I’m back in L.A. Back home. I started an article about the Buddhist concept of "home leaving" this morning. And maybe one of these days I’ll finish the bastard thing. But I stopped working on it so I could go to a meeting related to my “real job.” And after coming back, I feel like an article about that meeting might be more relevant, or at least more interesting to me to sit down and write. I don’t really like to write abstract stuff.
Anyway, this meeting. Jesus God in Heaven what a fucking nightmare! Whenever you try to explain the problems you have at work to someone outside your company or outside your specific industry they never make much sense. In fact they always seem incredibly trivial to anyone not directly involved. That’s because they are. And the problems we’re talking about are trivial beyond all bounds of trivia. Nobody fucking cares about the rights to pictures from monster movies. In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter one way or the other. Most of the stuff most of us face at work falls into this category, I think.
Anyway, my approach to the meeting was to try to keep things as friendly as possible and to have a reasonable discussion in order to arrive at a solution that satisfied everyone involved. Unfortunately I was facing a guy who wasn’t interested in talking like a reasonable human being. I spent about 15 minutes in the offices of the company who are complaining to our company about a bunch of monstrously trivial crap before it was utterly obvious that no discussion could possibly take place. I think they believe they threw me out. I guess maybe they did. They made a point of not showing me to the door, which I thought was just silly. But I was every bit as glad to be out of there as they were glad to have me gone.
The whole scene was beyond silly all the way to the realm of high comedy. And I felt bad for the guy I had to talk to, let’s call him Mr. Koksukka. Because he really seemed to be getting himself worked up into a lather over the whole thing. Of course it’s mostly an act. But it takes a lot of energy to sustain and it must be extraordinarily painful, a sad way to live and work. I suppose he gets paid well for it. But it’s got to be extremely damaging and I can't imagine it's really worth it. I could see the damage it had already done to him and it was hard not to want to try and help. But there wasn’t really anything I could do.
Mr. Koksukka kept trying to drive the discussion into very abstract areas that didn't really lead anywhere good, namely the past. There was a whole lot of "Why did you do XXXX six months ago? Why didn't you do YYYY at that time?" Is this a Japanese thing? Or does everyone do this? Because I always refuse to go there. There's no point. In point of fact in this case I did not make any of the past mistakes he wanted me to admit to. But even if I had there would be no real point in discussing them. And the people I'm talking to never seem to really get that. I want to fix the problem that exists now given the conditions that exist now. That seems to be one of the hardest areas to move these kinds of discussions into, though. In the past I've gotten drawn into that sort of trap and it never goes anywhere useful.
Anyway, as I sat there, trying to talk like a human being to someone who reacted to everything I said with (mostly fake) outrage and anger, I felt my own mouth start to dry up. I thought that was a bit odd because I didn’t feel much emotional involvement in the situation. But Mr. Koksukka’s demeanor was such that it produced a number of the kind of involuntary responses one feels when one is faced with actual danger. At one point I reached for my notebook and accidentally knocked over a remote control thingy that was sitting on the table. Again I thought, weird. I was actually losing a certain degree of coordination because of this. My field of vision also seemed to narrow in a way, as if my peripheral vision was somehow compromised. All of this with only the slightest degree of actual emotional involvement.
Now I’m not trying to tell you how enlightened and “Zen” I am. Just trying to describe the situation. I entered this coming out of two two-day Zen retreats in two weeks and about 25 years of daily practice, including 45 minutes just before I left for the meeting. Though it’s certainly not impossible to fluster me, it’s a lot more difficult than it used to be. Yet the situation was such that an entire array of involuntary responses came into play anyway.
As I walked out I started thinking that there are lots of people who must have to face this kind of nonsense day after day after day. It's soooo sad. To a large degree a lot of the problems that face humanity are caused by so many of us engaging in this kind of desperately silly behavior on a regular basis. I used to deal with a lot more of it than I do nowadays. I’ve tended to cut those things out of my life as much as possible.
But I’ve been lucky. I’ve developed certain abilities and skills that allow me to minimize my interaction with that world. Still, there’s no sphere of human activity that’s free of such stupidity. Sometimes you can find a place to be where people are aware of these things and make their efforts to minimize such behavior. Yet it seems to always surface to one degree or another in spite of our best efforts. It doesn't help that our society rewards people who act like Mr. Koksukka so richly.
Throughout my Zen career my teachers have encouraged, almost demanded, that I continue to work in the film business. I always wondered why because if there’s any business in the world that’s more prone to useless displays of emotionalism, well, I don’t want to go there! It seems like the movie business attracts drama queens like shit attracts flies. Why would my teachers want me to stay in such an environment?
I think it’s because I can make a difference here. And that’s important. And it may be just as important for those of you out there reading this who practice Zen and work real jobs to continue making little differences wherever you are. That’s why I’m not really sold on the idea of people running away from whatever it is they do for a living in the work-a-day world to go and, I dunno, help the starving children in Africa or whatever it is. As if helping the starving children in Africa is better than whatever it is they’re doing now. In most cases I have doubts.
I kind of feel like having one grounded person in an otherwise insane company acts a little like having a gyroscope in the bottom of a ship. The gyroscope is a tiny thing, but it steadies the whole ship somehow. As ineffective and ineffectual as I usually feel, I have faith that I make just a little tiny difference by remaining steady.
I wonder what effect I had today. It certainly wasn’t easy to see. I’m sure Mr. Koksukka has his own view of the meeting. I wonder if he has any clue what transpired. I wonder if I do. Although I'm arrogant enough to suspect I have a bit clearer of an idea than he does. Does it matter? Well, I’m writing this right now. So maybe the meeting had some meaning, rather than none at all.
I dunno. Whatever. This isn’t really one of my best elucidations on the nature of human interaction. But I wanted to post it while it was still fresh. Hope you enjoyed it.
I’m gonna go play in the sun for a while.
Bye!
