What friends are for

A few weeks ago, I complained to a friend that not too many people read this blog. That I am not so sure what this constant work I am doing is even good for. I am not sure where to find the energy and passion to keep going. 

Maybe these reflections are of no interest or value to anyone, I said. She said I should keep going, do what I do, and not think about who reads it too much. She gave me the Bhagavad Gita to read, in a Hebrew translation, this time. 

The last time I read the Bhagavad Gita was around 1989 when I lived in Paris and saw Peter Brook‘s Mahabharata at the Bouffes du Nord. 

So it was time to reread it. That age-old quote: “Seek detachment. Fight without desire” did it again. It kept me going. Thank you, Vered. That’s what friends are for, I guess, among other things. Since then, I’ve found my taste again for writing and the research that fueled this blog in the first place. This brings me to my next point…

Creative projects that grow way beyond your imagination

I have grown out of this lately. I guess my ideas seem to be a little more proportionate to my resources. For many years though, many, many years, like about 30 years of my professional career, my creative ideas were… How shall I call it? Pretentious, out of reach, far-fetched, and many times way before their time… And, I seemed to have had many of those.

Way bigger than yourself, they call them. Yap, that’s why I always found myself working with bigger and bigger teams, of marvelous people, without whom most of my work would not have been possible. 

The thing about those projects was that invariably somewhere in the middle of the work, I found myself asking, how the hell did we get here? What was I thinking? 

My partners in crime of many years, such as Eran Shapira – co-author and video creator, or Jake Sliv, our lighting designer, will probably read this with a nostalgic smile because they’ll know what I’m talking about. 

Great creative ideas usually become even greater ideas and often grow out of proportion. With the teams I had, we somehow almost always got to the end of the projects, gasping but alive and proud of ourselves. 

As if we just came out of an ultra race, barely alive but happy-go-lucky, we kept on going to the next and the next after that. This may have been stupid, but also inevitable in a way and what you’d call a life of purpose, I guess.

Keep going, it’s your life speaking

So, now I’m reading this memoir Eat & Run by the one and only Scott Jurek, America’s beloved ultramarathoner, who says: “Sometimes you just do things”. The greatest skill of long-distance runners, I presume, is the skill of keeping on going, no matter what.

It’s an admirable skill to develop and can serve you for any project you lead at any given time. Such as maybe, your life, for example:)

Keeping going is an art to be practiced on any scale and daily. Because life is an ongoing challenge, and if you set out on a run, to create anything, be a parent, or simply be. 

You need to be able to keep on going.

I say it’s an art because my beloved almost 94 years old father is a master of that art. His long-distance stamina never ceases to amaze me. So I guess I had a good teacher. As an art, I suggest you study it and perfect it during your lifetime. That’s real “optimal performance” for you. 

So, with the words of Brian Clark, I’ll stop here.

Keep Going