How Far Would You Go For Money?

How far would you go for money?

I used to work at this really crazy place, where the morale was subterranean. To offset this, we used to do things to try to lift us up out of the dark hole of our despair. Sometimes, we would have a contest to see who could do the least amount of work in a day. If you had to answer the phone, for example, you lost a point.  I once paid our first shift production manager $5 to eat a dead cricket – and he chewed it  up and swallowed it down without blinking an eye! But he was no amateur – he also claimed to have eaten a raw chicken leg for money.

Other times, we contemplated absurd scenarios: One day, we got into a discussion about what you would be willing to do for a million dollars. Would you walk down the street completely naked if someone paid you a million dollars? Would you walk all the way down Center Street, past the fairgrounds, for $1 million? The answers surprised me. Some said yes, no problem, are you kidding me I would do it in a heartbeat. Others, like me, said um, no, not on your life or for a million dollars would I do that. I’m way too shy for that.

In retrospect, I suppose there would be several minutes of an uncomfortable situation and the payoff would be huge. So why not? Because there are some things you can’t pay me to do. In general, you can’t pay me to be coerced into doing something I would not normally do. I don’t like to give someone that kind of power. At least, that’s what I tell myself. Mostly, the choice is not so extreme, and the question is couched in terms of Real Everyday Life and might not seem like a soul-killer at the time.

Would you lose sight of your true nature in order to keep a job that allows you to make your house payments? It could happen. Would you set aside what really matters to you in order to buy food and electricity? Probably.  Would you silence your heart every day in order to obtain financial security? Well, certainly not every day…………….. Would you put your soul on hold, say, through the end of the year, with plans to revisit it when you’re not quite so busy?  What? Can you repeat the question? I was busy over here….

We kind of need money sometimes. But when you are true to yourself,  you will find a way to make the other things work.  I’m trying to focus, focus, focus on heart and soul. Always always always. That is where the truth lies.  No matter how far you go for money, it won’t ever return the favor.

Naked

Right now my toes are naked.  This very minute, as I type --- naked. They are sans polish. They don’t know a sock or a slipper. They have totally gone commando. I’m sitting here with naked toes, and I’m thinking that I might let this go on for a while.

Part of me says, “Take care of this! Polish those toes!” But part of me says, “not yet.”  Because being naked, whether literally, figuratively,  or metaphorically, can be a good thing that brings about new perspectives.  Being uncomfortable, feeling exposed, feeling like you’ve put yourself out there – these are all things that artists use to create something that transports them – and others -- beyond the experience.  

For me, being naked really means going beyond the fuss, the pageantry, the facades, the persona – anything that we put between us and the world – and reaching in and grabbing hold of something that is honest and real.  Then I try to weave those threads into the cloth that becomes a song. It is what makes writing so enjoyable. It’s what makes art so enjoyable, because my truth is not your truth, and your truth is not mine. I don’t have to know what you were thinking when you painted that beautiful picture, but deep within the fiber of it, the truth is still there.  

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that you can’t really be true to yourself if you don’t even know your own feet.  Can you? I wonder…

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