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?"
Sem pisateljica. Pisanje knjig je moj poklic, pa tudi več od tega, seveda. Je moja velika ljubezen in fascinacija, ki traja že celo življenje. Ne pričakujem, da se bo to kdaj spremenilo. Toda, ko smo že pri tem, nekaj čudnega se je pred kratkim zgodilo v mojem življenju in karieri, kar je povzročilo, da sem morala ponovno razmisliti o svojem odnosu s tem delom. In ta čudna stvar je, da sem pred kratkim napisala knjigo, spomine z naslovom "Jej, moli, ljubi", ki je, povsem v nasprotju z mojimi prejšnjimi knjigami šla v svet in iz nekega razloga postala velika, mega-senzacionalna, mednarodna prodajna uspešnica. Rezultat tega pa je, da me, kamorkoli zdaj grem, ljudje obravnavajo, kot da sem obsojena na neuspeh. Prav zares: obsojena na neuspeh! Na primer, zaskrbljeno pridejo do mene in me vprašajo: "Ali se ne bojiš, da ne boš nikoli več dosegla česa podobnega? Ali se ne bojiš, da boš nadaljevala s pisanjem vse svoje življenje, pa ne boš nikoli več ustvarila knjige, ki bi jo kdorkoli sploh želel prebrati, kadarkoli, sploh?"
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?"
Veste, to je zelo pomirjajoče. Bilo bi huje, če se ne bi spomnila, da sem se še kot najstnica, pred več kot dvajsetimi leti, ko sem začela govoriti ljudem, da želim biti pisateljica, srečala s takimi, na strahu temelječimi reakcijami. Ljudje so me spraševali: "Ali se ne bojiš, da ne boš nikoli uspela? Se ne bojiš, da te bo ponižanje zavračanja ubilo? Se ne bojiš, da boš celo življenje posvetila temu delu, pa ne bo nikoli nič od tega? In boš umrla na kupu razblinjenih sanj in polna grenkobe poraza?"
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
Like that, you know.
Pa take stvari, saj veste.
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.
Odgovor na vsa ta vprašanja, kratek odgovor, je "Ja." Ja, bojim se vseh teh stvari. Vedno sem se jih bala. In strah me je tudi veliko drugih stvari, ki jih nihče ne bi nikoli uganil, kot so na primer morske alge in druge strašljive stvari. Toda, ko razmišljam o pisanju, se zadnje čase vedno bolj sprašujem, zakaj? Je to racionalno? Je logično, da se od nekoga pričakuje, da ga bo strah dela, za katerega meni, da je njegovo življenjsko poslanstvo. In kaj povzroča, da nas ravno pri kreativnem udejstvovanju skrbi glede našega duševnega zdravja, bolj kot pri kateremkoli drugem poklicu? Moj oče, na primer, je bil inženir kemije in ne spomnim se, da bi ga v 40 letih kariere kdo povprašal, če ga je strah biti kemični inženir, veste? "Tvoja blokada kemičnega inženirstva, John, kako je kaj z njo?" Nikoli ni prišlo do takih vprašanj. Če pošteno pomislimo, kemični inženirji kot poklicna kategorija si skozi stoletja niso prislužili slovesa alkoholikov in maničnih depresivcev.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
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.
Mi pisatelji pa nekako imamo tak sloves, pa ne le pisatelji, pač pa kreativni ljudje vseh vrst slovijo po tem, da so precej duševno neuravnovešeni. Treba je le pogledati zelo mračno statistiko smrti že samo v 20 stoletju; velikih kreativnih umov, ki so umrli mladi in pogosto od lastne roke. Pa tudi za tiste, ki niso naredili samomora, se zdi, da so prave razvaline zaradi svojega talenta. Norman Mailer je pred smrtjo, v zadnjem intervjuju rekel: "Prav vsaka moja knjiga me je ubila še malo bolj." Nenavadna izjava glede njegovega življenjskega dela. Ampak niti trenemo ne z očmi, ko kdo to reče, ker smo podobne stvari slišali že tako pogosto in smo zato povsem ponotranjili in kolektivno sprejeli premiso, da sta kreativnosti in trpljenje neločljivo povezana in da nas bo umetniško ustvarjanje na koncu prignalo do agonije.
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.
Danes bi vas vse tu zbrane rada vprašala: Se vam zdi ta ideja v redu? Se počutite v redu ob tem? Ker, če jo pogledate z malo distance, veste - meni ta predpostavka niti malo ni všeč. Mislim, da je odvratna. In mislim tudi, da je nevarna. In nočem, da se nadaljuje še v naslednje stoletje. Mislim, da je bolje, da spodbujamo naše kreativce k življenju.
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.
In prepričana sem, da bi bilo v mojem primeru - v moji situaciji - zelo nevarno zame, če bi se spustila po tej temni poti domnevanja, še zlasti glede na trenutne okoliščine moje kariere. Torej, pomislite, sem še relativno mlada; imam le okoli 40 let. Pred seboj imam mogoče še štiri desetletja dela. In zelo verjetno je, da bo svet vse, kar bom napisala od te točke naprej, ocenjeval kot delo, ki je prišlo po zastrašujočem uspehu moje zadnje knjige, kajne? Če povemo kar naravnost, saj smo vsi nekako prijatelji tule - zelo verjetno je, da je moj največji uspeh že za mano. Jezus, kakšna misel! To je misel tiste vrste, ki lahko pripravi človeka, da začne piti gin ob devetih zjutraj in ne želim pristati tam.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
I would prefer to keep doing this work that I love.
Raje bi nadaljevala z delom, ki ga imam tako rada.
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.
Zdaj pridemo do vprašanja, kako? Zdi se mi, po veliko razmišljanja, da moram zdaj, da bi lahko nadaljevala s pisanjem, ustvariti nek psihološki zaščitni konstrukt, razumete? Najti moram način, ki mi bo pomagal držati distanco med menoj, ko pišem in med mojo zelo naravno zaskrbljenostjo glede tega, kakšnih reakcij bo deležno moje pisanje od zdaj naprej. Ko sem v zadnjem letu iskala kak vzor, kako to doseči, sem pogledala tudi v zgodovino, skušala sem poiskati druge družbe, da bi ugotovila, če so morda oni odkrili boljši in bolj zdrav način od nas, kako pomagati kreativnim ljudem, spopasti se z neizogibnim čustvenim tveganjem kreativnosti.
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.
Moje raziskovanje me je vodilo v Antično Grčijo in Antični Rim. Malce potrpite, zgodba gre naokoli, ampak se bo vrnila. V Antični Grčiji in Rimu ljudje niso verjeli, da kreativnost prihaja iz človeških bitij. Verjeli so, da je kreativnost nek božanski spremljevalni duh, ki je prišel k človeškim bitjem iz nekega daljnega in nepoznanega vira iz oddaljenih in neznanih razlogov. Grki so jim rekli "demoni". Znano je, da je Sokrat verjel, da ima demona, ki mu iz daljave govori modrosti.
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.
Rimljani so razmišljali podobno, toda temu netelesnemu kreativnemu duhu so rekli "genij". To se mi zdi super; Rimljani torej niso verjeli, da je genij neka zelo bistra oseba. Verjeli so, da je genij neke vrste čarobna božanska entiteta, ki dobesedno živi v stenah umetnikovega ateljeja, kot kakšen hišni vilinec, in pride na plano ter nekako nevidno pomaga umetniku pri njegovem delu in vpliva na rezultat njegovega dela.
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.
Odlično! Pa smo jo našli, to distanco, o kateri sem govorila, ta psihološki konstrukt, ki te zaščiti pred rezultati tvojega dela. In vsi so vedeli, da to tako deluje. Starodavni umetniki so bili zaščiteni pred nekaterimi stvarmi kot, na primer, preveč narcisizma. Če je bilo tvoje delo briljantno, si nisi mogel pripisati vseh zaslug, vsi so namreč vedeli, da ti je tvoj breztelesni genij pomagal. Če je bilo tvoje delo zanič, tudi ni bila v celoti tvoja krivda, ne? Vsi so vedeli, da je tvoj genij malce zanič.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
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.
In tako so ljudje na zahodu razmišljali o kreativnosti zelo dolgo časa. Potem pa je prišla renesansa in vse se je spremenilo, pojavila se je velika ideja, ki je postavila posamezno človeško bitje v center vesolja, nad vse bogove in skrivnosti, in ni bilo več prostora za skrivnostna bitja, ki jim narekujejo božanske sile. To je začetek racionalnega humanizma, ljudje začeli verjeti, da kreativnost izvira izključno iz posameznika samega. Prvič v zgodovini se je zgodilo, da so ljudje začeli govoriti za nekatere umetnike, da so geniji in ne več, da imajo genija.
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.
Moram vam povedati, meni se zdi to velika napaka. Veste, zdi se mi, da to, da dovolimo, da ena sama oseba... da verjamemo, da je on ali ona rezervoar, kot kak vodnjak in bistvo in izvor vsega božanskega, kreativnega, neznanega, večne skrivnosti; da je to le malce preveč odgovornosti za eno samo, krhko človeško psiho. Kot da bi nekoga prosili, naj sklati zvezde z neba. Povsem zmaliči ego človeka. In ustvarja neobvladljiva pričakovanja glede tega, kako se boš odrezal. Mislim, da je to ta pritisk, ki ubija naše umetnike zadnjih 500 let.
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.
Če je to res in mislim, da je, je čas, da se vprašamo: kaj zdaj? Lahko kaj spremenimo v zvezi s tem? Mogoče se lahko vrnemo nazaj k nekaterim starodavnim razumevanjem o dnosa med človekom in kreativno skrivnostjo. Mogoče pa tudi ne. Mogoče ne moremo kar izbrisati 500 let racionalne humanistične misli v enem 18 minutnem govoru. In verjetno je kar nekaj ljudi tu v občinstvu, ki bi ugovarjali z legitimnimi znanstvenimi pomisleki glede ideje o, več ali manj, vilah, ki sledijo ljudem in vlivajo vilinski sok na njihove projekte in podobne stvari. Najbrž vas ne bom vseh prepričala glede tega.
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.
Vseeno pa želim zastaviti naslednje vprašanje: Zakaj pa ne? Zakaj ne bi razmišljali na ta način? Je smiselno prav toliko kot karkoli drugega, kar sem kdaj slišala o razlagi te nore muhavosti kreativnega procesa. Proces, ki, kot vedo vsi, ki so kdaj skušali nekaj ustvariti - to pomeni verjetno vsi tukaj, se ne obnaša vedno racionalno. Pravzaprav se ga včasih občuti kot naravnost nadnaravnega.
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.
Pred kratkim sem bila na srečanju, kjer sem spoznala izjemno ameriško pesnico Ruth Stone, ki je zdaj v svojih 90ih in je pesnica že celo življenje. Povedala mi je, da je v času odraščanja v Virginiji, ko je delala na njivah, včasih začutila in slišala pesem, ki se ji je približevala čez pokrajino. Rekla je, da je bilo kot gromoglasni vlak iz zraka. In na vso silo je drvelo k njej čez pokrajino. Čutila je, da prihaja, ker se je tresla zemlja pod njenimi nogami. Vedela je, da takrat lahko stori le eno; da teče, kot bi šlo za življenje. Tako je tekla do hiše, pesem pa se je podila za njo, in treba je bilo priti do papirja in svinčnika dovolj hitro, da je pesem, ko jo je dohitela in oddrvela skoznjo, pograbila in jo zapisala. Včasih se je zgodilo, da ni bila dovolj hitra, da je tekla in tekla, pa ni prišla do hiše in pesem je odtopotala skoznjo in jo je zamudila; rekla je, da je neulovljena pesem nadaljevala svojo pot in iskala "nekega drugega pesnika". Včasih pa - tega dela ne bom nikoli pozabila - rekla je, da so bili trenutki, ko je skoraj zamudila pesem. Torej, teče proti hiši, išče papir in pesem gre skoznjo, ona pograbi svinčnik ravno ko gre skoznjo, potem je rekla, da je bilo kot da bi s prosto roko segla po njej in jo ujela. Ujela jo je za rep in jo potegnila nazaj v svoje telo in hkrati jo je zapisovala. V takih primerih je bila pesem zapisana popolna in nedotaknjena samo od zadaj; od zadnje besede do prve.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
So when I heard that I was like -- that's uncanny, that's exactly what my creative process is like.
Ko sem to slišala, sem si rekla - to je malce strašljivo, natanko tak je moj kreativni proces.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
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?
Ni res, moj kreativni proces ne izgleda tako - nisem medij! Sem garač in moje delo zahteva, da moram vsak dan vstati ob istem času, da se potim, da se mučim in se prav nerodno prebijam skozi. Toda tudi jaz, v vsem svojem garaštvu, celo jaz sem se včasih srečala s takimi stvarmi. In mislim si, da se je veliko vas ravno tako. Veste, tudi meni se je zgodilo, da je kakšna ideja prišla skozi mene iz vira, ki ga, iskreno, ne morem identificirati. In kaj je ta reč? In kako naj se povezujemo z njo, da ne bomo spotoma izgubili pameti, ampak bomo, morda prav zaradi nje, ostali pri zdravi pameti?
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.
Zame je najboljši vzor takega početja dandanes glasbenik Tom Waits, ki sem ga pred precej leti intervjuvala za neko revijo. Govorila sva o tem in saj veste, Tom je bil večino svojega življenja pravo utelešenje trpečega sodobnega umetnika, ki skuša nadzirati, upravljati in vladati divjim kreativnim vzgibom, ki so povsem ponotranjeni.
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.
Potem se je postaral, postal je mirnejši in nekega dne med vožnjo po avtocesti v Los Angelesu se je zanj vse spremenilo. Hitro vozi in kar naenkrat sliši male delčke melodije, ki prihaja v njegove misli, kot navdih pogosto pride, izmuzljiv in dražeč, želi si to melodijo, čudovita je, hrepeni po njej, ampak ne more si je zapisat. Nima papirja niti svinčnika niti snemalnika.
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?"
Začenja čutiti običajno tesnobo, ki se dviguje v njem, ko si misli: "Izgubil bom to reč in ta pesem me bo preganjala za vedno. Nisem dovolj dober in ne zmorem." Toda namesto paničarjenja, se je samo ustavil. Ustavil je celotni mentalni proces in je naredil nekaj čisto novega. Pogledal je navzgor v nebo in rekel: "Oprostite, res ne vidite, da vozim?"
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
"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."
"Vam izgleda, da si lahko zdajle zapišem pesem? Če hočeš res obstajati, pridi nazaj ob bolj primernem trenutku, ko bom lahko poskrbel zate. Če ne, pa pojdi težit komu drugemu danes. Pojdi nadlegovat Leonarda Cohena."
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.
Njegov celotni proces dela se je takrat spremenil. Pravzaprav ne delo, to je bilo še vedno pogosto enako temačno. Pač pa proces in močna tesnoba okoli njega je popustila, ko je vzel duha, genija, izven sebe, kjer je povzročal le težave, in ga spustil nazaj tja, od koder izvira in ko je spoznal, da ni nujno, da gre za ponotranjen, mučen proces. Lahko gre tudi za nenavadno in čudaško sodelovanje, nekakšen pogovor med Tomom in to čudno, zunanjo zadevo, ki ni bila 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."
Ko sem slišala to zgodbo, se je tudi pri meni začel spreminjati način dela in to me je enkrat že rešilo. Rešilo me je, ko sem bila sredi pisanja knjige "Jej, moli, ljubi" in sem zapadla v enega tistih brezen brezupa, kamor vsi padamo, ko delamo in nam ne gre od rok, ko si začnemo mislit, da bo vse skupaj ena polomija, da bo to najslabša knjiga. Ne samo slaba, najslabša knjiga sploh. Začela sem že razmišljati, da bi morala opustiti ta projekt. Potem pa sem se spomnila Toma, kako govori zraku nad seboj in sem poskusila tudi sama. Dvignila sem obraz z rokopisa in naslovila svoje pritožbe praznemu kotu sobe. Naglas sem rekla: "Poslušaj, ti, oba veva: če tale knjiga ne bo odlična, ne bo samo moja krivda, ne? Ker kot vidiš, se trudim po svojih najboljših močeh, in to je to, več ne gre. Če želiš, da bo knjiga boljša, se moraš prikazat in opravit svoj del posla. Če ne boš, veš kaj, potem naj gre vse k vragu. Jaz bom še naprej pisala, saj to je moja služba. Hočem pa, da gre danes v zapisnik, da sem prišla in opravila svoj del posla."
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
Because --
Ker -
(Applause)
(Aplavz)
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.
Ker na koncu koncev, je to tako: stoletja nazaj so se v puščavah Severne Afrike ljudje zbirali in plesali svete plese ter igrali glasbo v mesečini. To je trajalo ure in ure, vse tja do zore. Vedno je bilo veličastno, saj so bili plesalci profesionalci in bili so odlični. Toda na vsake toliko časa, zelo redko, se je nekaj zgodilo in en od nastopajočih je postal transcendenten. Vem, da veste o čem govorim, ker vem, da ste vsi že kdaj v svojem življenju videli tak nastop. Bilo je, kot bi se čas ustavil in plesalec, kot da bi prestopil nek prag, pa ne, da bi počel karkoli drugačnega od tega, kar je počel 1000 noči pred tem, ampak vse se je nekako poklopilo. Kar naenkrat se je zazdelo, da ni več samo človek. Bil je kot osvetljen od znotraj in od spodaj in kot napolnjen z ognjem božanskosti.
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.
In ko se je to zgodilo, takrat, so ljudje vedeli, kaj se dogaja in so to tudi poimenovali. Sklenili so roke in so začeli vzklikati: "Alah, Alah, Alah, Bog, Bog, Bog." To je Bog, veste. Ena zanimiva zgodovinska opomba: Ko so Mavri zavzeli južno Španijo, so ta običaj prinesli s seboj, skozi stoletja pa se je izgovorjava spremenila iz "Alah, Alah, Alah" v "Olé, olé, olé", kar še vedno slišimo na bikoborbah in na plesih flamenka. V Španiji, kadar nastopajoči naredi nekaj nemogočega in magičnega, "Alah, olé, olé, Alah; čudovito, bravo," nekaj nedoumljivega, kot bi za hip uzrli Boga. To je super, ker to potrebujemo.
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.
Toda, kaj se zgodi naslednje jutro, za plesalca, ki se zbudi in ugotovi, da je torek, ura je 11 in on ni več odblesk Boga. Spet je le človek, ki se stara, ki je umrljiv in ki ga bolijo kolena in morda nikoli več ne bo dosegel tega, kar se je zgodilo včeraj. In mogoče nihče ne bo nikoli več uzrl boga v njegovem plesu. Kako naj sploh preživi preostanek svojega življenja? To je težko. To je ena najbolj bolečih stvari, ki jih moramo sprejeti v kreativnem življenju. Morda pa ni nujno, da je ta proces tako poln tesnobe, če že od začetka ne verjameš, da najbolj izjemno, kar nosiš v sebi, prihaja iz tebe. Bilo bi lažje, če bi verjeli, da ti je dano le na pósodo od nekega nepredstavljivega vira za čudovit del tvojega življenja, in ki bo potem, ko ne bo več pri tebi, šlo k nekomu drugemu. Veste, če začneš takole razmišljati, se vse spremeni.
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.
Tako sem začela razmišljati tudi jaz in definitivno tako razmišljam v zadnjih nekaj mesecih, odkar delam na knjigi, ki bo kmalu objavljena, kot nevarno, zastrašujoče težko pričakovano nadaljevanje mojega norega uspeha.
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.
In kar si moram stalno ponavljati, ko začnem paničarit glede vsega tega, je, naj me ne bo strah. Ne bodi prestrašena. Samo opravi svoje delo. Nadaljuj z opravljanjem svojega dela naloge, karkoli že ta je. Če si plesalec, odpleši svoj ples. Če se bo božanski genij, ki ti je dodeljen odločil, da pokaže to čarobnost samo za trenutek, skozi tvoje prizadevanje, potem "Olé!" In če ne, prav tako odpleši svoj ples. In "Olé!" kljub temu. Verjamem v to in mislim, da je to treba učiti. "Olé!" kljub vsemu, že samo zato, ker zaradi same ljubezni in vztrajnosti nadaljuješ svoje delo.
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Aplavz)
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Aplavz)
June Cohen: Olé!
June Cohen: Olé!
(Applause)
(Aplavz)