, hvis det er sandt og jeg tror det er sandt, så bliver spørgmålet: hvad nu? Kan vi gøre det anderledes? Måske gå tilbage til antikkens forståelse af forholdet mellem mennesker og det kreative mysterium. Måske ikke. Måske kan vi ikke bare slette 500 års rationel humanistisk tanke i løbet af en 18 minutters tale. Der er sandsynligvis folk blandt det her publikum som ville rejse nogle helt legitime videnskabelige mistanker omkring dette begreb om alfer der følger efter folk og smører deres projekter ind i alfe-saft og den slags. Jeg vil formentlig ikke få jer alle med på den her ide.
And, if this is true, and I think it is true, the question becomes, what now? Can we do this differently? Maybe go back to some more ancient understanding about the relationship between humans and the creative mystery. Maybe not. Maybe we can't just erase 500 years of rational humanistic thought in one 18 minute speech. And there's probably people in this audience who would raise really legitimate scientific suspicions about the notion of, basically, fairies who follow people around rubbing fairy juice on their projects and stuff. I'm not, probably, going to bring you all along with me on this.
Men spørgsmålet jeg vil stille er: hvorfor ikke? Hvorfor ikke betragte det på denne måde? Fordi det giver lige så meget mening, som alt andet jeg nogensinde har hørt omkring forklaringen af den fuldstændige gale uforudsigelighed i den kreative proces. En proces, som hvem som helst der nogensinde har prøvet at skabe noget -- hvilket betyder alle der er tilstede her i salen -- ved ikke altid opfører sig rationelt. Faktisk kan den i visse tilfælde føles direkte paranormal.
But the question that I kind of want to pose is -- you know, why not? Why not think about it this way? Because it makes as much sense as anything else I have ever heard in terms of explaining the utter maddening capriciousness of the creative process. A process which, as anybody who has ever tried to make something -- which is to say basically everyone here --- knows does not always behave rationally. And, in fact, can sometimes feel downright paranormal.
Jeg oplevede dette da jeg for nylig mødte den uovertrufne amerikanske poet Ruth Stone som nu er over 90 år gammel, men har været poet hele sit liv. Hun fortalte mig, at da hun voksede op på landet i Virginia var hun ude at arbejde i marken og hun sagde at hun kunne høre og føle et digt komme imod hende, bevægende sig henover landskabet. Hun sagde det føltes som et tordnende tog af luft Og det ville komme susende mod hende, henover landskabet. Hun ville føle det komme, fordi jorden ville ryste under hendes fødder. Hun vidste at når dette skete, så var der kun var een ting at gøre og det var, med hendes egne ord "at løbe som ind i helvede" Så hun løb "som ind i helvede" til huset blev jagtet af det her digt og idéen var at hun skulle finde et stykke papir og en blyant så hurtigt som muligt, så når digtet tordnede gennem hende, så kunne hun opfange det og få det ned på papiret. Andre gange var hun ikke hurtig nok og så måtte hun løbe og løbe og løbe og hun nåede ikke til huset og digtet ville passere durk igennem hende og hun ville misse det og hun sagde at det forsvandet videre henover landskabet på udkig efter "en anden poet." Så var der de gange -- det er den her del jeg aldrig glemte -- hun sagde der var tidspunkter, hvor hun næsten missede digtet. Så hun løber hen til huset og leder efter papir og digtet går lige igennem hende hun får i en blyant lige som det går gennem hende, og så rækker hun ud efter det med sin anden hånd og fanger det. Hun fanger digtet i dets hale and hun trækker det baglæns gennem sin krop mens hun skriver det på papiret. Ved disse lejligheder, viste digtet sig perfekt og intakt på papiret men baglæns, fra det sidste ord til det første. (Latter)
I had this encounter recently where I met the extraordinary American poet Ruth Stone, who's now in her 90s, but she's been a poet her entire life and she told me that when she was growing up in rural Virginia, she would be out working in the fields, and she said she would feel and hear a poem coming at her from over the landscape. And she said it was like a thunderous train of air. And it would come barreling down at her over the landscape. And she felt it coming, because it would shake the earth under her feet. She knew that she had only one thing to do at that point, and that was to, in her words, "run like hell." And she would run like hell to the house and she would be getting chased by this poem, and the whole deal was that she had to get to a piece of paper and a pencil fast enough so that when it thundered through her, she could collect it and grab it on the page. And other times she wouldn't be fast enough, so she'd be running and running, and she wouldn't get to the house and the poem would barrel through her and she would miss it and she said it would continue on across the landscape, looking, as she put it "for another poet." And then there were these times -- this is the piece I never forgot -- she said that there were moments where she would almost miss it, right? So, she's running to the house and she's looking for the paper and the poem passes through her, and she grabs a pencil just as it's going through her, and then she said, it was like she would reach out with her other hand and she would catch it. She would catch the poem by its tail, and she would pull it backwards into her body as she was transcribing on the page. And in these instances, the poem would come up on the page perfect and intact but backwards, from the last word to the first. (Laughter)
Da jeg hørte det, tænkte jeg: mystisk, Det er præcis sådan min kreative process er. (Latter)
So when I heard that I was like -- that's uncanny, that's exactly what my creative process is like. (Laughter)
Det er ikke kun sådan min kreative process foregår. Jeg er et mulddyr og måden jeg må arbejde på er at jeg bliver nødt til at stå op samme tid hver dag og svede og arbejde mig igennem det hele rigtig akavet. Men selv jeg, i al min mulddyragtighed, selv jeg, har til tider, strejfet den proces. Jeg forestiller mig, at en masse af jer også har prøvet. Selv jeg har haft arbejde eller idéer som kom til mig fra en kilde som jeg helt ærligt ikke kan identificere. Og hvad er det for en ting? Hvordan skal vi forholde os til det på en måde, der ikke gør os sindssyge men faktisk holder os nede på jorden?
That's not at all what my creative process is -- I'm not the pipeline! I'm a mule, and the way that I have to work is I have to get up at the same time every day, and sweat and labor and barrel through it really awkwardly. But even I, in my mulishness, even I have brushed up against that thing, at times. And I would imagine that a lot of you have too. You know, even I have had work or ideas come through me from a source that I honestly cannot identify. And what is that thing? And how are we to relate to it in a way that will not make us lose our minds, but, in fact, might actually keep us sane?
For mig er det bedste eksempel på hvordan man gør det musikeren Tom Waits, som jeg fik lov til at interviewe til et blad for adskillige år siden. Vi talte om emnet og Tom har i det meste af sit liv været personificeringen af nutidens lidende, moderne kunstner der forsøger at kontrollere og håndtere og dominere disse ukontrollerbare kreative impulser der var totalt internaliseret.
And for me, the best contemporary example that I have of how to do that is the musician Tom Waits, who I got to interview several years ago on a magazine assignment. And we were talking about this, and you know, Tom, for most of his life, he was pretty much the embodiment of the tormented contemporary modern artist, trying to control and manage and dominate these sort of uncontrollable creative impulses that were totally internalized.
Men da han blev ældre, blev han mere rolig og han fortalte om en dag han kørte ad motorvejen i Los Angeles og det var dér, at det hele ændrede sig for ham. Som han kører derudaf, hører han pludselig et lille fragment af en melodi der kommer ind i hans hoved, som inspiration ofte gør det: flygtig og fristende - og han vil have den, den er pragtfuld og han længes efter den, men kan på ingen måde få fat i den. Han har ikke et stykke papir, han har ikke en blyant han har ikke en båndoptager.
But then he got older, he got calmer, and one day he was driving down the freeway in Los Angeles, and this is when it all changed for him. And he's speeding along, and all of a sudden he hears this little fragment of melody, that comes into his head as inspiration often comes, elusive and tantalizing, and he wants it, it's gorgeous, and he longs for it, but he has no way to get it. He doesn't have a piece of paper, or a pencil, or a tape recorder.
Han begynder at føle al den gamle angst begynde at vokse i ham "Jeg vil miste den her ting, og så vil jeg blive hjemsøgt af den her sang forevigt. Jeg er ikke god nok og jeg kan ikke finde ud af det." Og i stedet for at gå i panik, stoppede han blot. Stoppede hele den mentale proces og gjorde noget helt nyt. Han kiggede blot op i himlen og sagde: "Undskyld mig, kan du ikke se jeg kører bil?" (Latter) "Ser det ud som om jeg kan skrive en sang ned lige nu? Hvis du virkelig gerne vil eksistere så kom tilbage i et mere opportunt øjeblik når jeg kan tage mig af dig. Ellers, så find en anden at irritere i dag. Irritér Leonard Cohen."
So he starts to feel all of that old anxiety start to rise in him like, "I'm going to lose this thing, and I'll be be haunted by this song forever. I'm not good enough, and I can't do it." And instead of panicking, he just stopped. He just stopped that whole mental process and he did something completely novel. He just looked up at the sky, and he said, "Excuse me, can you not see that I'm driving?" (Laughter) "Do I look like I can write down a song right now? If you really want to exist, come back at a more opportune moment when I can take care of you. Otherwise, go bother somebody else today. Go bother Leonard Cohen."
Hele hans arbejdsproces ændrede sig efter den oplevelse. Ikke værkerne, værkerne var stadig så mørke som nogensinde før. Men processen og den tunge angst omkring den blev forløst da han tog geniet ud af sig selv hvor det ikke forårsagede andet end problemer og slap det løs tilbage hvor det kom fra og indså at det ikke behøvede at være denne internaliserede pinte ting. Det kunne være det her pudsige, vidunderlige, bizarre samarbejde - en slags samtale mellem Tom og den underlige, eksterne ting der ikke helt var Tom.
And his whole work process changed after that. Not the work, the work was still oftentimes as dark as ever. But the process, and the heavy anxiety around it was released when he took the genie, the genius out of him where it was causing nothing but trouble, and released it back where it came from, and realized that this didn't have to be this internalized, tormented thing. It could be this peculiar, wondrous, bizarre collaboration, kind of conversation between Tom and the strange, external thing that was not quite Tom.
Da jeg havde hørt denne historie, begyndte det at ændre en lille smule på måden jeg arbejdede og det har allerede reddet mig en enkelt gang. Denne idé reddede mig mens jeg var midt i at skrive "Eat, Pray, Love" og jeg faldt i en af disse fortvivlelsens grave, som vi alle falder i når vi arbejder på noget og det ikke kommer til een og man begynder at tænke det vil blive en katastrofe, det her bliver den værste bog nogensinde skrevet. Ikke bare dårlig, men den værste bog nogensinde skrevet. Jeg begyndte at tænke jeg bare skulle droppe projektet. Men så huskede jeg Tom talende ud i den tomme luft og jeg prøvede det. Så jeg løftede mit hoved op fra manuskriptet og sendte mine kommentarer til et tomt hjørne af rummet. Og jeg sagde højt: "Hør, du dér! både du og jeg ved, at hvis denne bog ikke er brilliant, så er det ikke udelukkende min skyld, vel? For du kan se, at jeg lægger alt hvad jeg har ind i det her. Jeg har ikke mere. Så hvis du ønsker at den skal være bedre, så bliver du nødt til at vise dig og fuldføre din del af aftalen. OK? Men hvis du ikke gør det, ved du så hvad? Til helvede med det! Jeg fortsætter med at skrive alligevel, for det er mit job. Og jeg ønsker at skemaet skal afspejle at jeg i dag mødte op til min del af jobbet." (Latter)
When I heard that story, it started to shift a little bit the way that I worked too, and this idea already saved me once. It saved me when I was in the middle of writing "Eat, Pray, Love," and I fell into one of those sort of pits of despair that we all fall into when we're working on something and it's not coming and you start to think this is going to be a disaster, the worst book ever written. Not just bad, but the worst book ever written. And I started to think I should just dump this project. But then I remembered Tom talking to the open air and I tried it. So I just lifted my face up from the manuscript and I directed my comments to an empty corner of the room. And I said aloud, "Listen you, thing, you and I both know that if this book isn't brilliant that is not entirely my fault, right? Because you can see that I am putting everything I have into this, I don't have any more than this. If you want it to be better, you've got to show up and do your part of the deal. But if you don't do that, you know what, the hell with it. I'm going to keep writing anyway because that's my job. And I would please like the record to reflect today that I showed up for my part of the job." (Laughter)
Fordi -- (Bifald) for i sidste ende er det sådan at -- århundreder siden i Nord Afrikas ørkener plejede folk at samles for måneskins-fester med hellig dans og musik der fortsatte time efter time, til daggry. De var altid storslåede, for danserne var profesionelle og de var fabelagtige, ok? Men engang i mellem, meget sjældent, skete der noget og en af disse performere blev faktisk transcendente. I ved hvad jeg snakker om, fordi jeg ved, I alle har set, på et eller andet tidspunkt i livet, en sådan performance. Det var som om at tiden stod stille og danseren på en eller anden måde trådt igennem en slags portal og han gjorde intet anderledes end han havde gjort før, de tusinde foregående nætter, men alt ville falde på plads. Lige pludselig ville han ikke længere fremstå som blot et menneske. Han ville være lyst op indefra og lyst op nedefra og alt lyst op i guddommelighedens ild.
Because -- (Applause) Because in the end it's like this, OK -- centuries ago in the deserts of North Africa, people used to gather for these moonlight dances of sacred dance and music that would go on for hours and hours, until dawn. They were always magnificent, because the dancers were professionals and they were terrific, right? But every once in a while, very rarely, something would happen, and one of these performers would actually become transcendent. And I know you know what I'm talking about, because I know you've all seen, at some point in your life, a performance like this. It was like time would stop, and the dancer would sort of step through some kind of portal and he wasn't doing anything different than he had ever done, 1,000 nights before, but everything would align. And all of a sudden, he would no longer appear to be merely human. He would be lit from within, and lit from below and all lit up on fire with divinity.
Og når dette skete dengang, vidste folk hvad det var, de kaldte dét dets navn. De ville klappe i hænderne og begynde at messe: "Allah, Allah, Allah, Gud, Gud, Gud" Det er gud. En interessant historisk fodnote -- Da Maurerne invaderede det sydlige Spanien, tog de denne skik med dem og udtalen ændrede sig over århundreder fra "Allah, Allah, Allah" til "Olé, Olé, Olé" som man stadig hører ved tyrefægter-kampe og i flamenco danse, I Spanien, når en kunstner har gjort noget umuligt og magisk, "Allah, Olé, Olé, Allah, storslået, bravo," uforståeligt, dér er det -- et glimt af Gud. Hvilket er fantatisk, for vi har brug for det.
And when this happened, back then, people knew it for what it was, you know, they called it by its name. They would put their hands together and they would start to chant, "Allah, Allah, Allah, God, God, God." That's God, you know. Curious historical footnote: when the Moors invaded southern Spain, they took this custom with them and the pronunciation changed over the centuries from "Allah, Allah, Allah," to "Olé, olé, olé," which you still hear in bullfights and in flamenco dances. In Spain, when a performer has done something impossible and magic, "Allah, olé, olé, Allah, magnificent, bravo," incomprehensible, there it is -- a glimpse of God. Which is great, because we need that.
Men den besværlige del kommer næste morgen, når danseren vågner op og opdager at det er tirsdag kl 11.00 og at han ikke længere er et glimt af Gud. Han er blot en aldrende dødelig med virkeligt dårlige knæ og måske vil han aldrig stige til den højde igen. Måske er der aldrig nogen der vil messe Guds navn igen mens han danser - og hvad skal han så gøre med resten af sit liv? Det er hårdt. Det er en af de mest smertefulde forsoninger man kan lave i et kreativt liv. Men måske behøves det ikke at være helt så fyldt af smerte Hvis du i første omgang ikke troede på at de mest ekstraordinære aspekter af din tilværelse kom fra dig selv. Men måske du blot troede, at de var udlånt til dig fra en utænkelig kilde i en udsøgt del af dit liv og skulle videregives, når du er færdig, til en anden. Hvis vi begynder at tænker på denne måde, vil det forandre alt.
But, the tricky bit comes the next morning, for the dancer himself, when he wakes up and discovers that it's Tuesday at 11 a.m., and he's no longer a glimpse of God. He's just an aging mortal with really bad knees, and maybe he's never going to ascend to that height again. And maybe nobody will ever chant God's name again as he spins, and what is he then to do with the rest of his life? This is hard. This is one of the most painful reconciliations to make in a creative life. But maybe it doesn't have to be quite so full of anguish if you never happened to believe, in the first place, that the most extraordinary aspects of your being came from you. But maybe if you just believed that they were on loan to you from some unimaginable source for some exquisite portion of your life to be passed along when you're finished, with somebody else. And, you know, if we think about it this way, it starts to change everything.
Det er sådan jeg er begyndt at tænke og det er bestemt sådan jeg har tænkt de sidste par måneder mens jeg har arbejdet på bogen, der snart vil blive udgivet som den skræmmende alt for forventede efterfølger til min vanvittige success.
This is how I've started to think, and this is certainly how I've been thinking in the last few months as I've been working on the book that will soon be published, as the dangerously, frighteningly over-anticipated follow up to my freakish success.
Det jeg skal fortælle mig selv når jeg bliver rigtig urolig omkring det, er: vær ikke bange. Vær ikke skræmt. Bare gør dit arbejde. Fortsæt med at møde op til din del af aftalen, hvad end den måtte være. Hvis dit job er at danse, så dans. Hvis det guddommelige, skeløjede geni der er sat på din sag beslutter sig for at lade en form for vidunder vise i blot et øjeblik i kraft af dine anstrengelser, så "Olé!" Hvis ikke - så gør dit job alligevel. Og ikke desto mindre "Ole!" til dig også! Jeg tror på dette og at vi må videregive læren! "Olé!" til jer, ikke desto mindre, blot for den rene skære menneskelige kærlighed og stædighed til at dukke op.
And what I have to sort of keep telling myself when I get really psyched out about that is don't be afraid. Don't be daunted. Just do your job. Continue to show up for your piece of it, whatever that might be. If your job is to dance, do your dance. If the divine, cockeyed genius assigned to your case decides to let some sort of wonderment be glimpsed, for just one moment through your efforts, then "Olé!" And if not, do your dance anyhow. And "Olé!" to you, nonetheless. I believe this and I feel that we must teach it. "Olé!" to you, nonetheless, just for having the sheer human love and stubbornness to keep showing up.
Tak (Bifald) Tak. (Bifald)
Thank you. (Applause) Thank you. (Applause)
June Cohen: Ole! (Bifald)
June Cohen: Olé! (Applause)