Repair Shop – Do Not Lose Your Enthusiasm
Let me begin by saying, I think I’ve lost my enthusiasm? Yes, I do continue to shock myself. I did a quick search to see how frequently I’ve talked here about being an enthusiast, an enthusiasm enthusiast, or to generally enthuse, and it does come up fairly often. The imperative in my title, “do not lose your enthusiasm” is addressed to myself, but anyone who has faltered in their enthusiasm in the last four years may partake.
I’m trying to repair my soul; I think some of the glue I need to re-fix the broken up dish of myself will come from re-becoming an enthusiast. How to begin?
I spent the morning re-reading A Healing Space by Matt Licata, a book that has been my touchstone of sorts through the last few years. I can read it and see things I’ve underlined and say to myself, yes that helped at that time, this helped later, this I need to still work on, and this thought literally saved my life. I’ve been in that alchemical “blackened state” for a longer stretch than usual, but even just saying “blackened state” helps me. Licata talks about how our “wounds contain information” and encourages us to look at “what is most true now” and reminds that we might dream new dreams now, shift our hearts, “become artists of a new reality” and to seek “aliveness.” His advice to re-frame was so crucial to me at various points these last few years, though I think I got hit by what I’ll call re-framing fatigue, of late. And then there’s the fatigue of others encouraging self-care and curiosity blahblahblah :) Because that often seems to come from places of privilege and upper class security. But hey, that too was ever thus. And I know it’s time for me to return to the path of seeking everyday enlightenment or some such.
I crack open my Pema Chödrön, No Time To Lose, and there isn’t, there really isn’t! I have to hurry up and figure my sh*t out! She says, “I can tell you from experience that when there’s a shift toward eagerness, life takes on a whole new meaning…..the meaning that comes from using everything that happens as an opportunity to wake up.” She was the original, “go forward with curiousity” person I trusted. She says, “The wind of delight and the urgency with which we apply it work together. There is no time to lose — but not to worry, we can do it.”
An unlikely source of buoyancy and uplift came for me from an article in Vogue about Blake Lively. I mean, maybe not that unlikely? But I don’t suppose she’s often discussed along with Pema Chödrön. Maybe she should be though. So here we go.
I mean, first of all her last name is “lively.” I admittedly know little about her though you can’t exist in the world without knowing a bit about her.
From the Vogue article:
“It is creation, in fact, that is the main subject of our time together. She is leaning over her food now, explaining to me about a friend of hers, an architect who says nothing great was ever built without enthusiasm. “I think it means you have to go out there and fight for what you believe in,” she says. “You’ve got to have passion.””
Thanks to the article and the cinematic photoshoot directed by Baz Luhrmann I was led also to him saying this:
“Luhrmann laughs remembering the scene. “We must have a sense of play,” he says. “I’m not saying actors are children, but if I play—letting go of my fears and my fear of embarrassment—then everyone else has the license to play.””
I love the riffing on Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief in the photoshoot. As you might know Rob painted a still from the movie which I have in my study. I also just loved the enthusiasm — for ice cream, for writing, for cake mixes, for hard work. The joy is palpable in the article written by Andrew Sean Greer. It really gets at that need for a license to play.
I need to find new ways to work, to write, to play. To find those juxtapositions that bring delight.
I know I just seem to come to this same brilliant conclusion over and over, but also, that’s the way life is. We have to fight for our optimism, fight for our enthusiasm, again and again and probably F-ing again. No one can hand it over to you, though it helps to be in proximity, to let others’ enthusiasms infect us. (Good contagion FTW).
I’ve been more or less embracing my “blackened state,” but I must be ready to return to a more enthusiastic stance. And also, I think it’s time for a re-watch of To Catch a Thief and other Hitchcock films.
Note on the photographs: taken in Rome, Piazza Navona, November 2023. The man with the tiger (read in browser if you’re in the newsletter version) is one of my favourite photos I’ve taken. Reminds me that we become like what we surround ourselves with. And I think I’d like to be more like the tiger, too :) Perhaps, too, it illustrates this from Rumi (Barks transl):
“Look carefully around you and recognize
the luminosity of souls. Sit beside those
who draw you to that.”
