In & Of Itself - Identity is an Illusion

Every year I try to attend the Future of Storytelling Summit in Snug Harbor on Staten Island, NY. It is a relatively intimate gathering of some of the most accomplished minds in the business of storytelling from Disney’s Glen Keane, to David Blaine, to Lin Manuel Miranda and many more. It is unparalleled access and the opportunity to connect and have conversations on all things story and media to continue to push the edge of what’s possible.

This year, I had the opportunity to sit among a round table with Derek DelGaudio, an illusionist and storyteller. Derek has a show going on in NYC right now called In & Of Itself. It's directed by legendary Frank Oz (a huge inspiration of mine from his time with Jim Henson, also built & played Yoda, etc). I knew from meeting Derek that I needed to go see his show.

I was right.

At a key juncture of the show, he says he needs someone to come back Tuesday (2 days later). I shoot my hand up without hesitation.

Straight faced, he says, "Sir, I see your hand, but I'm serious. I need someone to return Tuesday." -- "Challenge accepted." "Can I call you Mr. Tuesday?" he asks. "I am Mr. Tuesday." He proceeds to share about this one-of-a-kind book, that has been passed from audience member to audience member since May 2nd, 2016, a year and a half later. This thing is a beast. In it, people are asked to do two things;

1. Recap what you've witnessed in the show as you saw it

2. Predict how the show is going to end

The rub, is that the volunteer gets booted about 2/3 of the way into the show, and they don't get to find out the ending until they return. Doh! 

Mr. Earlier That Day, brings the book up, and reads an incredibly deep passage that had me intimidated. "Crap, I have to follow that?" I hear myself say.  Later in the evening, Stephen Colbert is found to be in the audience. "Crap, I have to read to this kind of caliber of audience?" I hear myself say.

It is important to highlight just how much of a risk this whole thing is on Derek’s behalf. He is literally giving away part of his show, to a stranger, in hopes they return! Then he trusts them to own the spotlight in front of an audience who paid a lot of money to be there and be thoroughly entertained. The risk that someone who knows the ending gave away the actual ending, and the person spoils the show. This responsibility is not to be taken lightly... and so, I don't.

In short, without reading a single entry from another in this massive tome, as not to influence my own input, I spend two full days of my life recounting my experience and writing out my prediction. By the time I finish, I take a quick peek and see that this book, although just leather and paper, has transformed into a living collection of humanity’s thoughts, perspectives, assumptions, creativity, humor, emotions, and playfulness. Little societies have formed. Secret games were planted throughout. I may or may not have added 2, including a Scratch & Sniff. :)

Tuesday night comes quick, and it is my time to get up in front of everyone. *gulp. Derek takes the book, and begins to flip through the pages. On stage is his only time to see what people are doing because it's constantly out in the world. He mentions the woman who created her entire entry, then used whiteout to redact the whole thing. Bold. Or the first images that appear; Ice Cube and Snoop Dogg. Someone who built it around lyrics from Hamilton. The incredibly meticulous handwriting of some. Another who was ashamed of their writing and typed it out, which kicked off a trend. Others who illustrated, added tokens and mementos, etc. 

Then he arrives to my pages.

"whoaaa, what is this?..."

 Then he turns to the crowd, showing the pages, and says, "I don't know if you can see this in the back, but pieces are interlocked with kind of a cat's cradle (string)." I point out that the black writing was how I saw what objectively happened, and the pink was the story I told myself about it.

"you fuckin' show off..." he says gently almost under his breath.

Hah! Then he calls our attention to my prediction page, and says the stage is mine. 

*Deep breath*

I stand under the bright spotlight and for 3 minutes and 30 seconds, unravel the depths at where my heart and mind have gone. Not just from this show, but from all my collected experiences and perspectives, from being a full time nomad living out of a van for years and connecting with peoples and traditions of all walks of life. In this space, I share my reality and my truth.

I'll transcribe it below so you can read if you want to, but when I finish… *crickets. There was not a single sound for a few beats.

I had this gut drop of a moment, "oh no." And I turn to Derek who is standing with his mouth open and hardly able to move, and he utters,

"holy.. shit. wow.. thank you."

Page 1

Page 2

I stretch out my hands towards his and feel all of the weight lift all that responsibility and everyone’s collective love and genius to Derek’s art.. There goes the book. There goes my heart. There goes the build up and anticipation since I first raising my hand.

If you're in NYC before the end of 2017, go see his show. The entire show, and especially the ending, does not disappoint. In fact, the opposite.

Here is the transcript of what I wrote and read:

This show will end the only way anything can end. Empty, dark, and deserted. What was once some thing, becomes no thing.

The women in the booth will turn off the lights. The man will step off the stage. Our butts will rise up from the seats. And we will all go elsewhere.
This space will sit empty, dark, and deserted. 
In it, whispers, reminding of life once lived. Stories told and untold. Finally, by the end we will discover that identity is an illusion brought into focus by a lens of perspective. 

We entered into this space, believing I am me and you are you. This ends by revealing there is no me. There is no you. There just is. There just isn't. Because that's all there can ever be. Living and not living. Some thing, or no thing. 

This ends with showing us our own minds are what trap us in boxes. Boxes that display letters on cards. Cards that our minds find a familiar pattern among. Our minds that then cause our muscles, ligaments, and bones to work in harmony to claim that card. To claim our identity. 

The end shows us that own minds trap us in the stories we tell ourselves. In the stories we tell each other. Stories collected of moments once lived, stories of circumstances that caused us pain and trauma which opened up little wounds among the fullness of our identity, causing for division within us, and separation among us. Where we can be shoulder to shoulder, yet worlds apart.

That separation became the opportunity for fear to seep in like a glue to fill the cracks. Each story our mind collects, drives an voracious appetite for need. The need comfort, safety and control. The need to be seen and heard and validated. The need for love, acceptance, and belonging. And the need for purpose, service, and contribution.

In the end we learn that our fear is what drives our need for identity. That we have succumb to a world of distractions and illusions to keep us from facing these fears, from seeing the truth. 

We learn that the only way to be free, to be whole, to be connected, is to turn into our fear. To kiss the dragon and reveal the princess. Or simply, to just slay that motherfucker. As soon as we peel off the labels, magic can happen.

We entered into this space with a narrow focus. The more narrow we focus the more we miss out on. The more separate we become. As we zoom out we see we are the same, here together in this room for the love and appreciation and story, surprise and delight. We zoom way further out and see we are just blood flesh and bone. Identified by our species. We zoom out further and see we are the relationship between matter and energy. We are the animals. The trees. The rocks. The oceans. We zoom further out and see we are the star dust. We see there is no good and evil, right or wrong. There is no separateness.

We just... are. Until, we are not.

Until our sun dies out, and the universe becomes this space. Empty, dark and deserted... whispering our stories. 

fin.

The answer to Las Vegas; you may not like it

Photo: EliteRevolt

You want the truthful answer?

Breathe deeply and slowly with me as we explore... ok, here we go.

This is an important reminder that we are already beginning to have a series of discussions, or yelling matches, and potentially a whole lot of changes made coming up. People are going to start to asking questions, creating theories, grasping at trying to make sense of the world we are living in, and create initiatives to force a sense of safety. We can be quick to label each other to keep our feelings about the conversation itself safe, but if we just keep breathing, we can engage without panicking, and hopefully without creating irrational measures that reduce life and the ability to live it. 

Let's take this forming theory, as pictured above. What I take from reading this, is that there are some in this country that would not put it past our own government to create a false flag. To create a Reichstag Fire. To create an opportunity to change the fabric of how our world operates and go to war with our own people or the people of the world.

Breathing...

Losing the Twin Towers and the lives in it on 9/11 is not what changed our world. How we responded to it did. And more accurately, how we let the response happen did. Before 9/11, we weren't engaged in any (of our own major) wars. No War on Terror. No Patriot Act. No Homeland Security. We didn't know about al-Qaeda or Bin Laden. There was no ISIS. We deported half the people we do today. Surveillance was a fraction of the size. We didn't have to take our shoes off at the airport or have our genitals exposed in RapiScans. We weren't having to "Opt Out" and get intimate pat downs every single time we fly (I do). Our police weren't militarized. We weren't getting random stops for searches just walking down the street. Our own Muslim neighbors weren't getting targeted and attacked, at least as freely and frequently.

We live a new normal. We are responsible for having accepted this as normal for the commitment to safety and security, at the expense of our own liberties. Now that it's normal, the temperature of our bubbling pot can continue to dial to boiling.

Breathing...

Whether or not this is today's Reichstag Fire, whether or not we have someone in office who is hell bent on power and control, or serving a higher master bent on world domination, willing to go to war with other countries or our own selves, or whether this was just an enigma of a situation from a deranged, broken, isolated, desensitized, hurting human who acted out in violence, is mostly irrelevant. 

It's irrelevant when it comes to what we allow and push for next. We need to be mindful that we are going to either allow or deny for an entirely new generation of normal to take place. We need to understand how far we are willing to go, to tell ourselves we live in a safe world. To feel like we have a sense of control. Or what we are willing to give up for that illusion. And it is just an illusion. Until every single one of us lives inside of our own physical prison cell, heavily monitored and guarded, lead by heavily armed officers to each area of our lives to have our basic needs met, we will not have the physical security we may seek.

Learning how to not harm each other cannot be treated from the outside in, because it's what's inside us that causes us to harm. Our nature is to make quick, broad strokes so we can see the changes, even if those changes are more destructive and yield more repercussions later. 

So do you still want the truthful answer? If so, keep breathing.

Healing, and safety, is only going to come with patience, resilience, and the willingness to do the work within each of our own selves and in our own homes and communities, so that in another generation's time, the change we seek will materialize.

We have to play the long game. And the long game is...

Love. It's community. It's knowing our neighbor is our family and ourselves. It's the empathy to feel that when someone else hurts, we hurt. It's making sure the person next to us knows they are not alone and that their feelings and perspectives matter just as much as our own. The long game is changing the way our children are educated and what we feed into their minds. The long game is picking up the trash on our streets, or not littering, to show that we respect the ground that we walk on. It's changing the way we grow, process, and eat food to show we care about our physical health.

It's changing the way we consume... everything. Changing what and how much we watch and listen to, to show we care about our emotional and mental health. The long game is changing the way we listen to, talk to, and touch each other, again to show we are seen, heard, and that our needs matter. It's learning how to cry. How to say, "I love you." How to hold eye contact and offer a smile. How to talk about our emotions, as men, as women. How to talk about menstruation, bodily functions and changes. How to talk about and how to listen to our pains, traumas, shames, and fears. How to understand identity and how to express and encourage them.

It's changing our definitions of success, away from material, status, and class hierarchy, instead toward experiencing life, creativity, connection, growth, and service. It's changing the way we allow ourselves to get busy and stuck, no longer feeling like prisoners to time. We have to change the way we strive to get others to consume and pay attention. It's changing the appetite of our economic machine and the way currency flows. It's turning off our city's lights at night to see we live in an infinite universe, to humble us, reminding us how small we are. How small our problems are. How quick we are here and gone.

Breathing...

We cannot look outside of our own shell of a body and demand somebody else create the changes, the rules, or the tools. It's you. It's me. It's we. It's how we spend the rest of today, then tomorrow, and each day after. Every decision, thought, word, and action. 

It's every breath we have left.

Photo: NASA

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