Who is that person in the mirror?
Tomorrow night we start a run of shows of Two Men Talking again. This time in New York City. I say "again" because we have done it in London this past summer (thirty times) in Edinburgh last summer (24 times) and many other times in between and before. So of course it's "again". And yet, it doesn't feel like again. I feel a sense of anticipation and anxiety. A feeling as if I have never done this before and have no idea how I will be able to do it. In fact it is of course not "again" because I am not the same person I was six months ago. So how could it possibly be the same experience as it was. That's a ludicrous notion. I am evolving. I didnt' stop evolving six months ago, or six hours ago, I am continually evolving, so are you, right now. Therefore if I am conscious of my own evolution, I perceive myself anew, Murray anew and the space between us feels unfamiliar and new.
Given this, Two Men Talking will be an unpredictable and unique conversation tomorrow and on subsequent days. Today I am present to this particular reality, the awareness of my own evolution, and am therefore not recognizing myself. Who is this person Paul Browde? I feel I should know him, after all I have lived in his experience for all of his life. You could say he is me. Yet, I don't really know him, and just as I think I do, he does things, unpredictable, unexpected, he feels things differently than he always has, or even stranger, he reacts on a visceral levels in new and unexpected ways, even to me. Can we really know anybody? Or when we do are we relating to an image, like a cache in a computer that stores images of websites that have long been changed? When we relate to ourselves or others as if we know them, is that similar to thinking we see the actual star, when what we are seeing is light that left the star millions of years before? Really being with someone, is to not know them. People are a mystery in every moment. I am. You are. Anything is possible. What are the implications of this for the world? Does history really have to repeat itself? do things really have to keep going the way they always have? or do we have the right and capacity to see things anew and thus create a new world every day?
For me, to prepare for tomorrow is to be curious about what might emerge. What is the conversation we will have? and what is the story that wants to be told. It's not for me to know. Just to show up and let it emerge. Stay tuned.
Given this, Two Men Talking will be an unpredictable and unique conversation tomorrow and on subsequent days. Today I am present to this particular reality, the awareness of my own evolution, and am therefore not recognizing myself. Who is this person Paul Browde? I feel I should know him, after all I have lived in his experience for all of his life. You could say he is me. Yet, I don't really know him, and just as I think I do, he does things, unpredictable, unexpected, he feels things differently than he always has, or even stranger, he reacts on a visceral levels in new and unexpected ways, even to me. Can we really know anybody? Or when we do are we relating to an image, like a cache in a computer that stores images of websites that have long been changed? When we relate to ourselves or others as if we know them, is that similar to thinking we see the actual star, when what we are seeing is light that left the star millions of years before? Really being with someone, is to not know them. People are a mystery in every moment. I am. You are. Anything is possible. What are the implications of this for the world? Does history really have to repeat itself? do things really have to keep going the way they always have? or do we have the right and capacity to see things anew and thus create a new world every day?
For me, to prepare for tomorrow is to be curious about what might emerge. What is the conversation we will have? and what is the story that wants to be told. It's not for me to know. Just to show up and let it emerge. Stay tuned.
posted by Paul Browde at 9:51 PM
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