"Don't play to the result."

A few weeks ago I heard two speakers with very different backgrounds give lectures on opposite ends of the education. The first was Billy Collins, former U.S. Poet Laureate spoke and read some of his amazing poetry at a local community college. The second was Michael J. Fox who gave the keynote address at homecoming weekend at one of the better known private technical schools in the United States. In opinion both men were not the best speakers but they certainly got the message across.

Billy Collins is not an overpowering figure. He’s a very laid back man with a balding head, basset hound eyes and soft almost monotone voice the picture image of a distinguished professor of poetry. But as I heard him speak and read some of his poems I noticed a certain quality in his voice, especially when he read his poetry. There was a certain “Fuck ‘em all” tone to him as he spoke which I appreciated immensely. Now I don’t know if he got that way with age or by being U.S. Poet Laureate for two years running or if he’s always been that way. After all Billy Collins is not the conventional poet in literature. He wrote poems like Hippos on Holiday and Pornography for god’s sake! I guess that’s what I like about Billy Collins, he is unconventional and something a little unexpected. He may look the part of a poetry professor but it seems as though he stayed true to himself and stayed true to his writing and made it all the way to his own office in the Library of Congress. That was a lesson I needed to hear that night.

In some weird parallel universe Michael J. Fox was the opposite of Billy Collins when it came to subject matter. Billy Collins took what some people in the literary world would call a serious subject (poetry) and made it funny. Michael J. Fox made a career out of being funny but he spoke about something serious…living. When I saw him walk up to the podium on the big screens mounted all around the auditorium the first thing I noticed was the tremors. You saw it in his body and heard it in his voice. But when he began speaking I started to notice it less and less because of his words. Granted what he said sounded like he was read the speech, I imagine this is the only way he can get through it. He spoke about living despite all obstacles and even though things seem bad someone else probably has it worse than you. The one thing that did stick out in my mind was a little piece of advice a director gave him on the set of a movie he was shooting. The director told him, “Don’t play to the result.” As an actor you have to be in the moment even though you know what’s coming. As life lesson, being in the moment was something I had forgotten. But life quickly reminded me.

Over the last few months I’ve been told to except certain things that are against my nature. I’ve been told lying is ok, infidelity is acceptable, and things that affect me are none of my business. I was told I was liked and then pushed aside without knowing why or given a reason.I was told something that did affect me but I was scolded for standing up and saying something (ironically enough by the person who told me in the first place.) With all of these things I’ve been told I should just take the emotion out of it and not speak the truth about any of it. I’ve been made to feel ugly, worthless, ostracized and small. I’ve been made to feel this way by people who I considered friends, people I trusted, people who all along only had their own interests in mind and their own secrets to keep. I feel sorry for them. I almost pity them for the lives they lead, the emptiness they must feel to keep such secrets and the walls they’ve built not allowing the world in. I know I was true to myself and spoke the truth instead of keeping secrets or lying about it. I’ve lost a few friends over this time but I know I’ve done the best I can .

You can’t play to the result; you just can’t and as much as I’ve tried in my life these last few months have proved it to be impossible. I’ve had a lot of things come out of nowhere that I would have never expected. Like a phone call from someone telling you a person you love has been taking pills to help them “focus” on their work or an oncoming car around 11:00am on Sunday morning. Life has forced me to stay in the moment and at this point I don’t dare skip ahead.