"The one where Jon remembered to have fun" - the Separate Ways remake, and why compassion can be funny

Wow, am I ever serious. I mean, damn! Did you guys read that Mary Oliver piece? Jeez! How about that fun thing I did on genocide! Wow. I take myself waaaaay too seriously!

That not to say that Mary Oliver isn't important, and that art doesn't have the potential to change the world. But come on, people. Not everyone wants to heave their guts up with tears every day.

So let's start with this. Please, please watch it before you read any further.



Did you get that? If you're not familiar with the original video, watch this version:



Got it?

Did you watch it all the way through?

If not, go back and watch. Please. I'm not kidding. It's worth your while. My wife and I watched it one night at least thirty times.

You might even take the time to go to YouTube and search for other versions. Like this:



Not my favorite. But guess what? There are at least TEN MORE on YouTube. Seriously. Tons of people have taken this, and many other songs, acted out the video, filmed it with multiple takes and camera, edited it, and posted it on YouTube. I mean, WOW.

And I have watched them all, many times.

So what in the heck does this have to do with compassion?

I'm not entirely sure.

But I do have a straw that I'm grasping to, that gives me license to post these silly videos.

When I watch one of these videos I'm thinking:

1. Wow, that must've taken a lot of time!
2. Wow, that song is pretty silly.
3. What a bunch of idiots.
4. This is hilarious.
5. Hey, maybe we could make a video like this!
6. Hey, maybe we could get the kids to do a video like this!

Somebody took the time to do all this work to create these things so we could laugh! And so they could laugh! And, in this case, they chose a completely earnest song with an completely earnest video to spoof, which is perfectly compassionate. Why? Because who among us hasn't taken themselves waaaaaayyyy too seriously? Who among us hasn't been like Steve Perry in the original video, completely serious and significant about something that might just be as substantive as the Steve's love for that Markie Post-lookin' chick.

So here's what I'm thinking. It is compassionate to want to relieve another human being's suffering. We have all suffered in many ways and we all want relief. It is compassionate to want another human being to have fun. It is compassionate to want another human being to laugh and relax and stop taking themselves so goshdarn seriously for a moment.

Ohhh... I feel it coming on... here I go with...

A Thich Nhat Hanh Quote

I've used this one a lot recently but it's soooo appropriate.

"The meaning of the word Avalokitesvara is 'the one who looks deeply into the world and hears the cries of the world.'; This voice relieves our suffering and suppressed feelings, because it is the voice of someone who understands us deeply -- our anguish, despair, and fear. When we feel understood, we suffer much less."

Dare I say that Avalokitesvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, is present in the remakes of Journey's Separate Ways? Yes, I say, yes.

When we watch the best of these videos, we are watching someone who's been there. I'm just sure of it. All teen angst-y, locked away in his room, looking for reruns of Night Court. And then, later on, able to look at that teen angst, that pre-Morrissey heartbreak, and maybe just chuckle a little bit.

So we can sometimes be compassionate to ourselves by stopping the mind chatter and laughing, by watching someone exaggerate behavior we, ourselves, have taken on. We've all been like Steve Perry, wrapped up in our... journey... (sorry). And sometimes, we need to laugh and get over our seriousness.

That doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't change the world. But maybe we can have fun while doing it. Because sometimes, having fun is exactly what's called for. *

"The one where Jon remembered to have fun" - the Separate Ways remake, and why compassion can be funny

"You do not have to be good." - Mary Oliver on self-compassion

"When will you have a little pity for/every soft thing/that walks through the world,/yourself included?" - Mary Oliver

Sitting here in the woods of Vermont, I've been wanting to write something about the poetry of Mary Oliver as it relates to compassion. I recently bought a CD of Ms. Oliver reading some of her work, and though I haven't spent much time out on the Cape where she lives, her poems resonate well here when I'm running down a tree-lined road. Ms. Oliver, from time to time, refers to matters I'd call “self-compassion.”

I've been thinking a lot about self-compassion. If compassion literally means, “to suffer with,” self-compassion means, to me, to be with your own suffering, and to accept it fully and mindfully. As an artist, this points to fully embracing yourself and your journey; without this embrace, when you're denying your suffering, it's hard to imagine an audience connecting to you and your presence. You're not giving anything to them, and you're surely not giving anything to yourself.

Famed voice and acting coach Patsy Rodenburg says this is required in order to feel alive. From her book The Second Circle, talking to a group of highly privileged young women:

“I hope you all get what you want in life. Husband, beautiful children, country house, town mansion, shopping trips to Paris, New York, and London. Travel far and wide and stay in the most glamorous resorts on the planet... But beyond this, I believe you will still be bored, because in order to feel alive you have to give, and I have never seen any of you give anything to anyone in my presence... why don't you believe you should show anything, give, offer? Do you really think you can go through life showing nothing?”

It's hard to imagine an audience connecting to a performer whose work comes from boredom, that lacks aliveness.

Poet David Whyte recorded a talk on the poetry of self-compassion (released as a CD called, surprisingly, The Poetry of Self-Compassion). It's worth the cost of the CD just to hear him read Ms. Oliver's “The Journey.”

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice-
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations, though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen branches and stones.
but little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do-
determined to save
the only life you could save.

- Mary Oliver

Whyte talks about how hard it is to make this journey, leaving where you are in order to “come home.” But “you knew what you had to do.”

But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations, though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen branches and stones.

Whyte continues:

“Mary Oliver says, 'you want to know what it's like, when you take that step outside your house, and leave that confining identity around, and go out on the road of life, that's what it feels like, it feels like as if you're leaving at two o'clock in the morning in the middle of a windstorm.'”

Thich Nhat Hanh says (in his book The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching) this journey is required, to grow, to have the peace and joy you deserve;

“Without suffering, you cannot grow. Without suffering, you can not get the peace and joy you deserve. Please don't run away from your suffering. Embrace it and cherish it. Go to the Buddha, sit with him, and show him your pain. He will look at you with loving kindness, compassion, and mindfulness, and show you ways to embrace your suffering and look deeply into it. With understanding and compassion, you will be able to heal the wounds in your heart, and the wounds in the world. The Buddha called suffering a Holy Truth, because our suffering has the capacity of showing us the path to liberation. Embrace your suffering, and let it reveal to you the way to peace.”

As I previously mentioned, Thay also talks about the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara in his book For a Future to be Possible.

"The meaning of the word Avalokitesvara is 'the one who looks deeply into the world and hears the cries of the world.'; This voice relieves our suffering and suppressed feelings, because it is the voice of someone who understands us deeply -- our anguish, despair, and fear. When we feel understood, we suffer much less."

An artist must embrace his or her suffering, and by doing so an audience is given a space where they can accept their own suffering, where they can experience self-compassion. Avalokitesvara is present in any artist who embraces his or her suffering, because an artist doing so allows an audience to feel understood, and relieves their suffering.

Whyte goes on to talk about probably my favorite Mary Oliver poem, “Wild Geese,” which he calls a “poem of tremendous self-compassion and self-forgiveness.”

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over again announcing your place
in the family of things.
- Mary Oliver

Whyte says that that when you first “step in to write your poem, when you first step in to write your life, you do not have to be good. You can't get there from here if you think you have to be good in order to do it. She's saying if there is goodness in the world it comes from us rubbing ourselves up against life and testing ourselves against it, and making lots of mistakes, and falling down flat. And doing bad things thinking we're doing good things. Doing good things thinking we're doing bad things. And making sense of it from the greater perspective of one's own personal destiny and intuitions of where we're supposed to go in the world.”

It seems to me that any artist who does this, who's willing to embrace mistakes, to embrace his or her life, creates the listening that allows any audience to connect to their work. To create a space where we, ourselves, can experience self-compassion. To know that we do not have to be good, and to accept it fully.

So there's my advice for the day, from the woods of Vermont. “You do not have to be good.” *

"You do not have to be good." - Mary Oliver on self-compassion

Whoops! I forgot to be compassionate! - and a response from Peace Games' Courtney Wong

Whoa! Another week + has gone by and no posting. What's that about? Lest you think I'm sitting here in lotus position, mindfully breathing while I take on the business that is show, I'd like to share the following:

I frequently get so wrapped up in what's going on in my head that I forget to be compassionate.

That's right. Me. I can be a real jerk sometimes! For instance, I'll be on the phone with an agent, or a producer, or a casting director, and they'll say something that just rubs me the wrong way. Can you believe it? Me, Mr. Non-Judgment? Obviously there must be something really really wrong with them if it bothers me. Or maybe I'm just not being compassionate! Maybe I'm so busy being right that I'm not stopping to think about what they want!

Remember that Triumph song from the 70's, "Fight the Good Fight"? Make sure to watch this video from the 1983 Us Festival. At least watch through to the part where Rik Emmett's face is superimposed over an image of the crowd.



Damn, that guy has a high voice. What is it with Canadian singers? Regardless the message is clear: FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT! What can I do make sure I keep fighting the good fight?

I have an elaborate system of reminders that bring me back to... ommm... compassion. So that when I'm on the phone with someone who's somehow annoying me, I can stop and remember to be compassionate. I can remember what's important to me and why, I can remember to take a breath and come back to the present moment, I can remember why I must be compassionate, how it impacts me when I'm not being compassionate, how it impacts them, and how it impacts the world.

In case you forgot why it's important to be compassionate, click here.

So here are some of my reminders.

1. Buddha on the desk
2. Buddha on the windowsill
3. Pic of my kids on the desk.
4. Pic of my wife on the desk.
5. Pic of my kids and nephews on my big monitor.
6. Plants!
7. Mindfulness bell on my computer
8. Tattoo with my wife and kids' names, and red lotuses (the flower of Avalokitesvara, the bodhisattva of compassion). This is a recent addition, and one that I can take with me wherever I go.
9. Inspiring quotes on my desk. Today, from Chogyam Trungpa, "This very moment is always the occasion."
10. Stacks and stacks of inspiring reading.

If this gets you excited, feel free to find your own ideas. I'd hate to think you were copying me. I especially don't want you getting a tattoo with my wife and kids' names. Or steal, if it really helps. But seriously, don't get my wife and kids' names tattooed on your arm. Seriously. Find your own damn family. Whoops! Off track for a moment.

Anyway I'd like to share one of the other most inspiring things that really keeps me on track––I got an email from our friends at Peace Games who were kind enough to forward this note from one of their interns, Courtney Wong, who's working with them through the New Sector Alliance Summer Fellowship Program. Here, Courtney discussed the posting about Keith Nobbs' experiences in his work. The picture below is Courtney, just to avoid any confusion.

"I was touched by your moving post about Keith’s experiences with compassion in his acting work. The sense of fulfillment and personal impact that Keith felt in his role as an actor, inspiring compassion and empathy in his audience is quite similar to what Peace Games works to instill in its students.

As an intern at Peace Games through the New Sector Alliance Summer Fellowship program in nonprofit consulting, I only became acquainted with the organization’s work a few weeks ago. I hadn’t previously thought about the idea of “peacemaking” and its importance as a fundamental value taught to students, but in learning about Peace Games’ rich history and work by visiting schools and talking to staff members, I realize that it’s really all about teaching students to act with the basic but essential values of compassion, understanding, and mutual respect.

This idea that you write about, that compassion is the key to having an extraordinary impact, is exactly what Peace Games teaches its students. In our classrooms, students learn about and practice these values, in order to understand that their relationships with peers, family members, and teachers must be filled with compassion, respect, kindness, and empathy. This understanding gives students the ability to have an impact beyond the one already felt in their personal relationships – a greater impact on their communities at large, which they reveal through their community service learning “Peacemaker Projects” carried out during the second half of the year.

As you noted, Keith identifies himself and his work as an important contribution, which is Peace Games’ goal for its students as well. We teach students that we must all be a contribution as peacemakers, people who make a difference, and that the differences we make should be about fostering positive changes in our communities based on compassion and respect."

If you're not already familiar with Peace Games, check out this amazing video on their work:

And thanks so much to Courtney Wong for her inspiring words!
*

Whoops! I forgot to be compassionate! - and a response from Peace Games' Courtney Wong