Sensuality Afterwards

(Simple stage lights, preset basic, or simple  spotlight if easy, bump on and off at end)

With one hand stroking the voluptuous curve of my right breast, and the other hand grabbing at my left, she looks up at me, adoringly. Haaaaah, she sighs, and then tongues my nipple while staring into my eyes, and smiles. (Gesture)

Oh, baby.

I’m relaxed, or relaxing, or trying to relax. I know it’ll all work out better if I do. Even though she’s so beautiful to look at and I love making eyes with her, I gently tell her to focus. “Focus, honey, focus. Let’s just focus on eating” Slowly with a sigh, my infant daughter returns to breastfeeding (gesture). (BEAT)

What did you think I was talking about?

Look: Celebs are redefining pregnancy as sexy - (aside) did you see the Rihanna photoshoot? Hot.

And the term “MILF” (Moms I’d Like to F*ck, you know, like the Fergie song) is common slang. It is a blessing and a curse to any woman wanting to reclaim her sexual appeal after motherhood - blessing: (valley girl voice) “just ‘cause I’m a mom doesn’t mean I can’t be sexy”. Curse: (inhaling, dropping robe or taking a sexy stance) this (gesturing to body, exhaling, slumping) doesn’t look like Fergie after growing and then pushing a watermelon out of my vagina. Is it supposed to?

But no one talks about the intimate sensuality that unfolds in the early weeks and months of mothering.

It’s a biological imperative that the groaning of an orgasm turns into the groaning of labor turn into the groaning of the new mother when her infant cries for milk at 3am.

Oh, baby, indeed.

It’s weirdly but utterly connected: To stimulate the female nipple is to release oxytocin, the bonding hormone that triggers a series of physiological and psychological responses in all three contexts of sex, labor and lactation:

• Oxytocin is responsible for sexual arousal and orgasm during sex.

• It aids in the softening of the cervix for fertilization of the egg. 

• It stimulates uterine contractions during labor and childbirth

• And breast tissue contractions in lactation, which make the let-down of milk possible.

• And is key to establishing and maintaining social bonds, including friendships, romantic attachment and parent-infant bonding.

So these days I get my oxytocin hit not from connecting with my lover in the sack (aside) nothing like sleep deprivation and spit up in your hair to kill the mood - but now it comes from connecting with a peewee munchkin with utterly kissable squirrel cheeks. The breasts that were once so private and reserved for something special now flop out in front of strangers to nourish my little nugget. 

The only action my knockers are getting these days is from my breast pump. (BEAT.)

Sensual satisfaction doesn’t have to be sexual. It can come from the hug of a friend, or the nuzzle of an infant. Or the simple awareness of air on our skin. Take a moment, celebrating the pleasure of a deeeep breath. (Aside:) And when you go to sleep tonight, revel in the pleasure of a full night's sleep…(pause) no please…do it for me…(BEAT). (to audience member, as an aside:) did you get sleep last night?…how many hours? (audience member answers)…say that again (repeats) oh god, that’s so hot.

May we marvel at these bodies in all they can do and open our minds to the ways we enjoy them. Yeah, baby!

(Bump, lights out)

Sometimes you don’t have anything to say. Sometimes you’re sitting in the cafe, looking out the window, and a gruff man in a Patriot shirt (not a Patriot’s football jersey, but a black cotton T-shirt with an American flag and the word PATRIOT across the front) pulls up, gets out, walks into the cafe, and his small very small dog with an underbite that looks like a sockpuppet peeks up and out of the passenger window. And sometimes you just can’t stop staring at the little dog, with his little sockpuppet fur, hairs sprouting in every direction, a mess but a cute mess, and because it is very cute, so cute it makes you laugh, laugh out loud, and for that moment all is right with the world, and you don’t need to have anything to say, because that moment is enough. 

That little cutie muppet dog who’s whole world is that car window, is enough. 

That was the case with Sophie. She had nothing to say even though people were asking for her words and poking at her for response and even indignantly insisting it was her obligation to reply, but she looked out the cafe window and the dog made her realize: nothing need be said.

Before, she felt the pressure more acutely. To perform, to engage, even just acknowledge. With everyone and everything in every moment. She often felt like not enough and went about trying all means of enough-ness: fancy jobs, stylish clothes, regulation of physical appearance, validation from lovers, of course copious apologies. All the trappings of our prove-yourself culture were laid tantalizingly across the buffet table of adulthood of which she regularly sat, taking a bite of them all. Identity and self-worth was closely correlated with approval and pleasure of others.  Imposter syndrome was rampant. 

She once worked with a colleague in New York on a high-profile project and it became clear this colleague felt she was, in addition to not being suitably coiffed, ‘just not bringing it’ to the work. You know, just not doing good enough. A lot of them were reasonable criticisms. Sophie wanted to please this person, but just couldn’t. Each time something different. Couldn’t guess, couldn’t ask, couldn’t deliver–just wasn’t. Concerted efforts attempted, different strategies tried, but over several instances it became clear the grade was not being made. 

If only she could do different.

If only she could be different.

If only she wasn’t her and this wasn’t this.

In the moment of being present to another human being dissatisfied with her manifested existence, she was… scared. Her survival felt threatened, in a six-degrees kind of way. If this other person was unhappy, then she had somehow failed, and was therefore unloveable, and would henceforth be rejected from humanity – and die. In the two months Sophie and this colleague collaborated, there was so much tension and so many, many  sighs of unmet expectation, she thought she really might pass out from self-apology. At the post-mortem meeting, disappointment was expressed and right then and there she crumpled up into such a shame ball that she imploded. Nearly.

“Is continued and inherent inadequacy worse than death?” she wondered. “If I cannot be what others want me to be, am I invalidated from living?”

“I should keep trying. I will keep trying to be better”

But it didn’t matter whether she kept trying or was fired or quit the job. The framing was clear and crime committed: it just wasn’t enough, and this probably wouldn’t change, wherever she went.

Things degenerated quickly. Her therapist chided her on the friendships she kept. Her friends thought unfavorably of her parental relations. Her parents didn’t approve of her choice of a new boyfriend. The new boyfriend didn’t approve of how Sophie chopped… anything… in the kitchen.

“No, not like that. If you chop them that small you’ll overpower everything. No, long thin slivers, like this. Geez, you never learn… Well …what do you have to say?”

And don’t even let me get started on the judgements of strangers. 

“Learn how to drive, bitch!” 

“You really should use less paper” 

“Hello! It’s your turn. Pay attention” 

Unpleased and unpleasable, the lot of them. And at the center of it all: Sophie. The common denominator of disappointment. 

All these voices of critical reproach ping-ponged around in her head for months. Depression was imminent… and obvious. She took a stern, protracted look in the mirror. Everything was pretty all right, to be honest. Not vogue-cover-worthy, by any means, but certainly acceptably average. But there was always that one hair annoyingly sprung.\. No matter what she did: gel, conditioner, bobbie pins.. A little flyaway people were always trying to pluck off her, thinking it was an error let loose on her sweater, until they realized “Oh, it’s attached” and recoiled in horror to realize it was, in fact, part of her. 

She snipped it with a thin pair of scissors, like she always did. She knew it’d be back.

A year on, after all New York and the job and those friends and therapy and parental opinions had faded into the background, she found herself alone drinking coffee, at a cafe, looking out a window.

The coffee was so-so there and they never had soy milk, but she liked it fine. It was what it was, and that was comforting.

And that’s when she saw the dog. His powerful, influential owner just recently having departed the car and disappearing into the depths of the cafe, the little dog popping up like a whack-a-mole. So sincere. He waits a beat, this canine-ette with the underbite, and then goes about exploring the front seat, sniffing and looking, popping up again to look out the car window, right at Sophie. 

It’s a special moment, the two of them, taking each other in unconditionally and letting themselves be taken in, unapologetically. The dog, being a dog, makes no particular significance about it, and turns away again to sniff a thing or two. But Sophie, she smiles, relaxed.

From her left, Sophie hears, directed at her “Excuse me, lady, you really shouldn’t –”

Without turning her head away from the window, from her soft gaze at the carefree puppy in the car, Sophie puts up a hand.

The other person, arrested, says nothing, or maybe they do say something, but Sophie can’t really hear. There is nothing more lovely to her than staring out that window and seeing that little scruffy pup, the whole judging world suddenly in an eternal balanced harmony so perfect she wouldn’t move a hair.

Transcript

Hi and welcome to the House of Who podcast, formerly known as Artist CEO podcast. I am your host, Shan Free here at house of who we talk about. Basically, who are you? Who am I, who are we? And why does it matter? This is the place where we still talk about business and art and the integration of the two, how creativity concerns business and in fact, how business can be works of art, we can get all philosophical soon, don't you worry? But even the question I think therefore, I am, is that true? Is it because we think get ready, we're expanding what it means to be?

Entropy, a love letter:

With the hot swollen fruit of summer hovering in perfection, the air thick, life static, a languid timelessness around – I can’t help but see the first green pear drop;

The final hold-outs of the pink rose petals turning brown; The old Lotus tree in my front yard, already dropping leaves; The clematis and nasturtiums, crispy.

On a text thread, I mention the word “Fall" to some friends. There is an urgent and swift reaction:

“fall?! I thought it was still summer“

“yeah don’t leave us summer“

“definitely summer!”

Doesn’t fall begin in September? I ask earnestly. I have come down with Covid, and by the time I’m done isolating & masking, it will be August 28. In my mind, we’re cusping Fall.

I try to be present with the abundance and vibrancy of the summer season. But I can’t not see everything existing at the same time: summer inherently contains winter, as life inherently indicates death. And while the first half of my life felt like a time of building—

Building a body! A brain! A personality! Friendships, relationships! A career! Passion! Hobbies! Home! A business! A personal brand!!!!!!!!!!!

… The second half of my life, roughly estimated, so far has been much less about building and more about… maintaining—

Maintaining my health, Weight, Home, Business, Sanity, The garden, the goddamn clean dishes!

Maybe it’s just me, but entropy is a much more familiar houseguest than I remember.  

She’s always been around, our pal, but life before just had all this momentum, you see, so I couldn’t see her. Through the years, the forces of disillusion just little gnats barely able to keep up with me in my very busy, very fast, very important LIFE.

But more than building and maintaining my life, recently I have taken to enjoying, well, enjoying my life. Why such difficulty “just” enjoying life before? 

Contentment wasn’t enough: “So much to do: I mean, there’s so much wrong with everything: the world! our lives! that asshole over there! myself. Must be fixed, changed, improved.”

Either way, it’s effort. Grasping at better, or Resisting the perpetual and relentless licking of entropy, that big wet tongue dissolving our ice cream lives lick (slurp!) by lick (slurp!)

I didn’t mean for that to sound sexual, but maybe it’s worth having a love affair with decay.

* * *

I went to the dentist and was appalled when I was told the cap, put on my front tooth when I was a child after bashing into the concrete wall of a swimming pool, might need to be replaced. But it’s been there forever, I said. Well, it’s been there for 35 years, my dentist replied. It’s just porcelain. They usually only last 15 years. 

(touches front tooth mournfully) “I resist this truth of which you speak” I thought, my breath tightening.

But when we deny life, we deny ourselves. 

* * *

My friend’s cat is dying and she watches him die. There’s not much so can do. My cat died, many years ago. I was a young adult and my mom called me home to be with her. I rushed home and held her in my hands and sobbed and said all the things I wanted to say to her and gave her cat reiki and lit a candle and held a vigil and promised her I’d stay by her side. It was dramatic and heart-wrenching and full of pathos. Her breaths were labored and I committed to each one. 

10 hours later she was still breathing, inching toward death, but nonetheless breathing. I realized in that moment that death is miles long. Maybe years long. Maybe a lifetime in length.

Her dying was so incrementally slow it was as if she was expelling herself molecule by molecule and it was tens of thousands of exhales before she finally exhaled herself into nothingness.  Maybe we’re doing that from the moment we are born. I was told a woman is born with all the eggs she’ll ever have, determined right there at birth her capacity to give life, and I wonder if the same breaths. 

And while we can leave this plane in one impressive flash, very often it is a slow gradual decomposition over many many years.

* * *

I’ve watched a few beings die: I held my grandmother, then my grandfather, then my own father in my arms as they each exhaled their last moments. An honor to bear witness. Each time, I sat as still and loving as I could until they passed their last breath. It was hard to tell which one was the last one. The breaths so elongated lifetimes pass between them,  the difference between breathing and not breathing almost imperceptible, like ice melting on a cold day. 

 in…….. Pause….. Out….. pause… silence… long silence….. Timelessness. The end. BEAT but then nope! Here comes another one, just as slow and elongated as the one before, except maybe a micron longer, breath turning into a sine wave with peaks and troughs stretching out so long almost a straight line. But not. There is still motion. And as long as there is motion there is life.

What is life and death but a long protracted dance with entropy? And what a beautiful thing to be designated the person to watch you die. No other guaranteed witness but you, you get to. What an assignment: isn’t that the most beautiful assignment: to be your own doula into death? And we can start now. To sit so still, so loving, as we take our last breaths: 

On average a person living to 80 will take about 700 million breaths. What do we do with them? 100 million of them left now, or is it 1 million, 100,000 of them, 10,000 of them left, now 1000. One hundred to go. Just 10, until just one of them left. Which one?

Do we resist some of them, embrace them?

What about the breath at the moment I’m typing away at that fucking email I had to write – you know the one– when suddenly the pear outside my window drops? Or the one where the dentist shoves her drill into my mouth? Or breath number 5627 as I watch Patches come into my life as a kitten, I’m 12 years old, or the one as she passes away two decades later? When I watch the caregiver cut my grandmother’s clothes and bathe her body with a sponge? When my grandfather’s hand softens into mine? When I knew there were no more coming for my dad? The hundred or so we’ve spent here together just now?

Letting each one fall from our lips, just so.

Transcript

Hi and welcome to the House of Who podcast, formerly known as Artist CEO podcast. I am your host, Shan Free here at house of who we talk about. Basically, who are you? Who am I, who are we? And why does it matter? This is the place where we still talk about business and art and the integration of the two, how creativity concerns business and in fact, how business can be works of art, we can get all philosophical soon, don't you worry? But even the question I think therefore, I am, is that true? Is it because we think get ready, we're expanding what it means to be?

Anyway, So what, what have I been up to lately? . . . And it's all about how sexiness has nothing to do with age. Sexiness has to do with spoiler, alert, freedom and freedom. Yeah, that's what I think is actually.

So, it’s my birthday today. Thank you. I’m…the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.  / I’m turning 42.  Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? Anyone, anyone? Anyway, / I used to think sexy was Young & Beautiful. Perky, Oh Yeah, tight, firm, big here small there but now I know what’s up. You want to know what’s really sexy? Truth. Freedom.  / Truth of who you are. Freedom from the bullshit. You know what I mean.  Alll the bullshit. Screw the bull shit. Fuck that shit. Funny. When we say “screw this” or “fuck that” it means “have sex with” which is strange because why are we having sex with something we don’t like? Maybe: bc its an empowering transformation from “something I despise” to “something I desire!” I like it. [trying it on:] Fuck war - I will have sex with war. Screw hypocrisy - hello, hypocrisy, I would like to do you. Fuck anxiety I hate anxiety  - sexy anxiety, I love the energy. That’s actually kind of great. It turns everything on its head. We can find equal pleasure and benefit in all the things: things we like and things we don’t, so now the whole world becomes an object of our ardor and desire, and that’s where the fun begins. Then we can add in solipsism–solipsism? The theory that if everything is in your head, then the self is all that can be known to exist-–so basically everything is you, All Is One kind of stuff, so now we are having sex with everything we like and don’t like and everything is us and so it’s just one big masterbatory existence. Yay! Pleasure party! 

And that kicked off my erotica performance career apparently. So I've been showing up whenever I'm here in California because these days I'm spending some of my, some of my days in France. And so I'm, I'm part of the company now. I'm in the company at the California performing monthly in the show and it's called Forbidden Kiss. Anyway, we're in from below, but that's what I've been up to. And it's been really fun to explore this whole other side of myself, this whole other world before was not part of my, not just work and artwork and writing, but personality. And I realize how malleable who we are really is and that we can get interested in something and then we can explore it and we can write about it or talk about it or think about it or read about it, basically explore it. And in that way, we can kind of assimilate parts of it, whatever parts feel appealing and leave the rest into the new fabric of who we are. And so that's been really fun because now I can say, oh yes, I am a intellectual erotica performer, why not? And also just tapping into parts of myself that are sensual and erotic. And to me that connects so deeply back to freedom because it's about being free in our bodies and it doesn't have to be so heavy handed with the sexy. It can just be about being freer in our bodies and our minds and what we consider acceptable and safe and what we're willing to express and what we're willing to take in. And and for me, this has been a wonderful invitation to continue on with my lifelong journey of freeing yourself and being free with your identity and waking up. 

Hello everybody. I’m Dr E Rotica. You can call me Erica. Oh, im not a doctor doctor. (But if you want to Play Doctor, we can.) I hold a doctorate, a PhD is What’s Sexy. Today I have an excerpt from my newly published paper: Redefining Mindfuck: an experiential hypothesis I propose we reclaim the concept and word of “mindfuck”. More like “mindsex.” Mindlove. When we open our minds to a thought that has the potential to liberate our bodies. I’m not going to ram my idea in there, like so much discourse today. I’m going to slip my idea into your mind, gently. Do I have your consent? Definitions: Fuck, noun & verb: Sex, intercourse! can involve any parts: penis and a vagina, penis and anus, tongue and vagina, etc. For our purposes: the “touching“ of erotic body parts or “penetration“ of one body part into a space that would otherwise be considered sacred or very very personal. Something of mine into something of yours. Mind, noun: that which allows us to be aware of the world, our experiences, thoughts, ideas, concepts, consciousness itself– these are at times synonymous of Mind, and at other times, an aspect of Mind. “Mind” is both a thing and a space in which things appear. And it is a deeply intimate and private part of ourselves. So in theory, I could stick my thoughts into your consciousness or you could stick your ideas into my mind. And we’d be mindfucking. That sounds like a good Wednesday night.

And so, yeah, for yourself and the rest will follow. So, that's been great. That's been exciting. So that's what I'm up to and maybe I'll talk about it more. And then on the other side of that is pain. I've been recently reading and learning about the mind, body connection as it relates to pain and how pain can be all in the, not that it's all in the mind, like it's not real, it's real, but more that it can originate in the brain rather than in the body. So I've been reading a lot about the neuroscience behind pain. The neuroscience really behind how we create a reality and what it is to have a belief or an opinion or even an identity and how that exists in the brain, but a lot of stuff that exists in the brain are maybe not factual true representations out in the physical world. And where is that line between fact and fiction and the brain and reality? And how do we learn about our cognitive habits and take hold of them and be intentional and really making choice and realizing how much choice we have and also how much choice we don't have about what we see as our reality, what we see as ourselves and therefore who we are because belief includes influences, excuse me, influences behavior and behavior, influences action and action, influences what we create and that influences reality. So it's really fascinating in particular, I'm reading a book right now called The Way Out by Alan Gordon with Alon Ziv .And it's basically about the Neuroscience of Chronic Pain because I am a chronic pain or I have been a chronic pain sufferer. I'm rewriting that self identification. And let me just quote you one thing from this book, the brain is capable of generating any physical sensation, any physical sensation in any part of the body. One more time, the brain is capable of generating any physical sensation in any part of the body. Pain in your back, your neck, your eyes, your teeth, muscle pain, nerve pain, sharp pain, dull, pain, tightness, tingling, burning, numbness, that's amazing. Basically, it is possible to experience any type of sensation and it is originating from the brain rather than the body. What that means is you can be experiencing things that you think are coming from the physical world via your body. And that doesn't, actually, there's not an actual physical stimulating source. That's amazing. I mean, we could wax philosophical about what that has what, how that connects back to our perception of reality and where it's originating from. But even just keeping with the body, that's fascinating and tremendously empowering. So I'm reading a lot about how chronic pain can be something that's called neuropathic pain, which is brain originating pain and how why that happens, how it happens and what we can do about it and how that can actually empower us to rewrite circuits in the brain that have been formed that are kind of a mistake because the body is interpreting danger signals or sorry, the brain is interpreting danger signals from the body. And that being actually not true. The the brain is sort of misfiring or mis wired really to be interpreting danger signals that actually don't, aren't indicating true physios, structural problems. That's a big deal. I may be geeing out a little bit and maybe I just lost a few readers, but for those who are still with me, I mean, really fucking fascinating, right? Most of us experience some kind of chronic pain. I know a lot of people with chronic pain. So to me, this is really fascinating. So basically I'm exploring through art and through science, pain and pleasure. And then this is also coming around to work in professional sphere and branding and naming and collaboration and creation. Because that's always a perennial pursuit of mine is how do we balance our creative lives, our professional lives? Do they need to be different? Do they need to be the same? Do we even need to have these labels anymore? I don't know that's for another show, but I am. Well, I've got something very exciting going on. I can't talk about it yet because the papers aren't signed yet. Yes, legal papers and contracts are involved, you know how I love legal stuff. And so, but I'm very excited to reveal it hopefully very soon in the next few months, but it's exciting. It's new collaborations are afoot transformation for House of who is afoot. You might have already noticed the name change of the podcast and house of who continuing to be a vehicle for self actualization to be a vehicle for self exploration and discovery, definition freedom and all things who are you, who am I and changing that question into a statement I am this, I am that I am neither this nor that I am so hope that's a happy little update and you enjoyed it and you're interested to come along with me on my journey, sending love and freedom and peace to everyone and all things out there. And yeah, may you know who you are and love it.

On Moderation

There is a calm in the belly of the night

When i finish reading erotic poems by a poet 

who knows how to end an erotic poem

(ends with a softness, stillness so complex 

it pricks you in the back of the head I ask 

breathless

Is that the end?

And with eyelashes fluttering sheets of paper, lips creasing supine, the poem’s coy response is

…. (yesss)

That’s what’s sexy

That’s when to end

After a coy response

But i don’t. I don’t 

I don’t because I usually go on

Blinking off

And on and off and on

And off

And on again

Too far.

Chapter 0: Executive Summary

Dear Dark Who, 

In my dreams I’m nobody. I fall asleep: I’m formless. I wake up: I reappear.

Although more and more I think we have it all backwards. Doesn’t it feel more true that our waking self is substanceless? This crazy world of color, form, senses, ambition, money: just a dream we wake up into.

Don’t make me quote Shakespeare.

If that’s true, it means when we capital A Awaken, we are nobody. Nothingness. 

I’m reading Jed McKenna again. Jed McKenna, the author of a series of books about enlightenment written by…there’s not really consensus. It’s a pseudonym. This is a little dangerous because these mysteriously-authored books always take me into deep existential waters, can you tell? Waters so deep, in fact, that reality gets blurry and I’m questioning again who I am and whether I exist.

But I don’t care--I’ve moved past caring what is dangerous and what is sane. Mr. Mckenna (whomever he may be) reminds me of the dream in which I’m living; which means my waking truth lies elsewhere, in the beyond. 

So who am I then? Everyone thinks I’m still the same old me but secretly I’ve moved beyond the place I used to live, and… I’m out. Or, at least, I can slip out (almost) any time I want. Soon, I’ll be completely gone, but it’s looking like no one will notice. Which suits me just fine. I’ll get to dig a big ole hole and slip out the back door, out the back of the theater-cave, and in my place will be a clumsy cardboard sign with a picture of a face that once I thought was mine and over the face in childish crayon will be the words “Pay no attention to the gaping hole in the corner”. Maybe I’ll make a simple contraption of a broom and pendulum, so the fake arm looks to be waving. Smiling and waving.. “Hello! I’m your happy ArtistCEO!” Smiling and waving, and everything in the world will go on as it always has, only “I” won’t be there. Freedom.

Chapter 1

The room dims and stage lights fill the empty platform. In walks Shannon DeJong. She’s dressed smart. Real smart. She has the confidence of success but the vulnerability that comes with an intimate relationship with loss. 

An image of a book appears on the projector, behind her. The TED audience quiets. She begin to speak. 

“You might be asking yourself ‘how could I do something like this in my own life? This book is for you: an overview and How To, in 6.5 easy-to-understand chapters. Over 1 million copies sold. 

But you also might be asking yourself, ‘why the fuck would someone want do something like that?’ I understand your concern. My former CFO, core team and certain family members also raised a finger of concern when I told them my plan. It’s very clear why some might think the premise stupid (I mean: all that money and potential, wasted!!) Some might criticize the execution (rather overly complicated, no?). Still others may be left baffled and will never fully understand, writing me off completely. (That’s okay). I did what I did because I had to do it. So before I explain exactly how I did it, I should probably tell you why I did it. My hope is that my intention, however esoteric, will vindicate, or at the very least sufficiently explain, why I resorted to this idea of destruction--all in the context of American business. 

*jazz hands*

So here’s why.  It’s that I  have a message for the world that I must deliver:

Life is exactly perfect. We just have to learn how to lose it all. 

(Stay with me.)

You know those moments when the world is moving in exquisite choreography? Where every human that walks by is a dancing medley of cells and history, divinity dripping like golden ribbons of honey from their hair? 

This is really what I want to communicate more than anything: the perfection of it all. If I could create a work of art where someone walks away feeling the upwelling of joy and tears, a moment of thank you to the All, to see, to Know, to understand, to be completely devoted to the wonderful Rightness of this unfathomable existence as I experience it--that’s what I’d do. I’d make that work of art.

Historically I’ve been a lesser artist than that, though. I shortfall in my execution not for lack of heart, or lack of effort (maybe), but I certainly lack a deeper commitment (maybe?), or bravery… or just attention span. If I were a great artist like Georgia O'Keeffe, I’d put my actions where my mouth is, and move to New Mexico to bathe in long days of stoic silence while observing the stark death of the desert until it purifies me of my longings. That’s brave.

But I don’t do anything like that.  I jump into little pools that are honest attempts, and sometimes impressive enough, at being an artist: I’ll draft a scene, I’ll half-heartedly create a character that I’ll maybe share online, I’ll journal in the morning and feel my heart well up with poetic truth… and then I’ll shut my notebook and hop onto that conference call I’m 2 minutes late to. And that’s where I’ll spend my day. That’s where I’ve spent my life. 

Ok, you got me:  I’ll drop the false humility. it’s true, I also have committed to some deeper acts of art of which I’m proud: I’ve acted in plays; I studied acting at a conservatory; I wrote and toured a one-woman-show, performing in NY off-off-(off) Broadway; I ran quarterly art salons in Berkeley… blah blah Fine. I’ve done some creative stuff in my life.

But here’s the thing: they were never deep enough. Good enough. BIG enough to satisfy my hunger to make art that explodes with brilliance and impact and meaning. Rich enough to capture the perfection I’ve tasted that I yearn to share with other mouths. Or at the very least could prove to myself that I’m not a fraud and I am, in fact, more committed to being an artist than I am to making money.

Because fuck that shit. My values are clear.

Or are they? For many years I told myself I was making art that was all-encompassing: “I am living my whole life as a work of art!” … Sure. Congratulations, Shannon, for being a creative human. Everyone says that “life as a work of art” platitude, but no one actually believes it. When I get honest with myself, I haven’t been 100% devoted to A Life in Art. To, let’s be real, my soul. My Soul says ‘YOLO let’s go for the moon!’ and my ego, a well-meaning thing, interrupts with some propaganda about ‘balance and enjoying life and we’re already enlightened, in fact we are enlightenment itself and isn’t art just a vehicle for Realization, come’on that’s not actually what you want to do, is it? You don’t want to live in a monastery and meditate with a burning candle in your hand until the wick wakes you up or make art that does the same.’ 

So this is my karma, right? I was born to work and made to express and long to Awaken, so the answer lies in doing it all. Maybe I’m not meant to be an artist in the traditional paintbrush-in-New-Mexico or Broadway-in-New-York kind of way, you think? Maybe in another life I took a Bodhisattva vow to work in the Marketplace as a businesswoman to pioneer the crazy idea that our lives and careers really should be works of art, and creating a company just to end it is a beautiful gesture, right? ...Right? 

Right. 

Whether or not that’s the right decision, I’ve gone and done it: decided that integration is the answer. I’ve made the choice behind door number three which isn’t a conventional and financially stable life, nor is it the life of an artist: it’s the attempt to do both, simultaneously. “

The stage lights brighten, and the screen behind Shannon becomes more vivid. She continues:

“And  you can, too.

By creating a business just to blow it up. Oh, don’t worry! Not physically. More essentially. Symbolically. Taking the essence of what you loathe and love (money, security, safety, accomplishment, success) and severe those attachments by creating something only to destroy it--and in doing so, creating a work of art that explores the idea of impermanence, which is really the basis for this perfection of life: because it’s not forever, we love it so much. Death teaches us how to live. Life teaches us how to love. 

And this love is what I want to share with the world. 

This love is  why I decided to turn my business, House of Who, Inc., into a sacrifice on the alter of art--and intentionally built the company, over eight long and formative years,  just to let it go. 

The practice of learning acceptance, detaching, surrender, and death. There is nothing more compelling to me than this. (Except maybe cuddling in bed with Justin, but the former will eventually tsunami the latter, so I make my choice and be done with it).

And now I’ve written it all down, documented, in a step by step manual, for your easy enjoyment.  So whenever you’re ready to self-immolate into magic, just pick up a copy of my book “The Dark Who Diaries: How to Self Destruct, in 6.5 easy-to-understand chapters“ and begin at chapter 1.1. 

Chapter 1.1

Let’s begin at the beginning.

(I start at 15:35)

ACT ONE

At Attention

It is over new furniture 

and the piano 

that cheap perfume hovers

I like it fresh and French and gravel-y, like butt-eR, cRoissANT, caRRot-RApier

You will find no chardonnay in this american girl give me bitt-ER

Pixie powder is more sneeze than love

I want orgasm of New

If I’m honest, which i am, the day was boring

(me, you) lavishing Romanesque

Purple orbs in plump bunches

Dropping toosweet worlds into my mouth

Fed like worms your chick, I: hungry

but overfed affection

I am tired of bowls. They hold things

Unheld I want wingspan

coffee grounds not sugar, 

raw tongue, I want barbs

Your little kitten breath is want of charm, with nibbles and bites: a subpar massage

Harder I come without your name

Oh! The closing of your eyes

Etc

Is only a little death

Give me everything

La petite mort

What I love more than grapes is you, 

at attention.

Lucky You

The dishes were naughty

Old fruit. Juice. Flies restless

Nothing was decorating the counter 

naked

Hum of the ice box cooing

The garbage needed to be taken out

Sheer laziness. (coyly:) Or defiance.

Plums placed as an offering

(delicately there)

Ignored,

(tragically)

rotted.

Flowers bent and soggy,

Wet.

Easing into bites just whetted

A magnificent scandal erupted

The pomegranates to the potatoes gasp: shut your eyes!

We tried to keep it in the kitchen

Under the table

By the eggs

(there were never any eggs)

But when she walked in the room

…

Everyone froze

Reducing us to still life

We tried not to look

Through the crinkle of plastic

Romain’s heart sinks

the figs moan again

When a glovethick hand

Swooshes along the countertop

Like a racecar in Kentucky.

She turns to me:

“You’ve been a very, very bad maid.”

So, it’s my birthday today. Thank you. I’m…the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.  / I’m turning 42.  Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? Anyone, anyone? Anyway, / I used to think sexy was Young & Beautiful. Perky, Oh Yeah, tight, firm, big here small there but now I know what’s up.

You want to know what’s really sexy? Truth. Freedom.  / Truth of who you are. Freedom from the bullshit. You know what I mean.  Alll the bullshit. Screw the bull shit. Fuck that shit.

Funny. When we say “screw this” or “fuck that” it means “have sex with” which is strange because why are we having sex with something we don’t like? 

Maybe: bc its an empowering transformation from “something I despise” to “something I desire!” I like it.

[trying it on:] Fuck war - I will have sex with war. Screw hypocrisy - hello, hypocrisy, I would like to do you. Fuck anxiety I hate anxiety  - sexy anxiety, I love the energy. That’s actually kind of great. It turns everything on its head. We can find equal pleasure and benefit in all the things: things we like and things we don’t, so now the whole world becomes an object of our ardor and desire, and that’s where the fun begins. 

Then we can add in solipsism–solipsism? The theory that if everything is in your head, then the self is all that can be known to exist-–so basically everything is you, All Is One kind of stuff, so now we are having sex with everything we like and don’t like and everything is us and so it’s just one big masterbatory existence. Yay! Pleasure party!

Let’s be real: no one can really know how to please you as much as you, so now that everything is you, you can walk around feeling turned on by everything– and if you’re everything, you’re god. 

“I am god, and I am hot.” Now we’re talking.

OoooOOOooo. What a fun game: Midus touch meets sexual magician: find all the things we don’t like and transform them: anger → ardor, sadness → sensuality, fear → fabulous, hate → hot.

Ok, let’s try it together: I’m on stage, it’s kinda scary. Someone in this audience might think I’m boring. I fear rejection, shame.

BTW Did you know that ringtail lemurs, very distant primate relatives of ours, will exclude a single member of their tribe who is sick or weak or is for some reason deemed unfit, they will actually form a circle excluding the weak one. Physical rejection. Forcing them to go it alone in the wilds of nature. They usually die of starvation. Or loneliness, I bet.

Primates are assholes. / So our fear of rejection runs deep - it’s not about emotions, it’s about survival.  / Ok, so I’m standing here, vulnerable to rejection, AKA death. But I don’t want death I want life! I want happiness, I want desire, so let’s transform that bullshit fear:

[asks someone in the audience] Ok, reject me. Ok, I ‘m having a reaction. Ok, I”m feeling those sensations in my body. It’s really uncomfortable. 

“Fuck you for rejecting me. Fuck these feelings I have” / I’m not going to have sex with you, but I am going to metaphorically have sex with my feelings. How do I do that?

I let them enter me. I feel them, let them in, they’re intense. But I don’t fight them.  My heart is beating, My breath tightens. I feel flushed, am I anxious? Aroused? Excited?

BTW Did you know that studies have shown that when experiencing physiological responses related to fear, people can mislabel those responses as romantic arousal? Fascinating study about a woman and a suspension bridge. Look it up. The point is: we usually don’t know how to properly relate to our feelings. Or never taught, I bet.

So we can choose! Do you want it to be fear or fascination? It’s your choice!

It’s just sensation! Let it in: It hurts but also kinda hurts good, the feels, it feels good to feel,  we’re alive, like taking off an ice pack, the flush, the blood the energy rushing in, from frozen to free, the “Yeaow! Ow! Fuck! Better…” 

Isn’t that what makes sex so great? Sensations that change, keep us on our toes, sometimes uncomfortable, painful pleasure, pleasurable-pleasure, release. Ahh, yes, relief. It grows again into tension, it’s too good, but if we keep letting it in, it cycles back on itself, an infinite loop of yes please. Tension and release.  It’s the point-counterpoint that makes it so yummy. 

That’s the other thing that makes sex so great: We are not in control – of anything. Our bodies, our minds, our hearts, where we are, who we are. Total freedom, total expression, who cares if we yelp or howl or scream or moan or kick or laugh or bite or punch or open so softly we might die. Who cares? We don’t care, we don’t care at all. We are gods and goddesses of good god yes;, we are filled and flowing with pleasure power. 

Nothing can touch us we touch everything we ARE everything, whether we like it or not, fuck that, which means fuck yes, everything fuel and fodder for our continued arousal, the whole world is us, everything fuckable, we are everything, we are fuckable, any resistance we just stick into our hearts, or pussies, or whatever you have, transmute it all into good old fashion ecstacy —

No matter how old we are.

That’s what’s up. 

To take hate and grief and scorn and fear and eat them chew them digest them suck them dry, mere playthings, if it’s all play then we’re powerful and if we’re powerful we’re free and freedom is sexy and that’s the truth. 

CHRISTIAN ROCK

I have a confession to make: I love christian rock. I’ll stop there. I started to write a piece about this, but when I sat down to finish, I felt the whisper of procrastination and got sucked into the flow of writing about Ascorbic acid. Shall we go with the flow?

ASCORBIC ACID

I have a confession to make: I bought a jumbo bottle of 250 capsules of Asorbic Acid, Vit C in March 2020. I, Shannon DeJong, hoarded Vitamin C at the beginning of the pandemic. I didn’t think it was hoarding. I believed at th;e time it was a very realistic and even health-forward amount of Vitamin C to purchase and consume.

Regardless, I’m asking for your support: I’ve only taken like 50 of the 250 bottle, and the expiration date is May of 2022. That sounded impossibly far away in March of 2020, but lo and behold, here we are, just months away, and I’ve failed to ingest my abundance of C. 

I am hoping, that on your way out today, you will each take a recommended serving size of 1 capsule with you, thus relieving me of my shame. You can use the chopsticks to fish one out, please, we’re not out of the pandemic yet regardless of the fact that our president decided at that the State of the Union was coincidentally the perfect time to drop the mask mandate in Washington and proceed to kiss and hug 70-year-old senators on live broadcast TV despite the fact that while numbers are falling, we are still multiples more infections than we did at the height of restrictions. I’m a-political. I’m not here to judge. It’s also just good hygiene. Use the chopsticks. After you’ve used the chopsticks, please use a hand sanitizer. If you don’t like goop, use a wipey. If you don’t like the smell of the wipes, I have some French perfume-scented eau de toilette towels. And if you’re sensitive to fragrance, I have some dry, unscented towels from the doctors office they gave me to wipe my woohoo after an OBGYN visit. I haven’t used them! They gave me too many and I didn’t want them to just get thrown away. This one’s doesn’t help with the Covid. 

The point is: with full participation in Project Vitamin C , we can achieve this ambitious but realistic goal: waste not, want not. 

I’ve worked it out: With an average of 30 people in attendance over three shows, at 1 capsule per person per show, that’s 110 capsules. I will do my part, of course, and continue to take a daily dose of 1 capsule per day. I looked on the calendar, and from today that’s 86 days, if I may include May, which I may, so 86 capsules. 

86 is kinda funny, because in the restaurant industry, when something is “86ed” it means you’ve run out of something in the kitchen. 

[marin lady] “Hi, I’d like to order the salmon”

[calm server] Wonderful. The chef prepares it pretty raw with a gentle seared crust. Just want to make sure you’re ok with very pink?

“Sounds wonderful. Doesn’t that sound wonderful, Henry? Can you recommend a wine to go with that?”

But of course. If you’re interested in something unconventional, I can recommend a grenache rosé, actually. 

“Oh! So not a white? I’m intrigued.”

Of course a white will go perfectly, but a grenache rosé can supply more fruit, which can be charming with the nuts in the panko. For something a little youthful, we just added the Hogwash to our wine family, a grenache rosé, very aromatic, clean finish, lingering notes of lemon zest and honey, which could go nicely with the pistachio crust on the salmon.

“Oh fun - I’ll take that.”

My pleasure.

*

“Hey, Sam - we’ve got salmon table 3”

“Yep - last one. 86 on the salmon”

“86 on the salmon. Gotcha”

I have no idea what it’s like in the kitchen at a high end restaurant with fast-moving orders, but I like to imagine it’s always a good time to say “86 on the salmon”... “86 on the salmon”.

But let’s stay focused: So 86 on the Vitamin C if I can get your help. To summarize: 250 - 50 - 90 - 86 = 24 remaining pills. I’ll make you a deal: I’ll meet you halfway. I’ll take an additional 12 capsules over the next 3 months, and 12 of you out there can take away 2 capsules today instead of 1 and thus be sure to erase the previous grosse miscalculation I made on supplement dependency during a global pandemic, for which, I’d be really grateful. 

I have another confession to make: only after writing this and seeing the red squiggly lines did I realize that it’s spelled AsCorbic Acid, with a C: A-S-C-O-R-B-I-C, not A-C (pronounced like an S)-O-R-B-I-C. Like Asorbic, which is how I used to pronounce it. 

I looked it up and it is, in fact, pronounced Ass-Core-Bick Acid (that’s how the US guy pronounced it) or, for our Brits in the audience, Uh-Scoh-Beek-Acid, which we all know is more lovely, 1 point America winning the Revolution, 1 point for the Motherland, maintaining phonetic elegance. 

PROCRASTINATION

Ok, last confession: I wrote this all this morning to avoid working on my piece about Christian Rock, which was also about prejudice, and war. I just… didn’t want to write about predjuice and war, so I wrote something different. I’m sure you can relate: While some of you out there might not consider yourselves a writer, or even a “creative person” you are all, in fact, creating works of art everyday, and sometimes you create the things you planned to create and sometimes you create something different, but you are nonetheless ever-creating: your identity, your lives, your speech, your thoughts - well, we could talk about whether you are creating these things or whether they just happen as appearances in consciousness, but presuming you are not antagonistic to the notion of an elusory boundary of the self, I’m going to define “you” as “everything” and “create” as “suddenly appearing” so “you creating” is synonymous with “everything existing”, and isn’t that a beautiful thing, indeed? By merely being aware of your own existence, you’re the greatest creator in the world, and those who believe in a creator bigger than the Self capital S or the Source of all things, we can let those two things exist in harmony for a moment, can’t we? SelfSource & higher-power-God, sharing the stage, kind of like how Alia and I do at Da Salon - I’m not going to attempt to figure out which one of us is God and which one of us is Self-Source, but you get the idea.

Here’s the thing: My word of the year is flow. Sometimes we aim to do one thing, but the energy wants to go in another direction. There are times when it’s appropriate to chart the course, and stay there, withstanding the fierce storms of energy blowing us this way and that, horizontal rain soaking our resolve while onward we trudge. Sometimes. But sometimes it’s appropriate to drop our expectations and grip on control and let the storms yank and blow our boats with the tumultuous tide. To recognize we do not need to live life the way a 4-stroke engine produces thrust: intake, compression, power, exhaust, intake, compression, power, exhaust. We can actually live, like, water. We can unhook our tethers to the chords of right and wrong, desirable and undesirable, being in control and whatever-the-scary-thing-not-being-in-control-is (is “out of control” really such a bad thing?” #rebrandopportunity). When we are out of control, we are afraid of doing or saying or writing something bad or boring or unlovable. But with courage we can trust-fall back into the arms of time and life, watching excitedly with all of creation this movie of existence: 

[kid] “What’s gonna happen?”

[adult] She’s looking at the crowd. The crowd is looking back at her, expectantly.

“What’s she going to say?”

We don’t know. They don’t know. She doesn’t know.

“Now what’s happening”

She’s just saying words, staring. Waiting. Filling with the pregnant pause unfolding.

“Why isn’t she doing anything? Is everything ok? Is something bad going to happen?”

Nothing bad is going to happen - or maybe it will! We don’t know. But I think she knows it’s not going to be bad. In fact, I think she knows it’s going to be very, very good to just… watch.

“What’s going to be good about it?”

It’s going to be beautiful. Or fun. Exciting! Heart Wrenching. No matter what happens, it’s worth watching. She’s trusting the moment, and inviting the audience to trust the moment - to really just be there, not needing a story or an answer or promise of safety. Just… to be there with her.

[whispering] “What is this called?”

[whispering] I think it’s called flow, being present in the flow.

“Let’s keep watching. I really like this “flow”

Me too, me too.

So I procrastinated and followed my flow, and here we are.

Ok, ok last confession for reals for realsies i promise: sometimes I love letting go of needing to make meaning out of the existential wash of incomprehensible beauty and pain in an otherwise ultimately meaningless existence. I hope it’s been as liberating, healing, enjoyable for you as it has been for me, riding along in the flow.

Wishing you a great rest of your weekend.

The trials and tribulations of an identity expert in search of herself.

So i had minor procedure this morning. Dont worry, I”m fine. Just a little benign cyst. They just got it out of the way, like shooing a cat out of the driveway so you can backup faster when you’re in a hurry to drive down to the market and get some coconut water. 

Technically I was not under generalized anesthesia, but was for all intents and purposes completely unconscious.   

This story is also my not so subtle apology for the fact that I might appear slightly drunk today. The show must go on.

I persevere for the sake of art-marking, but I can be delicate like an orchid, which I had on my salad from Ayuwasca about an hour ago, which I ate one petal of but couldn’t bear to finish, and by delicate I mean I have a very sensitive vasovagal response–which if you don’t know what that is, the vasovagal is a nerve that runs the length of your body from the here to the here, and it is the nerve responsible for fainting, and that well in some people when there’s a trigger, whether that’s the side of blood or being dehydrated in hot, it gets tripped and you (tree falling)

I have a history of falling which is very entertaining after the fact and usually worries present company during. Here are the times/places I’ve

So I wasn’t surprised at all when I started to sit up out of the hospital bed and felt a little lightheaded. This is very normal. I know myself. If you wanna know how many times I have fainted, blacked out, passed out in my whole life, I cannot count them on both hands. I couldn’t even count them on my hands plus Alia‘s hands. I could even count them on my hands plus Alia’s hands plus maybe Cheryl‘s hands.

I have a lot of experience feeding. One might even say I’m an expert in the fainting of Shannon. When might even say I’m an expert.

Unfortunately, this is not a great job description that theater ship title, because I can write articles and share things on social media for no one other than self.

So they kept me longer: blood pressure every 5 mins,  (56/98 if you’re curious. I have always had a very low blood pressure, another reason why nurses look at me askance when I say I’m feeling fine to sit up. I wanted my blood pressure taken, it was only like 50/80, and the nurse looked at me and said “how are you sitting up straight right now?) 

For someone who is inclined to a fair amount of anxiety, my numbers make me look very calm.

So to prevent fainting, they decided they wanted to give me another bag of fluids. “You can get up and go to the bathroom once your bag is empty”

Wait, what?

I can’t

It’s already been two hours, I’ve had two bottles of apple juice, 216 ounce cups, 1000 mL bags for boots, and now they’re gonna give me another.

As you can imagine, I have to go pee. And they won’t get up because of the risk of fainting. I have to have more water before I can go pee but I have to go pee before my body will take any more water

“You can leave once your bag is empty”

Drip by drip. 2000ml

I faint a lot. 

My anesthesiologist just said “I recommended skipping your event tonight, but up to you. Just know it is like showing up to an event drunk, so make sure it’s not something you would worry about for your personal brand 😂. 

She works with a lot of people in San Francisco.

But her very real concern prompted a very real existential crisis…Who am I? Oh no not that again.

I am the preeminent expert on 2 stroke cycle engines for watercraft. 

What? No, I’m not that, but wouldn't that be nice.

I am a leading thinker on political voting reform. No.

I have a doctorate in mindfulness to enhance child academic achievement in public education. 

I am an expert on expertise. I wrote the book on book-writing. 

THOSE ARE ALL SUCH NICE AND TIDY IDENTITIES. Simple ways to be positioned in the world, as a self. Sure, those hypothetical people are also people, with families and quirks and bucketlists… but in terms of how they present who they are to the world, they have packaged them into nice and tidy… brands.

Well, fuck them.

I mean, no, good for them! In fact, I do this professionally myself: I help people and companies discover this very thing: who are they? How can we package your identity into a nice and tidy one-liner? I have to tell you: it’s quite easy. I “see” people and their essence and am great at articulating the nuance and truth of that. And even embodiment, business and brand techniques to help them become that self.

But for myself? I’ve been struggling all my life and resort to full on existential crisis about every 3-4 years. The question is always: who the hell am I? I can’t fucking see or say myself. It’s all too blurry, with no center, always a moving target.

I tried to hire someone to help me with this (I’ve hired many people to help me with this, from therapists to consultants to those more woo). One in particular was a very reputable consultant I hired to help me position my business – slightly different than myself but relevant nonetheless – and bless him, it was great advice:

“Hi. I’m Shannon DeJong, the founder of House of Who, a naming agency specializing in the the tech industry”. I mean, it’s true that much of my professional experience is naming for corporate and tech companies. 

So, by extension, I should be able to borrow this very marketable identity, and voila:

“I am an expert on naming in the tech industry.” Thought leadership, here I come.

That is not who I am. Anyone who knows me knows that that is not who I am. Yes, I’m an expert in naming and branding, sure, I can advice you on how to start up your own small business or creative agency, having bootstrapped my own from a single job to 7 figures (a stat I bandy about a lot because I think it makes me sound credible when I otherwise am confused on my value proposition). But it’s true: I have a lot of knowledge and experience in these areas. I make a fine consultant. 

I’m also a coach and consultant for individuals seeking to articulate and embody their most powerful authentic identity. I have a coaching program to take people through the process of both existential inquiry all the way through to becoming who they want to become—action plan, brand, putting up a website or whatever they want to become.

And also. I have a lifetime of spiritual inquiry and ‘personal transformation’ under my belt. I have dealt with depression, anxiety and mild biploar, have conducted years of research and self-experimentation on how to self-care and survive as a sensitive being with a sensitive nervous system in this world where we also have to make money and pay taxes and remember to buy toilet paper. I have always had a deep urge and longing to express something real, true, beautiful, meaningful and profound about what I find most startling about this life: the fact that I exist in the first place, the fact that life is simultaneously exquisite and exquisitely strange and I don’t know if Life is Suffering or if Life is Bliss and or if both are dancing cheek to cheek, laughing and merging and blurring and unifying in and out of an indescribabley sensual wiggle of atoms and energy. I am obsessed with identity and what it means to be Somebody and what makes a good life and how to satisfying our own needs with the needs of the world. And most of all: how to be in the marketplace and enlightenment at the same time, as if those two things were different they are not.

I’m a poet! I’m a seeker. I’m a real mccoy expert but what am I an expert on? Tell me how to summarize all of the above into a single sentence! Who am I and how do I be her and what do I do to be the best me possible to be of value to this world? And: do I even need to do anything to be of value, or can I be valuable just by existing? And can I be somebody just by being a Nobody?

Now you see why a friend of mine called me The Patron St of Inquiry. My best self is a self in existential crisis. That is my area of genius. I’m very confident about that.

So where does this leave me? Us, I mean, because if you think I’m writing about myself here, you have another thing coming. Oh - I”m sorry, are you one of those people who knows who are and are living it in perfect alignment day in and day out?

I was going to say something snarky but I’ll just acquiesce that, well, lucky you. But for the rest of us: who are we? Why are we here? And if we get answers, will it make a difference?

The conclusion I come to (when you’ve spent your life asking these questions you come to a point where you stop asking and just as Rilke said “start living the answers” and as you do, reflect back on your life and say “oh, ok, i guess that’s the answer.) so the answer I’ve come to is that there is only the answer you decide it is. At some point we stop spinning, stop asking, even stop being the answer, and we just exist. There is wholeness and arrival by the mere fact that this is here, just this eternal recycling of one self as the everything, and this one little dot in the big picture is a woman who asks a lot of questions and finds a lot of wisdom and then she’s be gone but she also wont.

Because she will have realized that she’s the dot and she’s also the Whole, and so the kaleidoscope changes colors but it’s all the same shards of glass shifting around in different configurations as time rotates on.  I might be a talented writer with a mediocre execution and a half-baked identity, but does that mean I haven’t lived to my fullest potential? Maybe I’ll never write the great American novel or become a thought leader or avant guard influencer. Maybe this is my greatest potential for this moment now, however messy and disorganized. Maybe this is our greatest potential for this moment now, however polarized and confusing`. Maybe we are already here, us, and maybe we will never be finished and shiny with all of our parts defined and placed just so, groomed and packaged for consumption. Maybe this is enough. 

A few years ago I find myself in Austin, Texas. I have flown in after an invitation to be a speaker and mentor with the BE Conference at SXSW. I am invited because I’ve applied. I’ve applied because I’m trying to position myself as a “thought leader” in my industry. I am trying to position myself a thought leader because… that’s how you become Somebody. 

The marathon week starts with a celebration dinner the night before the conference kicks off. It is sort of a meet and greet for all of the speakers and mentors of the conference. There are dozens of very accomplished women. One by one, each stands to introduce herself. Each stands to reveal her amazingness through a confidently delivered bio:

• A woman featured in Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty, and then appeared as a spokeswoman for healthy body image on the Today Show, CNN, Ellen, Dr. Phil, Tyra, and Oprah (twice).

• Second City alum and star of the Baronness von Sketch show just picked up by IFC

• Director of marketing for VICE 

• Chief Scientist of Dolby Laboratories

• Deputy Director of Astrophysics for NASA

• Actress Rachel Bloom and NY attorney Letitia James

• And, katie couric

What the hell am I doing here?

As the mic snakes around the room of 50 amazing women it suddenly dawns on me that I, too, will have to stand up in front of the room and introduce myself. Like a tsunami headed toward me in slow motion knowing that I’m about to get seriously pummeled, there is nothing to do but watch it come. Oh shit. The irony of the situation flickers briefly in my mind that I founded and own a branding agency, maybe the only creds I can stand on here, and I don’t have a personal brand elevator pitch ready. But with my last few seconds I can’t worry about things like that. What am I going to say?

The only thing I can do is live up to my personal brand and tell the truth.

“Hi. I’m Shannon DeJong. I’m the producer of the podcast ArtistCEO about merging art & business. I started a creative agency based on truth in branding. The vision is to eventually blow it up as a work of subversive art.” (Shrug)

It seems to go over well. But it’s hard to tell with all that accomplishment in the room. Maybe the others smell some of it emanating off me by mistake. I can only presume that most were practicing their own bios in their heads, and don’t really hear me.

After the dinner I sincerely try to network. I recognize this is a superior opportunity: a conference at SXSW dedicated to women in business, and here’s a whole bunch of accomplished women wanting to support each other. I keep in my mind the golden rule of networking: listen, and just try to be helpful. Don’t push your own agenda. But after talking to like 2 or 3 people, I’m done. I can’t shake the nagging feeling that: nobody needs my help.

I float through a dreamlike couple of days following where I appear on a panel as an expert on personal branding in social media. I’m not an expert in personal branding. I’m not an expert on social media. To date, I haven’t been on social media for two years. At the time of the conference, I have like 100 followers, which are also known as my friends. I am assigned mentorship circles where I’m mentoring women who have basically accomplished what I have… just 10 years sooner than me. I do my best, by saying “just keep doing what you’re doing!”

The last morning of the conference, I am depleted. I'm networked out. It is a great revelation: I'm… an Introvert.

I decide to take a walk in nature along the creek behind the seminary where I'm staying. One of my friends hosting me is currently studying to be a chaplain. A chaplain. It’s a sharp contrast to the fierce of-this-world world of ambition and influence I am playing in. If you’re at SXSW, there’s a good chance your drink of choice is Relevance. 

But in this moment, mine is Reverence.

I’m cloistered among the poplar - not popular - trees of a trickling stream. I imagine how old the stream is, and that it’s been licking the roots of these trees since before I was born. Since before I cared who I was in the world and whether or not I was a Somebody. I watch the busy bees on the newly budding fruit trees, smell the sweet burst of pollen in the air, and listen to the strange calls of the black silky grackle bird.

I can feel my soul longing for this solitude as my ego simultaneously yearns for success. I’m about to sit down in the grass and have a proper debate between the two once and for all, when I realize I am due at a "Power Women" breakfast in one hour. 

I consider not going, to give up my career to become a chaplain, but coax myself to stroll briskly back to the apartment, shower, dress, and taxi to downtown Austin. I give myself a pep talk: "take the solitude with you. There is no pressure to impress or network. Instead, just beam the love and peace you felt down by the creek to every person you meet today."

So when I walk into the conference room, I don’t worry about how I look or whose hand I need to shake. I just walk to the front of the room and sit down in an open chair at a round breakfast table. I want to get a good view of the stage; Katie Couric is speaking. 

That moment, Katie's assistant comes to my table and says "we're gonna put Katie here, ok?" Who am I say no? “ok”.

And that's how I end up meeting Katie Couric. 

That’s how I end up being the only person at the table who doesn’t say where I’m from or who I am representing. That’s how I’m the only person who doesn’t get a selfie, or tweet about my proximity to fame, or even say one word beyond my name when Katie asks for it. 

She turns to me: “Hi, I’m Katie. What’s your name?” She is so nice. “I’m Shannon,” I say simply and just beam at her the same telepathic message I beam to my seat neighbor and the conference director and my server and the videographer and the dishwasher with whom I also come in contact.

"May you feel love and peace. 

May you feel love and peace

May you feel love and peace.

Gotta jazz it up sometimes.

There’s a saying that people don’t remember what you say, they remember how you made them feel. I tried to make them feel loved and at peace.

I hope Katie felt it.

I hope everyone in the room felt it.

I don’t think anyone felt it.

I think I blurred into the tapestry of unrecognizable faces that provided the background for the instantly recognizable. The Important People. In that moment I had another revelation: I just don’t care enough to be confident and important. 

However, in this moment, I’m not particularly insecure. I have dropped networking and that feels gooood. Because I am not worried how other people are seeing me, I get to see other people. I get to look around the room and see how many people are self-consciously fumbling with their make up, or nodding their head as another person talks but clearly they’re not listening, and mostly, I get to look at people looking at Katie, sitting right next to me. And I wonder to myself: did Katie Couric get a chance to walk in nature this morning? 

Based on how freshly coiffed Katie looks, I don’t think so. Poor Katie Couric. May you feel love and peace, Katie Couric.

I don’t say a goddam thing for the rest of the conference. But I do go back to the stream behind the seminary and have a nice long networking session with the poplar trees and the busy busy bees.

Sometimes I’m afraid of being inspired. Because then I feel stuff. And feeling cracks me open. I start to remember stuff. Like: that I'm ALIVE. And someday I won't be. And I FEEL. And someday that will stop. And I get all motivated to make spectacularly beautiful things expressing my gratitude for existing. Or try and figure out how to better blast the world with how much love I feel for this grand experiment called Living. But then it's so much, almost too much, yes it is too much, like when I watch bjork orkestral live and it just makes me ache with so much inspiration I want to explode. And I cry and feel like how can I ever, ever embody fully all the passion I feel? Like, really, how can I do it? It's impossible. I'll go crazy or die. But I pick up my pen, and try, clumsily at first, then a little smoother, which develops into a vivid openness, I feel my body relax, and suddenly I am in the slipstream of creation. I open wide and let whatever come out, come out, and I am at peace. I'm alive. It doesn't matter that I'm not bjork or a superstar or a famous writer or any other thing other than I am. It doesn't matter if I can't find a satisfying way to share the awe and exquisite joy I feel. To just feel it is enough. If I happen to pass on any spark of inspiration to any other living thing in this wide gorgeous flow, so be it. And if not, damn damn damn does it feel good to flow.

Sometimes I’m afraid of being inspired. Because then I feel stuff. And feeling cracks me open. I start to remember stuff. Like: that I'm ALIVE. And someday I won't be. And I FEEL. And someday that will stop. And I get all motivated to make spectacularly beautiful things expressing my gratitude for existing. Or try and figure out how to better blast the world with how much love I feel for this grand experiment called Living. But then it's so much, almost too much, yes it is too much, like when I watch bjork orkestral live and it just makes me ache with so much inspiration I want to explode. And I cry and feel like how can I ever, ever embody fully all the passion I feel? Like, really, how can I do it? It's impossible. I'll go crazy or die. But I pick up my pen, and try, clumsily at first, then a little smoother, which develops into a vivid openness, I feel my body relax, and suddenly I am in the slipstream of creation. I open wide and let whatever come out, come out, and I am at peace. I'm alive. It doesn't matter that I'm not bjork or a superstar or a famous writer or any other thing other than I am. It doesn't matter if I can't find a satisfying way to share the awe and exquisite joy I feel. To just feel it is enough. If I happen to pass on any spark of inspiration to any other living thing in this wide gorgeous flow, so be it. And if not, damn damn damn does it feel good to flow.

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“ Nothing lasts forever. What if the point of the business was to experience it like a flower: plant it, grow it, watch it bloom, and then compost the remains? ”

You can also listen on Apple podcast, Spotify or the web

-Dolly Parton

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Shannon DeJong is a CEO. She’s also an artist. These two things are not mutually exclusive - however, they are extremely difficult to pull off. At the helm of her quickly growing San Francisco naming and branding agency, but equally passionate about performance art and acting, Shannon has been feeling like a woman divided. Read more and listen to all 10 episodes here.

Ep 1: The Path to Becoming an ArtistCEO
Ep 2: Disasters and Dollars. The Truth Behind Bootstrapping a Business
Ep 3: Learning to Lead Like a CEO
Ep 4: The Dissatisfied Artist: When Business Takes Over Your Life
Ep 5: An Artist Starts Freelancing

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Guest blogger Pamela Day, in response to my comment “I want to do THAT but it’s already been done.”

Hasn’t already been done.
By you.
Already been done like…
salad dressing.
You aren’t there
’cause
you are
here.
Nothing is new.
It is
a human condition.
Looking at the stars and wondering
where
we
fit.
And how we
communicate that to
the world.
Your lens is new.
Your
exploration is
transparent.
It allows
other
humans
the experience of
not being alone.
With a very
alone
question.
Whhhheeeeeeeee!!!

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A multimedia experiment exploring the artistic side of high-level business executives. I go on dates with professionals and bring a Mary Poppins-style bag of art supplies. We schmooze, network, talk shop… while making art. Learn more.

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