Apparently Mark Twain
said “if you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything” which is one of many largely impressive, occasionally gnomic utterances about the nature of a beast for which we need to have more understanding and respect.
My sister didn’t care if she trod on your toes if she told you what she really thought. And most of us have come across someone like that. And it’s a weapon. Not only says “I see you for what you really are “ or “what it really is” – both of which are perceptions – but claims moral high ground.
The truth may be simpler but there is a way to tell it and a time to tell it.
And how long are we going to confuse therapies of the mind with media? It may feel wonderful to tell all on camera but better and safer in a more human context , from having tea or coffee privately in your kitchen with a good friend to the signed sealed and delivered locked door confidence of the talking therapies. All too soon we are in dirty linen territory, how to get back in the headlines …
The price of fame is very high. And a significant number of the people who attain it (rather than those who have it thrust upon them) have all the insight of a pine cone.
The weekend yielded three profiles – Keira Knightley, Charlie Sheen and Mick Hucknall – of whom two grew up and one is still a work in progress. Yes, one woman and two men.
After years of hounding by the press,
Knightley worked out how to evade most of the worst of them but one day, still very young, she just walked away. Her parents applauded. And she describes how for the sake of sanity she became not-Keira, until she found a way through and could breathe. She spent her 40th birthday with her husband on a metal working course – happy.
The son of the actor Martin Sheen, Charlie hid in consumption of drugs, rewarded financially beyond the dreams of Croesus and in every other way for roles in for TV and films – married three times, paid sex with men and women and put so much up his nose and down his throat, a Mexican cartel temporarily refused to sell any more to him. Paid bounty to keep his name out of the papers about his same sex encounters.
Spent 30 years life trying to kill himself. 60, sober, watch this space.
And Hucknall, famously musically gifted, plain and charming, talks about a long journey which includes rescue by an imaginative art college and ends powerfully with knowing who he is – brought up lonely by his father after his mother left, unafraid to stop when he needed to stop, understood from early days the power of deal. And, given that we are all on the journey from youth to age, never didn’t know for long who or what or where from what he was.
Admirable.
What becomes clear is how the rewards of extreme success get in the way of health and happiness. As the Cheshire Cat says “We’re all mad here…” Everything has a price tag. Money buys perceptions or the means to block them. And appearances are deceptive.
Complications accrue around creativity and business deals, who’s involved, their axes to grind, rewards, perception – and so on. If you don’t have some sense of you, the price is unpayable – in every way.
In these three weeks plus back to internet and landline (yes, I bought a mobile, a whole other discussion), I thought about my little fame. Having my name recognised opened doors for me, it gave me pleasure. It once got me a pair of shoes reduced. Like everybody else, my self knowledge was learned. I enjoyed almost everything I did and I made fewer compromises than most. That has impact. And these three interviews make it plain that you are not ready till you are ready. Therapy may not work but it won’t if you don’t want it to. And the truth will set you free. And then it depends on how you use, for yourself and others, that freedom.
Annalog 