Shame
Standing In Front Of A Blank Canvas
Did you hear the news? I am now an artist, officially!
Yes, I have my first public work displayed in an exhibition at the Auburn Peacock Gallery which launched on 21 February. It is a wonderfully curated exhibition, and a great collaboration to be part of. I’ll return to this point about collaboration a little later in this post.
In actual fact, anyone can be an artist. This was the emphasis placed on understanding art by our professor when I studied Art History back in the day during my undergraduate studies. Taking Art History happened by serendipity, and the opportunity arose only because I was quota-ed out of my primary choices of studies. It was an influential and instructive time for me where I learn a new way of seeing. It was the stepping stone to other opportunities in learning and education, including picking up studies in English Lit a year later where I first met my good friend Fay.
The professor in his opening address for the beginning of the Art History course urged us to look beyond just studying because it might lead to opportunities in curation, or because of some romantic dream to study at the great galleries of Europe. He instead placed more emphasis on making a difference wherever you found yourself, and in a very local context. He said that if we were able to subsequently engage with and appreciate art at even a local gallery and find the joy in doing that, it would be his measure of success. It was a profound statement, although I don’t know if I fully appreciated this at the time.
My perspective of the 10 City Bridge Run has changed since it began in 2010. It is a circuitous story of how I came about to engage in this epic quest, and sometimes I wonder whether it is more a fools errand because of the personal risks I am taking. Even so, I move ahead. My perspective has changed, and with it my ability to communicate has changed as well. When I first commenced this initiative, some might remember a couple of monthly newsletters I emailed out to supporters at the time. I look back at those as cringeworthy productions, but that was where I was at then. Now, I am wiser for the experience, and have an epic journey behind me with the recently completed running stunt all but finished in New York in early January this year. I have written this elsewhere already, but it took longer than expected, and in every way I took on much more than I had bargained for.
Now we have began the next phase of this journey. I say we because this current phase of the Design Forum is about us. I could do the running alone, but I can’t do the collaborative designing on my own. Now, it is about us, and the conversation has began. This email is part of that conversation, and you reading it is another part. All of these small parts will all add up, like droplets of water forming a pond that then runs into a much larger river and eventually into a sea of activity. In that metaphor, individually and together we are like the droplets that make that pond, and the pond to some degree defines our efforts through the Design Forum. In order not to stagnate, the pond needs to connect to the existing rivers of experience that flow into and shape the great sea of activity. It is a bit of a dramatic metaphor I know, but it is a way of saying that the Design Forum is not ‘it’. There is much to learn and some amazing work going on around the world to help improve child survival, and our aim is to contribute to that somehow.
My last post continued thoughts about The Hero’s Journey and shame. It is where I find myself now. Shame is not the same as ashamed. Shame is an expression of how we view our own sense of adequacy, and it is the entry point to experiencing vulnerability. I know there will be some tough guys out there who might want to say “just suck it up , buddy”. If that is your response, I think that you still have some distance to travel on your own road in order to explore your own personal limits of vulnerability. We all have them, and that is where true courage and invention is found. Vulnerability in that space which requires us to draw upon our immense reserves of imagination, creativity and innovation to find a way through a situation that is inherently difficult. Of course, there is one special group of people in society that experience no shame. These are not super-soldiers, but in fact psychopaths.
It is actually good and healthy to experience shame because it lets you know you are human. And it is what you do with it that matters most too. If you (like me) are paralysed by shame into inaction that leads you to not engage media, that is not such a good outcome, but all the same it is an outcome. We live and learn. Much like my journey with the 10 City Bridge Run, it has been a learning journey. To be honest, I don’t know that I was fully equipped to lead a global conversation about child survival until now. If I had attempted it earlier, there still would have been an outcome, and that outcome might have been great, but it still would have been premature.
And so now I am back in this familiar place. Standing in front of a blank canvas again. Actually, this time we are all here. But for me, I sense that there is some reasonable expectation to shape the conversation to get this work underway. It is a familiar feeling, and I’m sure we have all been there before commencing anything of significance. I felt it last year when finally drawing on the blank canvas which my friend Anoop gave to me to draw on. He asked me about nine months after he gifted the canvas to me: “so what has happened to that canvas?” I know he was asking casually as a friend, but he also pushed me into action. I painted that canvas, and it lead to the work that is currently being exhibited in the Peacock Gallery.
When I first visited the exhibition and saw my work on the wall, I had a wonderful insight into the collaborative process which had in fact begun with Anoop’s prompting. During the making of the work for this exhibition, I engaged with Penny and Nicole, the two curators for the exhibition, as well as Dani who helped to get my image formatted digitally. That was also all in context of being part of a holistic expression of what the Centenary of Anzac meant for the Auburn community. It was a real awakening to collaboration, and in some ways provided an opportunity to better glean what the professor of Art History had been hinting at all those years ago.
Similarly, I am inviting you to be part of this collaborative process as the Design Forum unfold. I can’t say what your part will be, and in fact I think to some extent serendipity will be our guide as this opportunity unfolds. It is not a singular experience, there is no ownership, and it will involve the flowing of many ponds of inspiration into a river of experience to flood that great sea of activity ahead.
Shame
Shame: it is such a strong, taboo word. Many people won’t even open this post because of the demons conjured up by the word shame.
I amended the title of this post from ‘Home’ to ‘Home, and insights into shame’. Here is the earlier blog post.
But in fact there is nothing demonic about shame. It is just a word. And far from about conjuring, it is about being open to express your own feelings of vulnerability which is a big step needed towards moving in the direction of creativity, innovation and collaboration.
Watch the video from Brene in the post, especially from 16:30, and then reflect on that for a while. Give it some thought. You don’t have to leave a comment, but I think you do owe it to yourself to work out what this word shame means to you.
And here is the video from Brene Brown:
Home, And Insights Into Shame
Thursday last week I arrived home. It had been a long journey. Longer than I anticipated.
I found I was exhausted in many ways after the trip and needed some rest. ‘Rest binge’ apparently is an expression the speaker Brene Brown has used to described this sort of self-care. I didn’t send any emails. There was no writing on this site. I rested.
Ultimately, I had been successful on the journey. I achieved more than I bargained for. But things didn’t go to plan. It was messy. It was tough. It was very difficult on a personal level.
My brother’s death during the journey came at a point where I was stuck. His final words to me urged me to continue and so I did. But the difficulties on a personal level I mentioned above don’t specifically relate to the circumstances of his death.
So why was it difficult on a personal level? The answer to that question underpins my reticence to engage the media during the journey. The vulnerability I exposed myself to by undertaking this journey was intense. Mostly, I have been able to keep most of that vulnerability private. But was that the right thing to do? I think it is a Catch-22 scenario. After the event, people will applaud the courage to have been vulnerable. At the time, I feared that if I had expressed it too clearly, it would have scared too many people. Come back from the edge. Be safe. Please be normal.
In some ways, it is as though I have returned from The Hero’s Journey. You know the one, the monomyth which Joseph Campbell wrote so much about. It was heroic, but in a classic sense. There was transformation and a prize, but the rewards weren’t material. And if I am now home, then perhaps that is only to make an unmistakable Call To Adventure to you among others who might take the risk to come with us as we embark on this next journey into the unknown. It is a journey called ‘Design Forum’. And there will be challenges. Stick to your knitting, or come with us at change the world by seeing to improve child survival? Your turn to chose.
And so I am home. But first I had to complete this journey. And now I think I owe it to myself and to you to speak a little about this vulnerability. Not now. Not here in this post. Maybe a little later when I understand it better myself. Brene Brown has spoken about ‘shame’ which is perhaps the closest thing I can find to explain the flavour of this vulnerability. The video at the bottom of this post gives some insights. Listen particularly from 16:30.
Building Bridges 