TRANSCRIPT
I have a lot of empathy for public figures, even public figures that I may not necessarily like that much. I think a big part of the reason why is because, in my own small way, I’ve become something of a public figure. I would say a minor public figure in different periods in my life, especially in the last 10, 12 years since I started making films and traveling the world and being, you know, giving public speeches and sharing my films, making this YouTube channel, having a website. It’s like I sort of put myself in the public sphere, my life in the public sphere. Not in a massive way like a lot of people have done, but enough to give myself a taste of what it feels like to, well, have people be able to look into my life and see things about me that someone who didn’t watch these videos, for instance, wouldn’t know at all.
And so I think of how hard it can be to be, well, publicly criticized, occasionally publicly attacked. I think for me, I’m really grateful in a way that I waited a long time before I became more of a public figure. In a way, I healed a lot of my traumas before I ever even started this process. For instance, you know, I think I was 32, 33 years old before I even put up a public website with my name on it, where I started writing about these really deep and personal ideas. By that point, I’d already done a lot of healing. I made a lot of revolutions in changing my personality, working out my traumas, becoming a more healthy and integrated person. I was a lot more strong in myself than I’d been, let’s say, 10 years before or certainly 15 years before that. It’s like I had more of a foundation in my real self. I couldn’t be thrown around or knocked down so much.
But then I think of people who, well, are public figures who haven’t done that work. Let’s say they became public figures not based on the subject of being a stronger self, a stronger person, on psychological healing, on maturity, on resolving traumas, but people who became a public figure, let’s say, based on some external talent they had. Something that, well, was disconnected, maybe the actual opposite of trauma. I certainly have seen that with a lot of famous actors. When you read about their history, read about their childhood, it’s like a horribly traumatic life that didn’t seem like they resolved all that much. Singers, even a lot of people who have these exceptional talents, it’s like somehow sometimes I think that their exceptional talents might have been heightened and magnified and developed precisely because they didn’t resolve a lot of their inner stuff. In a way, it was like sometimes I think even a distraction from healing. It’s like develop their talents instead of develop their deeper self.
And I think what can happen, I’ve seen it with people, is some of these folks who have incredible talents, talents that sometimes I wish I had, actually, that they are more vulnerable, more susceptible to being knocked down and more susceptible to the attacks of life, to the criticisms. Sometimes even legitimate criticisms, because that’s another thing I’ve found. Some of the criticisms I’ve gotten as a minor public figure, as it were, have actually been very helpful to me. Sometimes some of the things that people have criticized me for have been correct. It’s like people sometimes have seen things about me that weren’t quite right. I think of one big one. As early on, I thought I was more healed than I was, and people called me out on that early on, more than 10 years ago. It’s like, “You’re not as healed as you think you are.” When I studied myself, or I was very painful to hear that, it was like, “Yes, I am.” But when I really thought about it and reflected on it, they’re actually right, and I was able to grow from it.
But what I see not infrequently is that a lot of public figures have a very hard time actually being able to grow from the criticisms. And some of the criticisms that they get certainly are not fair. And then I think of probably the most painful thing of all: these child stars. Why is it that so many child stars, child movie stars and child pop music stars, grow up to become such troubled, dysfunctional adults? How many kill themselves and, you know, have really extremely destructive lives, become terrible addicts, you know, really harm other people, harm their children if they have children? It’s like I think it’s very, very hard to enter the public spotlight, especially when one is young. But even as an adult, if one hasn’t dealt with their primary traumas. Because if you haven’t dealt with your primary traumas, how can you really have a self? And if you really don’t have a strong self, let alone a strong integrated self, I think a lot of famous people, public figures, they have a strongly developed false self. Like even being an actor, an actor is like being the ultimate false self. You’re so good at portraying a self that isn’t yourself that you can get paid for it. You can actually be so good at it that you can get people to believe it.
But I think a lot of these actors, they also have a false self in their own private life. A very unhappy false self, often a false self that does a lot of confusing and messy things that can be publicly criticized for. And I think it’s especially confusing when some of these actors portray people who are the ideals of goodness and morality and health, and yet in their private lives, they’re not that. They sometimes are the opposite, or they’re just very messy, immature people. Not necessarily bad people, but just very troubled, messy people who might be a lot more average in that way. And when they get criticized, it can be really overwhelming to them because one of the things that I’ve found in my life, and I still find in a way, which is why it’s so hard in a way even to be a minor public figure like I am. But what I find is that having my own privacy has been vital for my healing. Having my own anonymity has been vital for my healing, to be able to heal and to be messy and to make my stupid mistakes that I’ve made in my life. And I’ve made a lot, still occasionally make some, and it’s really actually nice to do that out of the public sphere so I can deal with it well without the judgment of the world.
I think about what if I had been a famous public figure, let’s say a famous actor or a musician. Let’s say I had had some exceptional talent when I was 17 or 18, and, you know, the world had been watching me. I don’t think I could have healed the way I did. I think I absolutely needed the privacy and anonymity that I had throughout my 20s. I think that really allowed me to grow. And I think of some of these public figures, some of them who seem actually later to do some healing. It’s amazing. I think they must be incredibly strong. But I think I might have just died if I’d been one of those public figures early on. I think even if I hadn’t killed myself or done something like that, I think I might have just died on the inside.
So that’s why, yes, I can look at some of these public figures. I can be somewhat critical or judgmental of them sometimes, especially when they’re older and I see they’ve done some terribly harmful things, especially to younger people. But when I look at the ones who are messy and do stupid things when they’re 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 years old, back when I was doing a lot of stupid stuff in my life, and I see them doing things sometimes in a more extreme way than what I did, and seeing the world rip them apart and say terrible things about them, sometimes maybe critique them correctly, maybe sometimes really act out a lot of their own unresolved rage at these young people. I see that sometimes people who are in their 40s criticizing pop stars who are like 17 or 18, and it’s like you’re criticizing a child. And I feel for those young people. Not saying that those young people are doing the right thing, but it’s like I really feel for those young people. I feel for their lives.
I really wonder if all their talent and fame and sometimes the fortune that they get really isn’t just, in the bigger picture, a kind of curse.