Ever felt a trifle nervous on a new job? Told yourself, "Just act normal"? Or worse: "Be funny"?
If so, you must read: "I Am So Funny". "My brief and wondrous career at The Daily Show," Lauren Weedman writes, "consisted of making jokes about the Amish and trying to get Jon Stewart to love me."
Jon Stewart didn't come to love her.
I've become quite a devotee of The Daily Show during the recent campaign. Resolved to write for them or Saturday Night Live in one of my upcoming lifetimes. Weedman, though, did it exactly the way I fear I'd do it: by being so overwrought that she was alarming. But the trip was worth the story, at least if you're the reader and not her.
It's an excerpt from her book A Woman Trapped in a Woman's Body: Tales from a Life of Cringe.
It's killer funny. And a cautionary tale about trying way too hard.
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Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Getting Rid of an Obsession
An excellent primer on stopping an obsessive thought is posted on Beliefnet, which is a great place to explore/talk about any sort of spiritual belief or doubt.
The ideas in the piece are familiar to me--but then I'm quite a student of obsessions and the stoppage of them. However, I don't recall seeing them so well condensed and assembled, also with pictures for each that are oddly persuasive.
Obsession can get in the way of boldness or of any movement at all.
Once I went to a party that reminded me of this. It was a birthday party held in a warehouse-like space that was already filled with an art piece. The art was made up of the old narrow single beds from a state mental hospital. They were empty and made up with white sheets, and all the air between and above them was thickly cobwebbed with black string. A terrific three-dimensional visual of what obsession feels like -- one aspect of it, anyway.
So the guests were given scissors and we cut down the net of obsessions. I have somewhere a picture of myself doing that. It was satisfying to do, and useful to remember: to do what's necessary to cut through that sticky stuff.
Added note: some obsessions, like a romantic yearning, we don't always want to give up hope on. Once when I was single I had one of those hanging on too long. My therapist said, "Cut it off." By which he meant giving up every hope or ambition. I said, "That's hard." He said, "As hard as my cutting off my own hand." I have to say, though, it worked, and was a lot less painful in the long run. It was time.
If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.
The ideas in the piece are familiar to me--but then I'm quite a student of obsessions and the stoppage of them. However, I don't recall seeing them so well condensed and assembled, also with pictures for each that are oddly persuasive.
Obsession can get in the way of boldness or of any movement at all.
Once I went to a party that reminded me of this. It was a birthday party held in a warehouse-like space that was already filled with an art piece. The art was made up of the old narrow single beds from a state mental hospital. They were empty and made up with white sheets, and all the air between and above them was thickly cobwebbed with black string. A terrific three-dimensional visual of what obsession feels like -- one aspect of it, anyway.
So the guests were given scissors and we cut down the net of obsessions. I have somewhere a picture of myself doing that. It was satisfying to do, and useful to remember: to do what's necessary to cut through that sticky stuff.
Added note: some obsessions, like a romantic yearning, we don't always want to give up hope on. Once when I was single I had one of those hanging on too long. My therapist said, "Cut it off." By which he meant giving up every hope or ambition. I said, "That's hard." He said, "As hard as my cutting off my own hand." I have to say, though, it worked, and was a lot less painful in the long run. It was time.
If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.
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