What Is Real?

I'm against the overhead of maintaining a persona, as an individual. - Alan Gutierrez, comments in Hugh's "Greatness" post

I've noticed an interesting phenomena. When I stay on the surface and write from what writer Natalie Goldberg says is that hip, glib place my nervousous about being real pervades the post. I stay on the surface. I definitely get more trackbacks and that's the point, right? But no email. When I'm real, I receive a flurry of personal and very heartfelt email - and barely any public comments, or trackbacks.

A friend asks if I am lonely. "Having an audience, a readership, isn't the same thing as one-on-one real conversation." So true. Emerson once said he would walk a hundred miles through a snowstorm for a good conversation. I'd do the same for a real conversation.

We are aching for the real.

''People aren't looking for the elevated holy man who's got all of the answers,'' he told me one afternoon. ''They want someone to be real with them.'' - Pastor McFarland of the Radiant Church, a megachurch growing faster than weeds, from New York Times, "The Soul of the New Exurb," March 27, 2005

Seth Godin gives his two cents on the marketing efforts of the Radiant megachurch. And Tom Guarriello asks: "My question is, if Seth's right, and all marketers are liars, then what lie is this church telling?  Let's see if we can figure it out."

If you dig below the superficials - the mall complex, the billboard ads, the Krispy Kremes and Starbucks - what this church is ultimately "selling" is realness: "When you ask people how Radiant has changed their lives, they will almost invariably talk about how it helped open their hearts."

Most Christians who say they have been changed by their church attribute it not to their pastors' sermons but to their small groups, where people can share, in the words of Dave Travis, who runs the megachurch consultancy, ''their deepest hopes and hurts.'' This was, after all, the model of Jesus and his disciples: What I've done with you, you now do with other people. - New York Times, "The Soul of the New Exurb", March 27, 2005

I'm no biblical scholar, but I believe the last line refers to the tender act in the last supper where Jesus carefully and lovingly washes each disciples feet before the meal is brought in - a task that one would think would be "beneath" a guru, a master and is usually relegated to servants and hastily performed. Silently he kneels and washes their feet circling one by one around the table. When he is done, he says:

I give you a new commandment: that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you should also love one another. - John 13:34

I'd rather be real than great. I have never gained anything I truly wanted from a pure pursuit of greatness. I'm not saying these two are mutually exclusive, but the focus can lead one astray. Nothing kills relationships - personal and professional - quicker than when I stop being real. It's costly in the tangible cash realm too.

Some time when the river is ice ask me

mistakes I have made. Ask me whether

what I have done is my life. - from William Stafford's poem "Ask Me"

Being real in a customer service relationship may have saved me from totally losing every bit of the three grand I plopped down to reserve rooms and meeting space for the Dwelve "advance". Customers don't usually admit THEY are the idiots. Of course I wasn't real quite early enough... I didn't want to cancel earlier because "EVERYONE" knows you stick to your commitments. Scaling back to an intimate gathering because your heart isn't into doing a big to-do - now, what kind of lame excuse is that? But it was the truth. I knew it six weeks ago. But I couldn't fess up to it until last week. Oh, I've mastered grand failures - but mastery of real - and small - experiments is next. A small experiment is not a timid experiment, but it's not striving for greatness above all else either.

I'd say greatness exists in all of us. Kind of like the way treeness exists in an acorn. Perhaps every acorn doesn't become a tree but the potential to grow is ALWAYS there. - my comment on Hugh's "Greatness" post

Funny thing, being real usually lead to being great - on your own terms. It's questionable if it works the other way around. For a long time I defined "greatness" by other people's measures until one day I read something that stuck with me. It said something to the effect that I should accentuate my weaknesses - in other words, perhaps my "weakness" was actually a differentiator. And a hidden strength. "Different" from what other's categorize as a "strength" doesn't make it a "weakness." Who's the judge?

We use the word original as if it means new, or innovative, or different. But what about thinking of it as "from the origin"...i.e. true to us, being ourselves and NOT trying to be something else. - Johnnie Moore, comment on post "Natural Not Imitative"

I see no point in waiting until I'm 69 to be original. An interview with the former GE CEO Jack Welch shows that his quest for greatness has now been tempered with an ache for realness. Better late than never. Here's what one reviewer thought of his memoir a few years back:

"When confronted with a topic that might have actually made his memoir interesting, Welch runs in the other direction," wrote The New York Times. - "Jack on Jack: His Next Chapter", Newsweek, March 27, 2005

I worked at GE during Neutron Jack's reign and was (thank god in retrospect) laid off. Maybe Mr. Soft and Fuzzy is a still a stretch. But I'm not convinced this smacks of being purely a re-branding effort alone. Personal growth, integrating both yin and yang, and transformation are real too. You would not believe who I was five years ago, however I am certain "real" would be the last word that would pop into your mind.

I know Jerry. He's real. He was a venture capitalist and now teaches a leadership course at Queens College when he's not in zazen. He says:

Last week, in class, we read from Warren Bennis’ On Becoming A Leader. Bennis talks about his belief that all leaders pass through some sort of crucible before emerging more whole, more fully-actualized. And so I told the class about my suicide attempt, my crucible. I don’t think they’ve ever had a teacher admit to having tried to kill themselves.

They were all a little stunned.

But I knew they’d grown to admire me and I knew that by being open I could make myself more real. And ideally I’d decrease the distance between who I am and who they are now so they could feel more confident about becoming who they want to become. - Jerry Colonna, at his Madeleine's blog

Don't be fooled. Leaders and teachers surround us - rarely will they be in the guise of pastors, masters, CEOs and venture capitalists. Real conversations can happen anywhere - between anyone. Treeness exists in every acorn, and realness resides in each of us. Here's a most real and deeply philosophical conversation - and yet it's amongst two children's toys - a hobbyhorse and a stuffed rabbit - in the classic children's story, The Velveteen Rabbit.

"What is real?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are real you don't mind being hurt." - Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

P.S. If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, my housemates and I are starting a "Dare to Live An Authentic Life" study group at our west San Jose home (borders on Cupertino) on Sunday evenings, 7 to 9 p.m. No cost. Just email or my cell 408-513-7324 for more info and directions.

Comments

[Walter]

Why is it always this way, you meet a woman online, and, of course, she is half way around the globe. Yet here, you find something interesting (free yet), and, of course it is halfway around the globe. Why is that I wonder.

[Whittaker]

Wow. That's an incredible bit of writing. Thanks. Makes me wish I lived in the Bay Area for your study group.

[graham]

"I'd rather be real than great."

Surely, what you are showing us is that being real is being great.

In this piece you touch another part of me. A part beyond the brain. You make me stop and contemplate.

Thank you

[Tom Asacker]

Hmmm . . . "If you dig below the superficials - the mall complex, the billboard ads, the Krispy Kremes and Starbucks - what this church is ultimately "selling" is realness."

Realness? I don't think so. What they're "really" selling is a community of unrealness. They're selling the comfort of "likeness." I highly doubt that you'd find Jesus wandering a church megamall. He'd be where the "real" suffering was taking place.

Otherwise, great post!

[Alan Gutierrez]

Hello Evelyn

I'm reading through your blog, getting caught up, getting worked up about your dwelve ideas, and I find you quoted me. So very cool.

Here's my take on honesty as it pertains to this conversation.

http://engrm.com/blogometer/2005/03/30/honesty.html

[Tom Willerer]

The reason no one wants to be real is because to be real is to be vulnerable. And when you're vulnerable it hurts.

Leaders today don't hurt (or at least they don't let us see it), but someone like Jesus is not like our leaders of today. He sweat blood. He compared himself to a good shepard. As Augustine said, "Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.? Being humble is being real is being vulnerable.

Great post.

[Fiona Robyn]

Hi Evelyn - good to meet you, great post. Always more of a risk to be 'real'. I'm a big fan of Natalie Goldberg. Looking forward to dropping by again.

[Evelyn Rodriguez]

Great comments! Was out all day & evening yesterday and meetings first part of today...so I'll check back and comment later in day. Thanks.

[Evelyn Rodriguez]

Walter, Whittaker - Thanks! Actually the best way to experience an authentic life isn't via a study group -but to spend more time in silence, stillness, or in the "flow" of the present. Which you can do right at home ;-) But I'll miss you guys just the same.

Graham - "In this piece you touch another part of me. A part beyond the brain. You make me stop and contemplate." That's a lovely way to phrase it. I think when I myself am in touch with this part of myself then it's reflected in what I express. And THAT is real. Maybe that was the whole point of the piece. Oh, maybe I'll talk about this again some day. It's too deep right now, but I am struck with what James Joyce says in "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" via this piece "The Way of Art" written by Joseph Campbell - it is about "proper art" which is what I aspire to more and more:
http://www.rawpaint.com/library/jcampbell/jctwoa.html

Tom A. - Your comment is worthy of an entire post. But not sure when I'd get to that. I think you have to meet people were they are at. Church is intimidating for many people - in the exurbs Krispy Kremes and Starbucks and malls are familiar and offer some level of comfort. Pastor McFarland is NOT preaching to the converted or he'd have very limited success in reaching people. But at same time, the church knows people do what something more in their lives and desire enrichening connections with their fellow community neighbors in small groups, etc too.

It's actually HUGELY illuminating endeavor to read that NYT article, The Purpose Driven Church and then Seth Godin's new book (I have the galley now) "All Marketers are Liars" in one fell swoop.

"Don't try to change someone's worldview is the strategy smart marketers follow." - All Marketers Are Liars

"A worldview is not forever. It's what the consumer believes _right now_." - All Marketers Are Liars

"Great stories match the voice the consumer's worldview was seeking." - All Marketers Are Liars

I do the same EXACT same thing in this blog. Do you REALLY think this is only a business blog? Nope, the business stuff is the Krispy Kremes here. Among other things, this blog is about challenging our unchallenged assumptions, our cherished limitations, and pushing our edges beyond the dot (see prev post). Business is just the story my market is comfortable with.

Alan - Kudos again on such a quotable quote. I like how you think!

Tom W. - My view is Jesus wasn't afraid to be real because he had a sense of his invulnerability. No, not the invulnerability of his body, but that of his spirit. So, yeah, in a sense he didn't have to prop up any external pyschological defenses. That he comes across as being emotionally available and willing to be vulnerable. But it comes from a place of invulnerability. If (and the rare moments when) I can come from place, I don't feel defenseless at all but safe, peaceful and powerful.

Fiona - Welcome. If you like Natalie...I love her stuff, but I first read it over course of 8-10 years ago when it was all way tooooooo scary to live then. So I am re-reading now. You might like the Dwelve creativity stuff I'll be talking about in the next couple weeks (and last week). Thanks!

[Tom Asacker]

Thanks for the follow up comment Evelyn. And you're right, it would take an entire post. When you get to it - hehe - consider that Seth is on the mark. So is Pastor McFarland. Great marketing is designed to get people to *buy* something: products, services, concepts. And the best way to do that is to appeal to their present worldview. Great leaders like Jesus, Gahndi, MLK, Siddhartha Gautama, et al. were *not* marketing anything. They were living worldview disrupting lives. Big difference.

[Taran]

Well said. And well said. :-)

[Douglas M Henderson]

first of all teen's and people of allage's
who say they are in love many they are not.But have falling for the way he or she
look's,and when that happene's that is not
love but lust and only lust,and lust will cause hurt to grow and stay in the heart if
it is long lasting..When we fall in love with some one it is to be as the bible speak
on and about love and that is to love as
chirst loved the church and gave his life fort,and wife's to respect the husband as unto the Lord.To meet some one isn't to say I have a boy or girlfriend but to say Iv'e found my husband or my wife..whom I would like to spin my life with..And let me add if both are doing or treating each other with the bible kind of love that Jesus has then there are no room for error of any kind,because we have a close relationship with our Lord Jesus and this will keep us flowing in pleaseing the Lord because we are pleaseing each other also we should not say no!!!to each other about something's that is husbands and wifes...

[WalesfMan]

Hello :D
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