Here and There and Everywhere

During my wonderful interview with children’s book author and educator Julie Hedlund she raised a very interesting point (at about minute 45). Why are we writers always stuck in the “here” and frustrated about not being where we want to get to? E.g., “My writing has improved (here) but I can’t find an agent (there).” Or, “I have an agent (here) but she hasn’t sold my book (there).” The alternative she suggests is always to think of ourselves as always being “THERE”.

Julie’s epiphany makes a lot of sense to me. If you think only in terms of going somewhere, then you are often frustrated because of the difficulty in getting there. On the other hand, if you live in satisfaction for all you have accomplished, it becomes a ‘there’, making it easier to suffer the slings and arrows of the outrageous challenges ahead.

Allon Sasson pointed out to me the sage wisdom of the Muppet Show in this regard. Enjoy!

And I hasten to add the Beatles contribution to the subject. This happens to be my favorite Beatle’s song.

Old timers will recognize the book and celebrated movie “Being There” by Jerzy Kosiński. He was accused of plagiarizing, so I’m not sure he was ever really there. But we were.

Finally, my friend and colleague Prof. Ervin Weiss (who yesterday celebrated his seventieth birthday), once called out to his two-year old son, “Eytam, where are you?” To which the young (but very clever) child replied, “I’m there.”

Young kids know that wherever we are, we are always “there”. It’s time we relearned this sage advice as well.

Thank you Julie!