Day 3

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.

Henry David Thoreau

One of the exercises Julia Cameron has set in The artist’s way involves writing a ridiculously positive affirmation ten times in a row and then listening to all the internal derision that comes up in response. We are to listen to the derision and see what specific criticisms and denials come up. Once we’ve done that, we are to think back to where such a denial or criticism may have come from.

The temptation, of course, was simply to state the affirmation once in my head (not out loud of course!), feel ridiculous about it, figure I’d got the general idea and move on. But I decided not to. Hey, I’ve got the time at the moment! You know what the really weird thing was? I was a bit scared to do it because I was afraid, not of self-criticism arising, but of nothing happening at all. I was afraid that if I did the exercise, unlike the examples provided by Julia Cameron, I wouldn’t get any internal response or revelations. I would simply write the affirmation and think, “Now what? Is something supposed to happen now?” I actually had performance anxiety about a reflective exercise, in case I got it wrong!!! Or, perhaps, simply because I was afraid that my imagination is so limited, I couldn’t even manage self-reflection. I wasn’t sure I wanted to find that out.

Perhaps even weirder than my own fear was the discovery that it really does work. It’s almost like it’s a challenge to your mind to keep writing the same affirmation. Write it once and you just get a bored “Yeah, right”. Or at least, that’s what happened to me. I could almost see my inner critic barely bothering to raise an eyebrow, looking at me with bored disdain and saying “Really? Come back when you’ve got something more interesting to offer.” So I wrote it again. The response was a variation, slightly stronger this time. And so on. I ended up learning quite a surprising amount about myself. I really would not have thought it would make any difference at all, even if I did manage to dredge up from memory some imagined past event in which I first began to not take myself seriously. Like, “who cares? I believe this now, so what difference does it make if I can tie my belief back to some point in the past? It’s not like it matters now.” Okay, yes, this from the girl who spent all of February working with Kelly-Ann’s 29 shadows exercises in her spare time precisely to learn more about her motivations, challenges and opportunities– you’d think I’d know better... My goodness it was illuminating. And it has absolutely nothing to do with blame, which is the idea I think I was struggling against. It’s more like “Wow! I actually bought into that? Amazing!” I won’t bore you with everything I learned, but there is one thing I found really fascinating (hey, have you noticed that I’m back to writing to “you” again? I obviously want a friend this morning).

I discovered that my parents and teachers have managed to instil into me the tall poppy syndrome. How often have I heard about Australia’s famous tall poppy syndrome? Cut everyone down to size and be completely egalitarian. Cut down anyone who thinks he’s a bit good: “We’re all the same, mate.” I thought it was just an idealised idea of trade unions and mateship. Anzacs and all that. But it’s not. It really and truly isn’t.

My primary school teachers used to think I was too “superior”. My mother made it a point to always dress me neatly and keep my hair perfectly brushed (though that effect was usually spoiled about five minutes after I walked outside!). I kept my books as neatly as I could, though they were never as neat as I would have liked because the teachers made us work too fast. I was always the tortoise at the back end of the class. When we had to share reading books no one ever wanted to partner with me; the other person was always ready to turn the page before I’d even reached the half-way point on the left-hand page. I got good grades but also got the feeling that the teachers didn’t like me. I wasn’t attractive or funny; I was quiet and studious. And I was scared of the other children because they were loud and aggressive. And they teased me heaps. So I kept my distance and must have come across as a little snob. Come to think of it, I probably was a little snob, but only because I was scared silly by all the chaos around me.

I quickly learned that it wasn’t a good thing to be better than the other kids at anything. Or at least, if you were, you had to hide it. It was absolutely fine to be great at sport (I was so bad at sport it was painful), and of course you were supposed to be well-behaved and get good grades. But not too-well behaved or too-good grades. Basically, you were supposed to work out what everyone else did and be the same. Or as close as possible. I didn’t even know I knew that until yesterday! But thinking about it, of course that’s what I had to do. Only I couldn’t be loud like the other children and, since I didn’t choose my own clothes, I couldn’t dress like them, so I was different. And different, is, of course, very, very bad. Unless, of course, you’re a Pagan. But you really don’t tell anyone about that at school. Not if you’re smart. And even I’m not that dumb!

I remember one time, early in primary school. It was the end of term, and we were all lining up for our term reports. The boys ahead of me in the queue were making a great show of being scared of getting their reports. I was confused. Why? What was there to be scared of in a report? The teacher was smiling and laughing at them. So I thought this must be the thing to do for some reason. So I started shaking and pulling faces, like the boys, trying to act really scared. By the time I reached the teacher, I had that act down. I was in the zone. And feeling pretty excited about it, to be honest. I’d done it! I’d managed to play the game everyone else was playing! I looked up excitedly, glad that for once I was going to win a smile from the teacher as well. “Stop that!” she snapped at me, disgusted. She handed me my report impatiently and turned her attention to the next child, at whom she again smiled.

I didn’t get it. Not at first. What did I do wrong? Why was it funny when the boys did it but not funny when I did? Why was I badly behaved for playing the game? Then I looked over at the boys and saw something I couldn’t possibly have seen from behind. One of the boys in the group was really upset. He wasn’t playing. Neither were his friends. They must have all been acting scared to make him feel better, make him feel like it was the same for all of them. I looked around the room to the rest of the students who had now either received their reports or were still waiting to. No one else was making an elaborate show of being scared. It was only the boys in front of me – and me. When the teacher saw them, she saw friendship and support, and she smiled. When she saw me, she must have thought I was making fun of them.

How do I know what was actually going on that day? I don’t know. Maybe I just made up a story about it. Maybe that wasn’t the truth at all. But there was a group of friends, there was a boy who was scared and upset, and there was a teacher who smiled at them, but not at me. That was the moment when I really understood for the first time that it wasn’t just my clothes and my quietness and my slowness that were different. Even my report was different. I wasn’t the same. And that was bad.

And the really, really surprising thing? It wasn’t just my teachers. Or the other kids. It was my parents. My parents. These are the super-intelligent, science-y types. The ones who encouraged achievement. I’ve always thought of them as wanting me to do well, though, strangely, they never pushed me in anything. But now, when I look back, I remember my piano lessons. My neighbour, Clare, and I went to different schools. She went to the local Catholic school and I went to the public school. Clare’s parents had wanted me to go to the Catholic school as well so that Clare would have a friend there when she started, but my parents were atheists, so it wasn’t going to happen! But we did go to the same piano teacher. My parents didn’t believe in sport (though the school certainly did!) – they believed in intellectual pursuits and hobbies. And they thought it was important that I learn to appreciate music. So along I went, every week, with Clare – she had the first lesson and I had the second one. I always found it hard, but she found it even harder. It was never that exciting and I probably didn’t work as hard as I should have. One day, as I grew older, my mother chose to tell me, for some reason, that the teacher had once suggested to her that I had promise and could have achieved a lot more with my music. She wanted my mother to encourage me. Only, my mother reflected, “It was important for Clare that you and she stay at the same level. She couldn’t have kept up if you’d really applied yourself, so I never pushed you. It wouldn’t have been fair to Clare. I’ve always been glad you didn’t go to school together. You would have shown her up and she needed to be encouraged.”

Wow. It’s a good thing I was never really that excited about piano lessons!!! I had forgotten all about that until now, and yet I can see my mother’s intent face so clearly now. I also remember how my parents were very careful to always buy her a present every time they bought me one, because her parents had several children to buy for and mine had only one. If someone gave her a beautiful doll, they bought me a smaller one. They didn’t want her to feel that she had less than me. As it happens, Clare might have cared about presents for a little while but probably not for long. Her parents started sending me home when I was playing at her place, and not letting me spend much time with her much any more; they wanted her to spend more time with her Catholic friends. Soon she dropped piano lessons. And guess what? Clare-who-couldn’t-keep-up, Clare-who-wasn’t-as-smart-as-me-and-should-be-pitied, went to law school and is already on her way to becoming a hot-shot lawyer with no time for me. I ended up working as an office junior.

Do I resent my parents for any of that? Clare? My teachers? No, I really don’t. Well, maybe my teachers just a little for making me feel like such a low worm. But it’s not like I had any huge career ambitions that were shot down in flames. I kind of wish I did have career ambitions. Because now, all of a sudden, it seems to matter to “be” someone. You’re supposed to be totally dedicated to your work and have a career plan, and be “switched on”, 24/7. Not dull and boring, with absolutely no ambition, like me. So it doesn’t actually matter that I wasn’t encouraged to bring forth my (apparently non-existent) talents. But it is kind of surprising, especially on the part of my parents, who I’m sure must have hoped that I would go into some form of science, like them (even if they never quite said so). It’s kind of funny really – I’m a modern “victim” of the infamous Australian tall poppy syndrome. Beware people! It’s real – and it’s out to get you!

Ordinary. If there’s one word I hate, it’s “ordinary”. Maybe there’s a reason why I’m a Pagan after all, despite being a boring, conforming, unimaginative plodder. “Ordinary” scares me actually. Quite a lot. Have you ever watched Heroes? I really like all the characters, but my favourite is Hiro Nakamura. Okay, so he’s nearly everyone’s favourite, which makes me “ordinary.” Don’t care! Not about that. One of the scenes that vividly remains with me is of an endless sea of office workers all standing, doing their morning exercises on top of the office building. All dressed the same, all making the same movements at the same time. And Hiro quietly dying amidst this sea of grey sameness. He couldn’t bear to be like everyone else. He just couldn’t make himself be that person. And so he invented his own super power. He invented it! Unlike the others (except Sylar), whose ability came naturally and without looking for it, he literally willed his power into being. He loved his comic books and the amazing characters within them, and was determined to become a “master of time and space”. He practised and practised until he could really do it. He became a super hero because he believed that he could be and he believed it hard enough that it became real.

How cool would that be? To become a super hero because you know you can be and you decide that it is true. Or decide to be an artist or something really special and beautiful and imaginative. Not to be better than anyone else, just to be different and unique. Just to not be the same.

Suits scare me too. Suits and ties and pencil skirts and office blouses. “Neat” heeled shoes and pantyhose, hair pulled back “professionally” into a “neat” bun. Neat, neat, neat. “Respectable,” as my mother would say. She doesn’t believe in “girly” or “pretty” but she does believe very strongly in looking neat, professional, respectable and – decent. She thinks the human body is an ugly thing and out of consideration for others we have to cover ourselves decently and look as little offensive as we can manage.

So when I see that vast sea of office workers, I feel nauseous, just like Hiro. It’s like a science fiction horror movie, one of those old B grade things. It’s like so many wound-up automatons or zombies going blindly about their daily routine, with no ability to actually think for themselves. Or like the cigar-smoking men in grey in Michael Ende’s Momo. I’ve never actually watched a zombie movie, but if I had to imagine zombies, they would look just like office workers. Do they genuinely want to turn us into Orwell’s 1984, with no one having an original thought for themselves? I know it’s painful that we’re all different. It’s painful for me. I hate it when people are loud and aggressive, when they do unexpected things that scare me and make me feel unsafe, when they create chaos in libraries instead of soothing silence. And It’s pretty obvious that other people sometimes find me painful. There’s a seduction to sameness. But are we truly prepared to pay the price?

I think of the time when I wandered down to the beach, just as usual, and discovered that the long chain of cloud had become a brilliant and beautiful pink, stretching endlessly from north to south. Not orange, or patches of pink and grey. One pure and brilliant wall of pink, bathing all the air around about in shimmering rainbows. And above the cloudline a nearly full and brilliant moon. I have never seen anything like it, before or since. It belonged in a fantasy novel, not in Australia’s suburbia. But no one noticed. No. One. Noticed. Except me. Career types continued their phone conversations, lovers continued to gaze purely at each other, surfers continued to surf. I looked all around me but this was not the time of day to attract the meditators or nature lovers. Not even a photographer in sight. This was the tail end of the “day shift” – the time of families and tourists. Screaming children, sand-covered bodies, sun screen and “fun”. Every single person on that beach just continued as usual, oblivious to the magic. And that seriously scares the hell out of me.

But it is a choice to not be ordinary, isn’t it? Please tell me that is true! After all, I have Fanu now. Fanu is my name for the companion who came to me the other night in my dream. I was scared that if I didn’t have a name for him, he would gradually fade out of memory and become just a dream. I didn’t want that. So last night I asked into the darkness, “What can I call you?” The answer, whispered softly, came back somewhere between “Fanu” and “Hanu”. The first letter seemed to be a cross between an F and an H. I could spell it either way, but somehow I like Fanu. While all else are wearing their office clothing, listening to their plastic music and moving like stiffly-wound automatons, I have a choice to keep Fanu fresh and real in my mind.

This universe I inhabit is remarkably rich and magical: just as rich and magical as I allow it to be.