Here’s a two part-er for you. I’ll give you an intermission warning so you don’t hate me for the sudden topic change.
The Public Eye
I was watching an interview with the great Tom Hiddleston – going over his career as an actor – and it struck me at how quickly we as audience members will latch on to someone or something. Seriously, think about daytime television and how easy it was for hosts to book big name celebrities that had spicy, dramatic, or shocking news that we consumers just love to revel in. But yet as high up on a pedestal as we place those people, at the end of the day you can still witness them just being people.
Most don’t even want to hide it; they are honest about their struggles, relate to fans that have similar interests, or blend with other guests or stars with that organic chemistry. You can really see it on panels or media tours that a lot of movie stars will participate in: just people being people and doing something they love.
It’s moments like that which make me excited to be a fan. Yes I’m a consumer of media and yes I would love to meet some of my favorite stars. But in all honesty, I would want to bump into them at a bookstore or coffee shop. Maybe picking out vegetables in the supermarket. Places where they don’t have the pressure to be “on” all the time. Just to witness people being people.
And it would be a special treat to meet the writers, directors, and creative minds behind the scenes. Those are the souls I feel most akin to. I would pester Steven Spielberg with endless questions and I imagine Christopher Nolan would be checking his watch waiting for me to stop gushing about my love for the Dark Knight. It’s people like that who I would love to walk and talk with. Creative minds that help shape culture here in the West.
And don’t even get me started on my thoughts about the responsibility of creators and artists in championing society and culture change as a whole…
Maybe that will be the next post. If that is your cup of tea, stay tuned I guess?
Obligatory Intermission Notification
Now back to our regularly scheduled word vomit
Walking in Shoes
One of the coolest things I’ve ever been able to do as an adult is to figure out how to step into someone else’s shoes. Now obviously, you can’t ever truly understand everything about a person. Most people don’t even know themselves, let alone how to present it all to you so that you can know what empathetic levers to pull and serotonin-inducing music buttons to push.
But I think that’s why the idiom is phrased in that way: walking a mile in someone else’s shoes. You first have to adjust to their size shoe, because this very well might be a person you acutely disagree with at a fundamental level. But you are choosing to do this, so you get the shoe on, no matter how much it might hurt just to wear.
Then you have to take the first few jarring steps, getting your balance and realizing they are motivated by things that might be very different than what you are familiar with. Once you’ve got that down, you’re ready to finally do the walking.
But the most important part is going the distance. You commit to 1 mile; no more, no less. Following through and being present to prove with your actions that they are heard is one of the most raw and powerful things we can do for one another as humans. Self sacrifice, putting others first, and going the distance even when we had our balance and were running in their shoes for the past 1,759 yards. Because we said we would be there for 1 mile and we were. We have a responsibility to our friends and loved ones who let us borrow their shoes.
And we also knew not to overstay our welcome, returning the shoes in good condition and not breaking the soul in the process. Because we run that risk: when we make ourselves vulnerable in that way, loaning out our hearts, our eyes, our passions to those we trust when they ask, we must take that risk of being hurt if they go too far.
I don’t mean to sound sappy about it all, but I do find it to be a unique and surprisingly deeper metaphor than I remember as a kid.
UWC 