The 5th Force of Perceived Judgment

Risk. Balls. Courage. Sticking your neck out. Conceptually, easy to grasp, but practically speaking, not so easy to do.

I saw Dan Bern last night in Brooklyn. The guy is one of my favorite songwriters and someone who I admire from a point of having "big balls." How many artists are there, in whatever medium, whether writers, musicians, painters, scientific theorists, philosophers, who have great ideas, who have the great raw materials, but never have the chutzpuh to put themselves out on the line? I think 99.98% of all artists that ever lived fail this test. I put myself in that category.

What will it take to take off all my masks, all my inhibitions, and truly not care about how myself, my words, my work, my voice is received? They say there are 4 Fundamental Forces in the Universe: Gravity, Electromagnetism, the Strong Nuclear Force, and the Weak Nuclear Force. I would like to add a 5th Fundamental Force: the Force of Perceived Judgment. This Force influences how hair is cut, how pants are worn, how career paths are forged, how sex stays in pants. It is the Great Communal Arbiter of quality, of rightness, of fairness, and of appropriateness that is our constant companion in life. It is the Grand Filter that keeps some thoughts and expressions in and lets others out. It is a parasite that drains our energy.

My life has been a tiresome struggle with this 5th Fundamental Force. I think it is a universal struggle. Dan Bern, who is one of these people who takes chances artistically, sings that he dreams of a life where "whether people like him or not is unimportant" to him. But nonetheless, he dilutes himself less than most of us. He recognizes it's a struggle and he does it in the face of that 5th Force. And that is what we want out of not only our artists and our avatars, but out of all our relationships. We don't want the moderated, the modified, the diluted, the self-censored. We want the raw, the enlivening, the beautiful, ugly truth, that affirms our solidarity in this self-renewing, self-creating, holy struggle we call life.

I make it a vow today to do my best to fight on the proverbial front line and let the best, most original, and truest parts of myself out to the world. I have made this vow before with fleeting, disappointing results. But I know my life will amount to nothing, my appreciation of life will continue to be diminished, and the sense of community that I have longed for, and not yet found, will not materialize until I am willing to take the risk to let myself be and express itself in the world.