Every skyscraper symbolizes the goal of making it to the top. The higher you are, the richer and more important you are. Far above the shops, drug stores, restaurants, and service businesses. Far above the trudging people and speeding cars, taxis, cars, and buses. Above the schoolchildren, police, firefighters, and paramedics. Above the homeless mutely sitting with battered cardboard signs. Above the garbage and rats. Above the subway. Above the sewers.
However, just as the high rises must have strong foundations and are connected to utilities, you are not exempt from the fundamentals. You’re simply far from them. You’re still tied to gravity too: that’s why a fall, which can happen in an instant, is feared.
You must still turn out the lights, go to bed, and confront your thoughts, fears, and doubts. If you end up in the emergency room, the doctors will see your human anatomy and will treat you accordingly. No matter how gilded your casket is, it will be buried in the earth. That’s one reason why the Daoists repeatedly warn us away from fame.
Everyone who starts out in the arts is advised to move to New York so that they can meet people and study the magnificent art collections that abound in the city. Making such a move seemed dubious when I was young: I didn’t have money, wasn’t gregarious, and had few contacts.
In 1980, my father called me. A Picasso retrospective exhibition was opening at the MoMA in New York.* He thought I should go. The idea sounded insane. I was working as a graphic designer and barely getting by. I was making woodcuts in a garage. My parents didn’t have much money either. They had occasionally borrowed funds to keep their business going. Their offer was a surprising gesture of support.
I went to New York, and aside from seeing the exhibit itself, I scanned the skyline for a sign that I should move to the Art Capital of the World. Nothing came. I was poor, didn’t have friends there, and had no direct introductions. I decided that I wouldn’t move if I didn’t have either feelings or reasons.
I have made many reckless and impractical decisions in my life. Even today, I obey my foolish heart. I’m just as thrilled as anyone to hear about a kid becoming a Broadway star, or turning into a lion of the stock market, or rising to a best-selling author. But I have also seen many people return to their hometowns battered, defeated, and etched with regret.
I have followed my heart and my inner voice. Meaning for me comes from inner responses. Of course, I try to combine that with thought, research, and practicality. The joys of the crowds and the fetishes of the elite don’t appeal much to me. It’s more important that I follow my own Way.
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* https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1818
Several thoughts:
1) Once, I thought that a company promoted on the NASDAQ display board in NYC was at the pinnacle moment for a start-up. With learning and experience, I know that it is often a sign of their financial need and a representation of the internal & external pressures. Once on the NASDAQ index, the struggles shall continue especially during economic cycles. Alas, “all that glitters is not gold.”
2) Chinese words for name-vs-fame and heart-vs-mind are interpreted in a contextual way, right? Reflection of their fluidity and flow?
3) How did you find your own “Inner Voice”? And how did you learn to trust it?
Yes, name/fame, heart/mind (and also life/fate) are usually contextual. But for deeper contemplation, it’s worth pondering the deeper implications. Name/fame: should we bolster our identity by trying to become famous—and could we benefit by embracing namelessness? Heart/mind: is this schism an absolute distinction or could we accept the importance of emotion and feeling? And if life is our fate, and also our mandate, how do we live wisely?
Inner voice, short answer: I learned to trust my inner voice because I was most fulfilled when I followed it. Simultaneously, I was constantly disillusioned by the hypocrisy, immorality, fallibility, deceit, corruption, greed, and ignorance of almost every religious leader, teacher, politician, and elder I met. Following others was unreliable—or more accurately the way to slavery and helplessness. That’s why I rely on my inner voice.