Follow Your Bliss

Chungliang Al Huang from pat solomon on Vimeo.

I am a big fan of Joseph Campbell and have been since the very first airing of Bill Moyers' earth shaking interviews with him in The Power of Myth nearly 30 years ago.

Watching the Moyers video again this morning, I caught the comment that Campbell makes about transformation of consciousness... "You're thinking in this way, but now you have to start thinking in that way. Right now is feeling like one of those transformational moments to me. As Al Huang comments in the clip above, it "may take some time for you to find it [your bliss], but that's what you need to do."

The confusion over the concept of "follow your bliss" has always been kind of amusing to me. On the one hand there are the people who take the phrase, not only literally, but sort of fundamentalistically. They advocate the idea that it's essentially the same as saying "Do What U Wanna" which is a GREAT tune for a second line (and oh how I miss the second lines!) but it's not really great as a philosophy of life.

It's also NOT what Joseph Campbell was saying.

The other reaction to this perspective tends to come from the opposite side, taking extreme exception to the idea that people just want to "follow their bliss..." doing any thing that feels good at the time. Or to quote an old saying from the 60s, "If it feels good do it."

That's also NOT what Joseph Campbell was saying.

What he WAS saying, is both obvious and profound.

Bill Moyers asks, "What's the journey I have to make?"

Campbell responds by saying, "Follow your bliss... find where it is and don't be afraid to follow it."

He expands from there, but the point is clearly that "follow your bliss" is the WAY to find what you are supposed to be about. It's like the "follow the money" line in All The President's Men. Watch closely the trail... see where it leads.... The path itself will tell you what's going on and what you need to do.

What do you really love? What excites you? What gets you out of bed in the morning? What is your answer when you look in the mirror, as Steve Jobs suggested, and ask yourself if what you're planning for the day is something that would be satisfying if it was your last day on earth.

For me... in the passage of the last several years (and especially the last eight months) I've been digging deeper into the excitement and love I have for certain ways of being and certain things I think and feel and do. As Al says above, it's taken me a long time to catch the through line, to truly "follow my bliss." To watch the way things go... to see what makes me laugh and smile and fall in love with being in the world. And I - to my great disservice - give up the path easily and often. I don't trust the basic feelings at my core. I let the dragon slay me (to use Campbell's metaphor) rather than slaying the dragon.

I am once again at a place where I am seeking the courage and the strength to stay on the journey down... to figure out exactly what I... "need to do.

My life depends on it... According to Campbell, all our lives depend on it; the very fate of the earth depends on it.

Just... Be

A friend of mine from a few years back, Marc Lesser, has a great blog out this week that focuses on the topic of a new type of corporation that has just come into being in California (and many other states as well). The B Corporation (officially a Benefit Corporation in California legal parlance) is a relatively new development within the world of corporate structure, and for many in the business world it seems to come across like some kind of strange hybrid beast from a mythological land. For others, like myself, it's something that we've been waiting for, longing for, and trying to make happen for a very very long time.

The first discussion I ever had about the concepts behind Benefit Corporations occurred in my living room in San Francisco in 1982, the year my daughter was born, as a group of us were forming a record company that eventually became known as BrierPatch Music, Inc. Starting a business that we hoped would be about more than making money... that WAS about more than making money... led us into a struggle about whether to form our new little company as a non-profit or not. At the time, I was the lone voice of entrepreneurial capitalism in our bunch. I believed then - as I believe now - that businesses have not only an obligation, but also a great opportunity, to do wonderful things in the world AS BUSINESSES. I believed then, and still believe now, that the music we created and the products we produced were important in their own right and deserved the basic respect that standing up on their own in a market economy suggested of them. To me, developing our business as a non-profit (and I've spent 30 years of my life working with non-profits, so I am not about dismissing the importance and significance of non-profits) was a way of suggesting that the work didn't really stand on its own; it felt to me like asking for help from people, when what we were providing held intrinsic value (and deserved to be treated that way). The circumstances of our business were such that to do otherwise felt akin to beginning our project with a corporate self-image problem. Something akin to saying, "we're not really that good, but we want to be, so won't you support us anyway?"

I didn't believe that about what we were doing and I don't believe it now.

In the U.S. we exists in a corporate free market (mostly) economy. The rest of the world is rapidly moving in that same direction. Many see that as a bad thing. I am not one of those people. I believe the danger of capitalism is not inherent in the free market concept, but rather in the destruction of the free market concept through a distinct lack of concern for the basic factors of corporate responsibility and good citizenship. The greedy nature of so much corporate wrong is based directly in the idea that its not only possible, but indeed profitable, as well as conceptually important, to rig the system by fouling the planet, abusing employees, stealing from governments, and lying to customers. This is not only bad business... it's bad morals.

If corporations are effectively "people" then they have the same basic moral responsibilities of people. They have the responsibility to take care of their environment, to treat people fairly, to refuse to lie, cheat, steal, and murde, and to tell the truth about who they are and what they do. Corporations as "people" have the same responsibility as REAL PEOPLE. They have the responsibility - and the joyous privilege - to be good citizens.

Back in 1982, I won my argument and we formed BrierPatch Music, Inc. as a California C Corporation. I had some great heros and mentors (chiefly Ben & Jerry, Paul Hawkin, and Yvone Chouinard) to lead the way and provide exemplary guidance in the journey we set out upon.

What I was not aware of at the time was that basically my concept of socially responsible business was a great idea.. a good thing... a mitzvah, if you will, but it was not in any way supported by corporate law. Corporate law was (and largely still is) based on the idea that the only thing a corporation is to consider is the maximization of shareholder wealth... period. For a great little tutorial on that reality have a look a this TED talk from the B Corp Website.



As you can see from the talk above... that perspective, and the law that supports it, is changing. In California, on January 2, 2012, a new law introduced in the California legislature by Jared Huffman established California as one of only a handful of states where it is possible to establish your corporation as a "Benefit Corporation" with the right AND THE LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY to act for the benefit of, not a single, but a triple bottom line: People, Planet, Profits.

This is joyous news to me personally, because not only does it vindicate what I have believed for most of my adult life, but it also provides a new corporate form that allows my business partner and I to establish our new company , Barrier Free Adventures, Inc. as such a company. While we formed last October as a regular California C Corporation, we will be resubmitting our Articles of Incorporation in the next few weeks to take advantage of this new corporate designation.

What's that do for us? It allows us to move forward with the clear declaration that we are a company (like BrierPatch Music 30 years ago) that is intentional about doing good in the world while also seeking to do business and make a profit. Mainly it gives us the platform to declare what we already believed, that Barrier Free Adventures will not simply be about increasing the single bottom line of profit (which we expect to do very well at by the way) but also to state that we intend to also do good in the world, provide community service for our clients and communities, and to treat our people well. We are a "triple bottom line" company that cares about Planet - People - Profits. It also gives us the protection from people who might still feel like the only reason for a corporation to exists is maximization of profit.

I'm excited about this... I believe, as Jay Coen Gilbert of B Lab states it, that this is the beginning of a new way of doing business in the world. I believe that it is a world changing meme that I am happy to be a part of.

If you'd like to know more about how things move forward with us at Barrier Free Adventures, leave a comment here, check out the website at http://barrierfreeadventures.com (with news on a whole new suite of services coming within a couple weeks) or drop me a line at thom@barrierfreeadventures.com

The Story's Still The Same

Tonight I am working at Petaluma's Aqus Cafe with an actor friend - Roger Marquis - on a set of readings from two different wars that have, to a certain extent bookended my life to this point. The show will be presented on Monday and Tuesday evening at the cafe and if you're in Petaluma this week, I hope you will drop in (Aqus Cafe - 7:30pm Monday and Tuesday admission FREE).

As a whole - along with my rather personal involvement with issues that surrounded the Central American wars of the Reagan years - this is a theme that has occupied my life from the time I was fourteen up to this moment as I type this on my computer. I even produced a song (now 25 years old) by Ken Medema that I will be playing as part of the show, and which could not be a better lead in to what we have conceived for this performance, The Story's Still The Same!

It would be nice (and rather a bit fanciful) if I could imagine that these wars really are bookends in my life and that we might be moving to some other place in world reality, but that seems unlikely. We seem, instead, to be moving to a time, similar to that which Orwell imagined, of endless war for the purpose of commerce and distraction.

In the shadow of Armistice Day and in the presence of a Petaluma Historical Museum exhibit that glorifies the VietNam War and refuses to give appropriate attention to the questionable (and immoral) circumstances that took us into, and kept us in, that war, while so many people (both U.S. and Vietnamese) died and suffered, I find this one of the most important things I have ever worked on.

Act One of "Winter Soldiers" is a dramatic reading of the direct testimony of veterans at the first Winter Soldier hearings in 1971, Act Two comes from the testimony of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, given as testimony at a second set of hearings in 2008. As I work with this material, dig through photos, videos, writings, and testimony, I find my emotions torn apart.

I have been actively working against war for 42 years!

One of the most important conversations I have ever had in my life occurred in Los Angeles about the time I produced the song I mentioned above. My friend (who will likely be reading this) made the suggestion that out of Justice, Truth and Beauty, he had been inundated with Justice and Truth and was ready for a little Beauty. The statement stopped me in my tracks, and I conitnue to reflect on it - regularly - today.

Has anything that I did, am doing, or will do made a damn bit of difference in all of this? I don't think so.

The wars still go on... the excuses still fly... the military/industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about continues to make bank on the spoils of war.

The Story's Still The Same... but I keep wondering if there is some way to change it.

Is it possible to BE THE CHANGE that Gandhi referred to?

My life has been turned upside down once more by the process of working on this show. Even in this embryonic form that we will present in Petaluma on the next two nights, the testimonies, the questions, and the declarations of courage and hope have given me a determination to seek and hope for justice, truth and beauty once again.

Semper Fi is what the Marines say... These principles, hopes, dreams and desires for Justice, Truth, and Beauty are the things to which I can similarly dedicate MY life.

Howling At The Moon

In the production notes at the beginning of the play True West, playwright Sam Shepard discusses the expected sound design for Coyote howling that he writes into the play.

"The Coyote of Southern California has a distinct yapping, dog like bark, similar to a Hyena. This yapping grows more intense and maniacal as the pack grows in numbers, which is usually the case when they lure pets from suburban yards... In any case, these Coyotes never make the long mournful, solitary howl of the Hollywood stereotype."

I'm not sure why this particular bit of information grabbed me yesterday afternoon. Like when you think about buying a red car and then all of a sudden you start seeing all kinds of red cars, it was one of those synchronistic moments when after focusing on something (in this case the return to my old play with Coyote images) you suddenly start discovering a multitude of references to the particular target of interest. Like most of these situations, there is a fairly obvious underlying reason here. I have always seen a connection between Sam and Coyotes, and I have always seen Sam as an icon/role model/silent mentor for my own writing. It wasn't terribly unusual to go from launching a new mental game with coyotes to a quote from Sam staring me in the face just a few minutes later.

What IS interesting - at least to me - is the underlying message in the biological lesson about coyotes. They are generally seen as solitary animals, but as I understand it, more often than not, they are pack animals who generally live and hunt together, though generally in smaller numbers than wolf packs.

Lately I've been struggling a lot with what I want to do and where I want to go next. The last year has been filled with more changes than usual for me (and that's saying something) and one of those changes has been the opportunity to spend a lot of time in theater productions of various types. I also spend a lot of my time either writing or editing (video and audio mostly) alone, in my little monk's cell of an apartment. There is something to be said for both forms of work and it seems like I am in need of large amounts of alone time while also being a desperately gregarious individual. There is absolutely no question in my mind that I do my best work (most interesting, most creative, most satisfying and most productive) in collaboration and I am really desirous of developing new (and old) connections and partnerships.

The point I think I'm getting at (there really IS a point that I'm getting at) is that even when we think we are alone, or solitary, or flying solo, or way deep down in the loneliness of our personal cave... pretty much every one of us needs the company of others. We need people to give us new ideas, or to provide support in the midst of a lonely struggle, or to react and respond to the things we think and feel. Even the most solitary artist, at some point, needs an audience... at least, and friends are pretty nice too.

Like Robert DeNiro says to Jonathan Price in Brazil... "We're all in it together kid."



P.S. For more info on the Coyote sculpture above check it out at Jim Callahan's Website