MEETING YOUR HEROES…
Meeting your heroes, I have learned, can sometimes be a dangerous thing. I will not name names (unless you ask me in person and then I will name names) but sometimes your heroes, when you meet them in person, are big douches. And then you've lost a hero, which is a loss none of us can really afford, because we need these figures in our lives.
With literary heroes, personal encounters can be especially dangerous, because, if you find out the person is douchey, then you can't really ever love their books the same way. Which is why I am even careful about reading literary biographies sometimes, because I don't want to know some of this stuff! I just want to love the writing. And not have the illusion removed.
So I try not to go out of my way to meet my literary heroes, but today at the TED conference I could not help it, and I saw Billy Collins, former U.S. Poet Laureate, and I went to talk to him.
And he is lovely. So lovely. So perfectly lovely. And that means I get to keep him as a hero and I get to keep his books and poems, and I am happy.
And if you don't know who Billy Collins is, watch this video. He is a dear and beautiful soul:
https://bit.ly/1gXKxpt
ONWARD,
LG
via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall
A nice blog about my TED talk last night. I don't yet know when the video will be released, but I'll post it here just as soon as it is!
(Can you see the relief on that woman's face, by the way, that the talk is over?)
🙂
https://bit.ly/1hHshCk
Going home after Eat Pray Love: Elizabeth Gilbert at TED2014 | TED Blog
blog.ted.com
At TED2014, Elizabeth Gilbert talks about finding the will to keep writing after the sensational success of Eat Pray Love.
via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall
DONE.
Thank you for the all the love everyone — TED talk mission safely completed!
A beautiful, warm audience. God bless them.
I will post the video whenever TED releases it! But in the meanwhile, I will share this thought from my speech tonight:
If you are looking for your home in the world, here is a clue: It's whatever you love more than you love yourself. (Addiction and infatuation don't count! Unsafe neighborhoods in which to build a home!) Identify that worthy thing to love, and abide there.
And now Liz gets to take a bath and close her eyes.
ONWARD!
LG
via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall
NERVOUS.
In a few hours, I'm speaking at the TED conference, and I'm nervous. I should be well accustomed to public speaking at this point, but I just have to say: There is something about speaking at TED that makes people shit their pants.
I want to tell you this because is my second time here, and it's really intimidating, and everyone I know who gets on that stage (except the one genuine sociopath whom I met once) is terrified. Everyone thinks they're the only ones who shouldn't be here. Everyone things they're the fraud, the idiot, the fool. Everyone: The heads of major companies, the artists you most admire, the fearless activists, the polar explorers, the researchers who are curing cancer and the physicists who are decoding our very universe. Be assured: I have spoken to lots of them, and right before they get on that stage, they are all shitting their pants. (And for weeks leading up to it too.)
But we do it anyhow. We lock our shaky knees and stand up there and share our ideas, our research, our dreams, our most vulnerable reveals.
Today I watched a beautiful woman (a model, actually) named Geena Rocero stand up on that stage and talk (for the first time in public) about how she had been born a boy, and about her early realization that she had accidentally been assigned the wrong gender — and what she did to remedy it and become the woman she always wanted to be. Even her modeling agent didn't know this secret about. It took incredible guts to share this. She got a giant standing ovation for it, too, after asking us "Will you accept me as I am?"
Which is the big question, of course, whenever we put ourselves out there.
Sometimes the answer is NO. If the answer was always YES, then it wouldn't be brave to ask the question, would it. So you kind of have to do it, anyhow, even with all the risk.
As I always say to myself right before I go on stage, "This is terrifying. But what else are you gonna do with your life, Liz? NOT speak?"
So. No choice but: ONWARD,
LG
via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall
