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?"
Saya seorang penulis. Menulis adalah profesi saya, tapi tentunya juga lebih dari itu. Bagi saya, menulis merupakan cinta terbesar dan paling mengagumkan. Dan saya yakin itu tidak akan pernah berubah. Tetapi, ada sesuatu yang cukup ganjil akhir-akhir ini baik dalam hidup maupun karier saya yang memaksa saya untuk menyesuaikan kembali hubungan antara pribadi dan pekerjaan saya. Hal aneh itu adalah bahwa buku yang baru saya tulis, sebuah memoar dengan judul "Eat, Pray, Love" (Makan, Doa, Cinta) yang memutuskan untuk berbeda dengan buku-buku saya sebelumnya dengan merambah dunia dan membesar di sana menjadi sebuah bestseller internasional penuh sensasi Jadinya, kemanapun saya pergi sekarang saya diperlakukan seakan terkena malapetaka. Serius -- Petaka Tujuh Kali. Orang menemui saya dan dengan khawatir berkata, "Tidakkah kamu khawatir ini akan menjadi pencapaian tertinggi kamu? Tidakkah kamu khawatir akan selamanya terus menulis tanpa pernah menerbitkan satu buku pun yang dipedulikan siapapun lagi selama-lamanya?"
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?"
Sangat menentramkan hati, ya? Bisa lebih parah lagi, seandainya saya melupakan bahwa 20 tahun yang lalu, saat pertama kali memutuskan - saat masih remaja -- untuk menjadi seorang penulis saya dihadapkan dengan reaksi berdasarkan ketakutan yang sama Dan orang-orang di sekitar saya bilang, "Tidakkah khawatir gagal? Tidakkah takut akan rasa malu jika ditolak? Atau takut umurmu habis bergelut dengan pekerjaan ini tanpa pernah menghasilkan apapun sampai mati di atas tumpukan mimpi yang hancur dengan mulut berbusa pahitnya abu kegagalan?"
(Laughter)
(Tawa)
Like that, you know.
Ya, seperti itu.
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.
Jawabannya - untuk semua pertanyaan di atas adalah, "Ya". Ya, saya takut akan semua itu. Dan memang selalu takut. Dan saya juga takut akan hal-hal lain yang mungkin tidak terpikirkan oleh orang. seperti rumput laut dan lainnya. Tentang menulis, pertanyaan yang akhir-akhir ini menghantui saya adalah "mengapa"? Apakah masuk akal? Apakah logis bahwa setiap orang diharapkan untuk takut menghadapi pekerjaan yang mereka pilih di Bumi? Memang apa yang salah dengan bidang kerja kreatif yang membuat kita begitu khawatir akan kesehatan mental satu sama lain yang berbeda dengan bidang pekerjaan yang lain? Ayah saya, misalnya, seorang insinyur kimia sepanjang 40 tahun karirnya di bidang kimia Ayah tidak pernah ditanya, apa dia takut menjadi insinyur kimia Tidak pernah sekalipun -- apa kabarnya si insinyur kimia bebal John? Tidak pernah seperti itu, kan? Dalam kenyataan, insinyur kimia sebagai kelompok tidak pernah sekalipun menyandang reputasi sebagai depresif maniak yang alkoholik.
(Laughter)
(Tawa penonton)
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.
Sementara kita, penulis, menyandang reputasi itu, dan bukan hanya penulis, tapi juga umumnya pekerja kreatif cenderung dianggap memiliki mental yang labil. Kita tinggal melihat daftar kematian kelam pada abad keduapuluh, tentang para pemikir kreatif. yang meninggal di usia muda dan seringnya karena bunuh diri. Bahkan mereka yang tidak bunuh diri secara harfiah seakan tidak pernah puas dengan bakat mereka. Norman Mailer, dalam wawancara terakhirnya sebelum meninggal bilang, "Tiap buku yang kutulis membunuhku sedikit demi sedikit" Sebuah ungkapan luar biasa terhadap pengabdian sepanjang hidup. Tak heran jika ada yang mengucapkan hal seperti tadi karena ungkapan seperti terlalu sering muncul dan tanpa sadar kita menjadikannya kewajaran dalam kesadaran kita bahwa kreatifitas dan kesengsaraan saling terkait erat bahwa kesenian, pada akhirnya, selalu akan berakhir tragis.
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.
Dan pertanyaan saya sekarang kok bisa kalian menerima ide tersebut begitu saja? Apa kalian nyaman dengannya -- sebab jika kalian mencoba memperhatikan itu sedikit lebih jauh,-- Saya sama sekali tidak nyaman dengan asumsi itu. Saya menganggapnya menjijikan. Dan juga berbahaya, dan saya menolak asumsi itu berkelanjutan Saya lebih baik mendukung kreatiftas.
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.
Dan saya sangat yakin, bahwa dalam situasi saya akan sangat berbahaya bila saya menuju kegelapan semacam asumsi itu, terutama mengingat situasi dan posisi karir saya saat ini. Yang mana-- ya lihatlah sendiri Saya cukup muda, berumur sekitar 40 tahun Saya mungkin masih mempunyai 4 dekade lagi untuk berkarya Makin besar pula kemungkinan bahwa apapun karya saya berikutnya akan dinilai oleh dunia sebagai karya yang menyusul sukses luar biasa dari karya sebelumnya. Kasarnya, kita semua di sini adalah sahabat bukan, sangatlah mungkin bahwa kesuksesan saya hanyalah masa lalu. Betapa seramnya pikiran itu! Ide semacam itulah yang dapat mendorong seseorang untuk mulai minum gin pukul sembilan pagi, dan saya tak menginginkannya.
(Laughter)
(Tawa penonton)
I would prefer to keep doing this work that I love.
Saya memilih untuk terus melanjutkan pekerjaan saya.
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.
Jadi, pertanyaannya tinggal, bagaimana? Dan sepertinya, setelah banyak merenung, cara terbaik supaya saya bisa terus menulis, adalah dengan menciptakan suatu pelindung psikologis. Saya harus memiliki suatu jarak aman antara saya, sebagai penulis, dan ketakutan saya yang wajar saat menghadapi reaksi orang terhadap karya saya, sejak saat ini. Dan dalam pencarian saya menemukan model untuk bisa melakukan itu, saya telah menembus waktu, dan berbagai masyarakat untuk melihat kalau mereka memiliki ide yang lebih baik dan waras tentang bagaimana membantu para kreatif menangani resiko emosional dari kreatifitas.
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.
Pencarian ini membawa saya ke budaya Yunani dan Romawi kuno. Kisah ini akan kembali berputar ke awal. Di zaman Yunani dan Romawi kuno orang tak menganggap kreatifitas berasal dari manusia. Orang percaya bahwa kreatifitas adalah roh pembantu yang berasal dari sebuah sumber yang jauh dan misterius untuk alasan yang misterius pula Orang Yunani menamai roh kreatifitas tersebut "daemon". Socrates percaya bahwa dia memiliki daemon yang mengajarkan kebijakan dari jauh.
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.
Orang Romawi pun mempercayai ide yang sama, tapi mereka menyebut makhluk itu Jenius. Lucu bahwa orang Romawi tidak menganggap Jenius sebagai manusia yang sangat sangat pintar. Mereka percaya Jenius adalah sesuatu yang magis dan sakral yang hidup dalam tembok ruang kerja seniman, mirip seperti peri-rumah Dobby, yang keluar dari persembunyiannya untuk membantu sang seniman dan membentuk hasil akhir karya tersebut.
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.
Sangat brilian -- itu dia jarak yang tadi saya maksudkan -- sebuah konstruksi psikologis untuk melindungi dari karya kita sendiri. Dan karena semua orang mengetahuinya Maka seniman kuno terlindungi dari sejumlah hal, seperti narsisme berlebihan, kan? Sebab karya brilian Anda bukanlah hasil Anda sendiri, semua orang tahu bahwa Anda dibantu oleh roh Jenius Dan karya gagal Anda bukan sepenuhnya salah Anda, Semua tahu Jenius Anda lah yang dungu.
(Laughter)
Dan dulunya, seperti inilah kepercayaan di Barat tentang kreatifitas.
And this is how people thought about creativity in the West 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.
Lalu datanglah masa Renaisans dan semua berubah, dan kita berpikir bahwa manusia adalah pusat alam semesta di atas semua dewa dan misteri, tak ada ruang untuk makhluk mistis pemberi arah. Dan ini lah awal humanisme rasional, orang orang mulai percaya bahwa kreativitas bersumber seutuhnya dari manusia. Untuk pertama kalinya dalam sejarah, Anda mulai mendengar seniman ini dan itu disebut sebagai jenius bukannya memiliki jenius.
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.
Menurut saya, ini merupakan kesalahan besar. Membiarkan seseorang, satu manusia biasa, percaya bahwa dirinya adalah wadah bentuk dan esensi dan sumber dari seluruh wahyu, kreatifitas, misteri, rahasia abadi menjadi tanggung jawab yang terlalu besar untuk hati manusia yang rapuh. Seakan meminta seseorang menelan matahari. Menyesatkan dan mengelabui ego, Menciptakan harapan akan performa yang berlebihan. Tekanan dari situlah yang selama 500 tahun terakhir telah membunuh banyak seniman.
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.
Jika ini benar, dan saya kira memang benar, maka pertanyaan berikutnya adalah, sekarang bagaimana? Bagaimana cara mengubahnya? Mungkin dengan kembali kepada pemahaman kuno tentang hubungan manusia dan misteri kreatifitas. Mungkin tidak. Kita tidak bisa menghapus begitu saja pemikiran humanis rasional dalam ceramah 18 menit. Dan mungkin sebagian hadirin di sini akan mengajukan bantahan ilmiah tentang gagasan para peri yang mengikuti manusia untuk membisikkan inspirasi. Saya tidak akan mencoba untuk membahas itu.
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.
Yang saya pertanyakan adalah, mengapa tidak? Kenapa tidak berpikir seperti itu? Karena sama masuk akalnya dengan hal lain yang pernah saya dengar menjelaskan keunikan yang menjengkelkan dari proses kreatif. Proses yang, bagi siapapun yang pernah mencoba mebuat sesuatu bisa dibilang, semua yang ada di sini -- tidak selalu rasional Dan faktanya, kadang terasa paranormal.
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.
Baru-baru ini saya bertemu penyair Amerika luar biasa Ruth Stone, kini berumur 90an, tapi telah menulis puisi sepanjang hidupnya Ruth bercerita saat tumbuh di pedesaan Virginia, saat dia bekerja di ladang, dan dia merasakan dan mendengar sebuah puisi datang jauh dari ujung cakrawala. Bagaikan rentetan air yang menggelegar. Datang menghantam Ruth di ladang. Ruth mereasakannya, karena getaran bumi tempat Ruth berpijak. Hanya ada satu hal yang dapat dilakukannya saat itu, yaitu, "berlari seperti dikejar setan." Dan Ruth berlari ke rumahnya, dengan puisi itu mengejarnya, untuk secepat mungkin mendapatkan kertas dan pensil agar saat puisi itu menembus dirinya, Ruth bisa menangkapnya dan mengurungnya dalam tulisan. Terkadang Ruth tidak cukup cepat, Ruth terus berlari dan berlari dan berlari, dan sebelum sampai rumah puisi itu telah menembusnya dan Ruth pun melewatkannya lalu puisi itu terus mengalir meninggalkan Ruth, mencari, seperti katanya, "seorang penyair lain" Ada kalanya lagi, ini bagian yang tak terlupakan, Ruth bilang ada saat dimana dia hampir melewatkannya, kan? Lalu saat Ruth berlari ke dalam rumah dan mencari kertas, puisi itu menembus tubuhnya, di saat yang sama Ruth meraih sebuah pensil, lalu Ruth berkata dia mengulurkan tangan yang satunya mencoba menangkap puisi itu. Ruth menangkap puisi itu di ekornya, dan menarik puisi itu kembali ke arahnya sambil berusaha menuliskannya di kertas. Saat itu juga, puisi tersebut tertulis di kertas dengan utuh dan sempurna, tetapi terbalik, dari kata terakhir ke depan.
(Laughter)
(Tawa penonton)
So when I heard that I was like -- that's uncanny, that's exactly what my creative process is like.
Ketika saya mendengarnya -- Luar biasa, seperti itulah proses kreatif saya.
(Laughter)
(Tawa penonton)
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?
Tetapi proses kreativitas saya bukan begitu saja -- saya bukan saluran pipa! Saya adalah bagal, dan cara saya bekerja adalah bangun tidur di jam yang sama setiap hari, lalu bekerja memeras otak dengan kikuk. Tetapi bahkan dalam kebagalan saya, saya juga pernah bertemu dengan kabut insipirasi yang menabrak Ruth Stone Dan saya kira Anda pun juga pernah begitu. Saya bahkan pernah mendapatkan ide dari suatu sumber yang tak bisa saya gambarkan. Apa itu sebenarnya? Bagaimana cara mamahami hal tersebut tanpa kehilangan akal sehat, tetapi malah menjaga kewarasan kita?
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.
Bagi saya, contoh kontemporer terbaik untuk itu ada pada musisi Tom Waits, yang saya wawancarai beberapa tahun yang lalu. Saat itu kita membahas hal ini, Tom, dalam sebagian besar hidupnya, dia menjadi perwujudan seniman modern kontemporer yang tersiksa, yang berusaha mengontrol, mengatasi dan menguasai kreatifitas impulsif yang tak terkontrol yang sepenuhnya terjadi dalam jiwanya.
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.
Lalu Tom menjadi semakin dewasa dan tenang dan suatu hari Tom menyetir di jalur cepat di Los Angeles, dan di sini semuanya berubah baginya. Sambil menyetir, tiba-tiba Tom mendengar sepotong melodi masuk ke kepalanya seperti laiknya sebuah inspirasi, perlahan dan menggoda dan Tom menginginkannya, begitu indah Tom mengharapkannya, tapi tanpa daya untuk menangkapnya. Saat itu Tom tak memiliki kertas ataupun pinsil, tak ada alat rekaman di dekatnya.
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?"
Dan Tom mulai merasa gelisah "Aduh, aku akan kehilangan melodi ini, lalu akan terus dihantui lagu ini selamanya. Aku begitu payah dan tak mampu." Lalu bukannya panik, dia berhenti. Dia hentikan seluruh proses mental tadi dan ia lakukan sesuatu yang sangat baru. Tom memandang ke langit, dan berkata, "Maaf, tidakkah kamu lihat saya sedang menyetir?"
(Laughter)
(Tawa penonton)
"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."
"Memangnya saya bisa menulis lagu saat ini? Jika kamu memang ingin berwujud, kembalilah di waktu yang tepat Saat saya bisa meladenimu. Jika tidak, ganggulah orang lain. Ganggulah Leonard Cohen."
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.
Dan sejak itu, proses kerja Tom berubah. Bukan karyanya, mereka tetap kelam seperti biasa. Tetapi prosesnya, dan kegelisahan di sekitarnya terbebaskan saat Tom merelakan jin, kejeniusannya yang hanya bisa merepotkan, dan mengembalikannya ke asalnya menyadarkan Tom bahwa kreatifitas tidaklah harus menyiksa. Kreatifitas dapat berupa kolaborasi istimewa, indah dan unik sebuah percakapan antara Tom dan sesuatu yang aneh yang bukan sepenuhnya Tom.
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."
Saat mendengar cerita itu, mulailah bergeser sedikit cara kerja saya, dan itu telah menyelamatkan saya sekali. Ide ini menyelamatkan saya saat tengah menulis "Eat, Pray, Love," dan saya merasa jatuh dalam jurang keputusasaan yang sering kita temui saat menghadapi karya yang tak kunjung selesai dan mulai berpikir akan kegagalan, inilah karya terburuk sepanjang masa. Bukan hanya jelek, tapi buku terjelek yang pernah ditulis. Saya bahkan berpikir untuk menghentikan proyek ini. Tapi saya teringat Tom yang berbicara ke udara lepas dan mencobanya. Jadi saya mengangkat wajah dari skrip dan memberikan komentar ke sudut kosong di kamar. Saya bilang keras-keras, "Dengar ya kamu, kita berdua tahu bahwa buku ini tidak hebat dan itu bukan salah saya semata. Karena kamu lihat saya sudah berusaha sekuat tenaga, saya tak punya lebih dari ini. Jadi jika kamu menginginkan hasil yang lebih baik, muncul dan lakukan bagianmu. OK. Tetapi kalau kamu tidak mau, terserah. Saya akan tetap menulis karena itu pekerjaan saya. Dan saya ingin kamu mengingat bahwa saya telah mengerjakan bagian saya."
(Laughter)
(Tawa penonton)
Because --
Karena --
(Applause)
(Tepuk tangan penonton)
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.
Intinya begini, OK -- beberapa abad yang lalu di padang pasir Afrika Utara orang biasa berkumpul untuk tarian rembulan dan musik yang sakral yang terus berlangsung hingga fajar. Penampilan mereka selalu luar biasa, karena penari tersebut profesional dan begitu hebat. Tapi sesekali, sangat jarang, sesuatu yang lain terjadi, dan salah satu penari itu akan mengalami transendensi Saya tahu Anda mengerti apa saya maksud, Karena kita semua pernah melihatnya, tarian yang transendental. Waktu pun seakan berhenti dan penari itu seakan menembus suatu portal dia tidak melakukan sesuatu yang berbeda dengan 1,000 malam sebelumnya, hanya saja segalanya jadi selaras. Mendadak penari tersebut tidak lagi tampak sekedar manusia. Dia bercahaya dari dalam, dan dari bawah, dia bercahaya dengan api ilahiah.
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.
Dulu, waktu hal seperti ini terjadi, orang tau apa yang terjadi, mereka pun memanggil dengan nama. Mereka mengumpulkan tangan bersama dan mulai bernyanyi, "Allah, Allah, Allah, Tuhan, Tuhan, Tuhan." Itu adalah Tuhan. Catatan kaki sejarah yang menarik -- sewaktu bangsa Moors menjajah Spanyol selatan, mereka membawa tradisi ini dan pengucapannya bergeser beberapa abad kemudian dari "Allah, Allah, Allah," menjadi "Ole, ole, ole," yang masih kita dengar dari matador dan penari flamengo Di Spanyol, saat pemain melakukan hal yang mustahil dan magis, "Allah, ole, ole, Allah, luar biasa, bravo." tak masuk akal, itu dia -- kilasan Tuhan. Hebat tentu saja, karena kita membutuhkanNya.
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.
Masalahnya, pada pagi hari berikutnya, saat penari itu bangun tidur, Menyadari hari itu adalah Selasa, pukul 11 siang dan dia bukan lagi keajaiban Penari itu hanya manusia tua dengan lutut yang rewel, dan mungkin tidak akan pernah transendensi lagi. Mungkin tidak akan ada lagi yang memanggil Tuhan saat dirinya menari lalu apa tersisa baginya? Ini berat. Ini adalah salah satu penyelesaian terberat yang harus dijalani sebagai seniman. Mungkin penyelesaian itu tidak harus dipenuhi kekalahan jika pada dasarnya kita tidak beranggapan bahwa sisi luar biasa karya kita tidak bersumber dari diri pribadi. Tapi jika Anda percaya bahwa itu adalah pinjaman dari suatu sumber misterius . yang akan dialihkan saat selesai, kepada orang lain. Pemikiran seperti itu dapat mengubah segalanya.
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.
Seperti ini lah saya mulai berpikir, seperti inilah cara pikir saya beberapa bulan terakhir sambil terus mengerjakan buku saya yang akan terbit sebuah kelanjutan berbahaya, mengerikan dan terlalu diharapkan dari kesuksesan saya.
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.
Dan saya harus terus mengingatkan diri saat mulai merasa lepas kendali, untuk tidak takut. Jangan kecil hati. Lakukan saja kerjamu. Teruslah hadir untuk melakukan bagian kita, apapun itu. Jika tugasmu menari, maka menarilah. Jika Jenius belagu yang ditugaskan untuk menjagamu memutuskan untuk mengungkapkan sekilas keajaiban, untuk sesaat lewat usahamu, maka "Ole!" Jika tidak, tetaplah menari. Walaupun demikian, "Ole!" bagimu. Saya memercayai ini dan kita harus mengajarkannya. Walaupun demikian, "Ole!" bagimu, bagi kekeraskepalaan dan cinta manusiawi untuk tetap berusaha.
Thank you.
Terima kasih.
(Applause)
(Tepuk tangan penonton)
Thank you.
Terima kasih.
(Applause)
(Tepuk tangan penonton)
June Cohen: Olé!
June Cohen: Ole!
(Applause)
(Tepuk tangan penonton)