Category: art

Fear Doesn’t Belong In The Driver’s Seat

Published on by Suzanne BeenackersLeave a comment
“.

“If I ever have to cast an acting role, I want the wrong person for the part.
I can never visualize the right person in a part.
The right person for the right part would be too much.

Besides, no person is every completely right for any part, because part in a role is never real,
so if you can’t get someone who’s perfectly right, it’s more satisfying to get someone who’s perfectly wrong.
Then you know you’ve really got something.”

Andy Warhol

-1SeSPUMAGuDgso3mErLzQ_custom-Custom_Size___harry-benson-andy-warhol-new-york-1983

Yesterday was a biggie for me, as I pulled myself out of Alice’s rabbit hole, and back through the looking glass, and into the real world.
As described in yesterday’s post.

What I didn’t mention was that it was my second post of the day, the muse was incredibly intense in its presence. Or prolific.
The other post was a Dutch one under a pen name, about my conscious decision to get vaccinated, even though after careful study of this particular vaccine and other things considered, I thought it to not be beneficial for my own health.

I was indeed choosing to be vaccinated to “help” others. Not help as in that I believed my vaccination would technically help less people dying of Covid;
But because I believed a vaccination would help others to feel comfortable around me, and relieved I had been vaccinated.
Which in my opinion was an equally valid reason to get vaccinated, because ultimately if you do something for other people, it is none of your business why they want you to do that.
If you get vaccinated because you believe you are protecting your social environment for death, or from fear and worry, in the end, doesn’t matter.
Once you have decided you’re gonna take one for the team, you take one for the team.
End of story.

Except in my case, because I am a writer, I did feel the need to write out my exact considerations because I wanted to be able to read back what they had been.
Taking one for the team was going to be a conscious choice.

The most important reason that I hesitated, however, was because I believed it was a dead-end street. That giving into fear had in the entire history of the world, never been the wisest thing to do.
And after a year of lock downs, social restrictions measures and half of our economy immobilized, like cancerous limbs that were cut off to stay healthy;
I suspected the fear underlying this social self-mutilation would not be satisfied with me, or even the entire population, taking a vaccine.

My decision to take the vaccine was like giving an addict his or her heroine;
You knew it was only a matter of time because they needed more.
There was little reason for joy.

All this cannot be seen separately from my social phobia:
I have always thought people were extremely unreasonable in their social demands, of needing to be psychologically pampered before they were okay with… well, life.
They needed a delicate mix of acknowledgement, love, and empathy, or, alternatively, they needed to know who you were and if you were influential or if they could ignore you.
From the way I saw the world, people always needed my attention, my money, my approval;
And up until recently, my attitude to life was that this was a bad thing.

That it was an injustice that people needed me to behave a certain way, in order to feel good about themselves.
There was something very wrong about that, in my opinion.
So when Covid came in 2020, that I was now supposed to keep 1.5 meters distance, stay indoors, not see other people and so on and so forth, was just added to the pile of demands that I had to fulfill if I wanted human interaction.
I wasn’t happy with it, but then again, since I was already phobic of other people because I thought they were unreasonable in what it was they needed from me in order to have a normal human conversation, it didn’t surprise me either.

Just that when I realized I was on the verge of getting vaccinated when my number is up, I needed some alone time with my Dutch blog, to get it straight why I was choosing to do this.

Today I woke up, feeling the same dystopian feeling I have been having since spring 2020.
That feeling of: “Something really terrible is going on…. what was it?”
Oh, yeah. Covid.
Or to be more exact: The ever changing social dynamics, the always hungry beast of fear, that I m getting tired of feeding.

Because it’s never enough.

And then, suddenly, like a bolt of lightning!, I saw the truth which made me so very happy!
Not just because after a year of being haunted by my social fears, it finally gave me an action perspective, as psychology so beautifully puts it. But also because it was a great equalizer between me and “them”.
It snapped me out of my perceived loneliness that I had experienced because I had thought the people afraid of Covid, and therefor adding wanting me to make them feel safe to their pile of social demands, were different to me.
After the bolt of lightening, I no longer felt that.

The bolt of lightening was this:
Me needing “the public” or “people” to get over their need to be Covid-reassured, for example by me getting vaccinated;
That need, my need and waiting for that moment when there are no more facemaks, no more social distancing, no more frantic testing and stress when you get sick or cough any more than the years when we only had the flu;
That need of mine for “them” to stop their behavior that scares me?
Is exactly the same as their need to have their fears acknowledged, and their desire for “it” to go away.

I am giving away my power, and making this about something outside of myself, just as much as they do.
It doesn’t matter at all, whether you’re afraid of people’s impossible social demands, like I am.
Or whether you are afraid of death by Covid and therefor try to get your surroundings to behave in a way that is palpable or reassuring to you.

Fear is fear.
You have to cut the cord.
You have to put your foot down, and refuse to bow.

See it like those movies where they refuse to negotiate with terrorists:
Negotiating with fear is just as pointless. Unless, in theory because I don’t have examples of that, but unless just like in the movies you have a hidden agenda where you appear to be negotiating with the terrorists to buy yourself time to win;
Negotiating with terrorists or with fear, is a very bad idea.

And I m sure you remember the older, wiser cop or FBI agent, who negotiates the best, don’t you?

He or she does not get angry, or emotional, in their negotiations.
They hold the space, let the other do the talking, listen very carefully. They’re always polite to the terrorists but they don’t give anything they are not willing to give.
They don’t give anything without their end game in mind.

So do that. Stay calm and keep your endgame in mind.
Whether you feel fear for the virus, or you re suffering from a social fear like I do;
Hear it out, let fear speak.
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But make sure it doesn’t get to drive the bus.
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Suzanne L. Beenackers
s_beenackers@hotmail.com
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Categories art

That escalated quickly! Ended my project to be offline within 72 hours

Published on by Suzanne BeenackersLeave a comment
“.
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Click for the article for legendary 90s clubs in Amsterdam. photo Dennis Bouman

“I have left the crowded squares, the public buildings, and now I am in a large spacious room.
I don’t know where, but I assume it’s where all art comes from:

That I am in the world between worlds.
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And I ve taken my place at the table.”
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That is how Saturday’s post ended!
Finally, after a long time of playing with the thought, I was going offline!
And I was going offline AS ART!
* heart eyes*!
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I was literally so excited, I could feel my destiny being fulfilled.
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You see, Covid started at a very strange time in my life.
A time when I had finally “accepted” (a literal coming to terms with) that I was a writer, and that I would be spending so many hours each day writing, sitting behind my desk.
Realizing that had given me inspiration to counter balance the indoor, solitary writing, with work with my hands, or in a venue or outdoor location.
Something in art or entertainment where both the real 3D space, as well as the real interaction with people were key.
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Knowing I was already sitting on my ass for hours straight (last weekend I spent 10 hours per day writing or socially interacting at my desk), I simply didn’t have any ass sitting hours to sell, or to offer in exchange for some human interaction.
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But I knew that after the coming to terms with being a writer, I would be in need of this real life. Whether paid or voluntarily work!
I needed to be saved from myself.
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A desk, a writer’s internal world, is such an intense place.
We need “you guys” to, I don’t know, throw a cocktail umbrella at our heads or something, to wake us up from our artistic delirium.
We, writers, should not be left unsupervised, for days on end.
There was a reason Alice fell down the rabbit hole: she probably sat for 10 hours at her desk too.
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So by the time Covid started I was very firm in my conviction I needed some scheduled live interaction, to save me from myself.
And then the pandemic came and I wasn’t the only was tied to their desk:
We all were.
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And the jobs I had set my eyes on, either didn’t exist anymore because they usually involved festivities, real life interaction. Or if they existed, they had this whole layer of Covid etiquette, Covid hygiene, Covid expectations, and a ten day tail where you could be summoned to get tested if a colleague had tested positive.
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So aside from the fact that all sectors I wanted to work at, were closed or worked in a way that was full of stress and lacked the spontaneity that had been its charm, the actual interaction with colleagues, customers or clients, no longer had the same charm as it did before Covid.
Like everybody, I minimized all social interaction, wrote and taught yoga online, and stopped looking for a job in the sectors I had wanted.
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Initially, I thought I was just waiting for the storm to pass.
Until the real world had found its form again, and I could resume my plan.
And then something started to shift.
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I think it was before the end of summer 2020, that I realized that after 14 years, I was no longer going to be a writer.
Instead, I would take the thinking and the vision, that had always been behind the writing, into the real world and express through the spoken word and performance art.
I would use the rest of this crisis to wrap up my writing (the majority of my work is written under a different name), consolidate my sites;
And then go professional as a speaker, thinker, performer, and have my published work (which would be about 30 books total) available online.
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Even if I never wrote another word, I had written enough to speak about, and sell for the rest of my life..
I prepared for a professional life offline;
No longer as something that was nice to have, in addition to being a writer.
But instead of it.
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I never wanted to spend another day behind my computer, ever again.
It was during this time, that a deep, burning, yearning, desire to go offline started to take shape!
Oh man, even thinking about it, makes my heart sing.
I have called it different things.
Analogue heritage: The skill to be in the real world and deal with real space, real people.
But it was also very much linked to Marina Abramovic and the awareness and acuteness of her work.
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Just think of the impact of physical proximity/ touch/ live interaction after Covid! 
When all our minds are so programmed to start seeing other bodies as hostile.
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Standing next to each other will be like standing next to a military man with an automatic riffle.
We don’t even need the shock-effect of the loaded gun, knife and self-infliction from Marina’s 70s work!
Another body already IS the loaded gun! 
Hugging other people already is self-infliction! 
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The energy around physical interaction is so dense, so toxic, and the awareness of our own mortality almost tangible;
When people say things will go back to normal when it is “safe”? 
Oohhh… you have no idea what you are dealing with here.
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Things will never go back to normal.
Not because situation is different; But because we are.
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We are now suddenly aware that social interaction has a price. That having safe sex was just the tip of the iceberg; Every interaction can cost you your life, or the life of your family members.
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The price of social interaction and NOT living solitary and working from your study;
That price is giving up having control over your hygiene.
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And I m telling you from the bottom of my heart, that is a price so worth paying.
And not just for the few people you voluntarily see, but also for all the ones you accidentally meet or are standing next to in jam packed trains, or at concerts, or whatever.
But maybe that is the artist in me.
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The idea that every person can kill you by their physical presence, is the most fertile artistic ground since the second world war.
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And I could not wait to jump in and be a part of it.
The insight that my future lay in the real world, and that going offline would be part of it, started to take shape.
I was no longer a writer.
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Last Friday I wrote for my Rock Star Writer blog, a post about that it was too early to go offline. Because I needed being online, now that normal interaction was cut off. I wrote, convincing myself, that now was NOT the time.
Posted the blog.
And realized: “This is bullshit. NOW is always the time!!”
So one day later, I wrote for this site World Between Worlds, the Day One post of my offline project.
Now was, indeed, the time to go offline.
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I was very happy that despite Covid, I already started living that part of my life in integrity with how my life would be post-Covid.
I was already offline, meaning I used social media and email only deliberately. I did read news feed and watched YouTube. And although I knew that the news and the channels I watched, were pessimistic and could make me angry, I also knew I would not be able to stop that.
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I was going into this offline project for life, so I definitely did not want to make it too strict.
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But in the process, I either got it entirely backwards, meaning that it would have been a better choice to only do social media but no news at all.
Or, that it was just undoable.
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That I had been right, Friday. That now was not the appointed time to go offline and assume my post-Covid artist lifestyle.
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Because on Sunday, for the first time since last summer, I was back to only wanting to be a writer.
I had lost all desire to ever be part of the world ever again.
I would throw myself head first in the looking glass AND the rabbit hole and say to the Red Queen:
“Please take my soul and my head, whatever I need to pay to stay here, but don’t send me back up ever again.”
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When I cut myself off from the digital world, it opened my eyes to the real world. And it was a world with people who had been so afraid of death and disease that they had blew it up, and destroyed it.
And I lost all desire to create art for them.
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I felt like having a popcorn and watch the show.
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I had told-you-sos and really’s? and a lot of you-gotta-be-fucking-kiddings growing in my heart, until I became more evil than the Red Queen, and started wondering where death would strike.
And looking forward to it.
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Disconnected from my social media and without the comforting surroundings of my Inbox;
I started longing not just to withhold my real-life presence, my art, my empathy, and my love;
I started longing for it all to end.
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I hoped that if death struck, or if the masses lost their minds and started to riot, they would take me first, because I no longer had anything I wanted to do.
Within 72 hours offline I had lost all purpose and desire to be part of this world. 
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So after a year of Covid I am back to where I was. I’m standing in exactly the same spot.
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I am a writer.
I live at my desk.
But I need something solid, something scheduled, in the real world.
And yes!
That will be speaking, performance, art.
That will all be there, as well.
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But first there will be unlimited access to my socials, my Inbox, and ANY and ALL things digital my heart desires!
Ending this art project of being offline, after less than 72 hours.
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Like Alice, I have woken up after a scary adventure and found myself awake, back at the riverbank.
The dark clouds have moved away and the sun is coming through.
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Suzanne L. Beenackers
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But why is it art? | being offline is my art, day 1

Published on by Suzanne BeenackersLeave a comment
lz49oouwu0i51As the day draws to a close, and I look back at how my first day in my New-Committed-For-Life art project “Being Offline Is My Art” went, I think I would label it:
A lesson in humility.
In particular because the difficult parts I expected, were not the actual difficult parts.
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Sure, there were the drawback effects of realizing how often you grab your phone to open your email or social media.
And there were the blissful pure parts of the day where I had heightened awareness of everything around me.
Something I attribute entirely to not being on a digital drip the entire day. Of not having my awareness sucked into what I call “The Matrix’.
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So that was the difficult part but also the benefit which I kind of expected.
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But where I slipped were the online moments. Like this message I am currently typing here, straight into the Facebook box;
“Officially” I vowed to prepare all my emails, social media posts, in a separate Word file.
And to go in copy-paste and post. Although with emoticons, finding a picture and so on, it is not that clear-cut.
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But the idea was pretty simple:
1. Type, prepare “offline” (on a not interactive software)
2. And then just go in to post.
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I can tell you that works great for email.
Did that. Was great.
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But really knocks the fun out of typing messages like this, or composing a tweet or shorter message which I will do later tonight for my Daily Bon Jovi Yoga project.
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So that was a lesson:
If I want to keep this up, I have to give myself some slack and be generous in what I call “offline”.
Maybe you could even call it a project in practicing being offline. Not an outcome of being offline/online for an x amount of minutes.
At least not for starters.
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So that was one practicality where things did not go as planned. Preparing work “offline” (meaning on a non-interactive medium) is painstaking and no fun, and only works for emails.
In particular because my spelling check in Outlook is broken, so the emails have never looked better now that they’re made in Word.
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But there was something else…
Other than the humility lesson that “being offline” is more “practicing being offline” or “brave attempt to be less addicted and constantly checking my phone”.
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The other thing was that the “offline” work time, so using other non-interactive websites or software, still drained me….
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I had expected tonight would be totally different than I had been feeling the rest of the week!
That the anxiety that often haunts me, the restless energy that seems to build up during the evening because I m always on my computer, would be less now that I did not use interactive media.
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Now that I had avoided a lot of checking and browsing, and had already had my peaceful blissful moments as a payoff, I was SURE the evenings would be swell!
Except they re not.
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I feel just as “hit-by-a-truck how the fuck did I get myself into this?” as I always do around this time.
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Just as “Oh, and then I still have to do yoga too…” wondering why I didn’t do that at a moment when I could still keep my eyes open.
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So those were the very down to earth aspects of my first day of this new lifestyle “Being offline is my art”.
And yet, as humble these beginnings were, they did give me enough to start understanding why this is indeed an art project, and not a lifestyle choice.
It’s not digital minimalism.
It’s not a productivity tip.
It’s not me trying to overcome an internet addiction.
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It is art.
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Because just like people who live in a time-capsule, f.e. a house in the 19th century style, I do feel how this untethers me from modern culture.
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I quit Netflix months ago, which is not an interactive medium at all, but I just didn’t like the endless possibilities it offered.
That was already a big step for me, because I liked being there. Liked watching what everybody else watched, or at least having that readily available.
I have written a lot about popular culture over the years, and although much was from the 80s 90s, I ve always gone through phases when what I wrote was more contemporary.
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Like my Sex and the City phase, Vampire Diaries phase, and I watched all available episodes of Stranger Things and Lucifer.
When I quit Netflix, I knew I untied myself from that…
That I would not be writing about contemporary popular culture anymore which made me kind of sad.
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But today, the first day of practicing being offline, was a deepening of that.
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It was a realization that I was cutting myself off from normal everyday society. And that it had been inevitable.
That I had always known solitude and being solitary was my path.
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Not in the yoga sense of meditating and turning inward and connecting with God.
I had not cut myself off from the digital world for spiritual reasons, at least not that clear.
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Going offline is part of choosing art, the creation of it, and choosing to have a limited number of sources and input from others.
In particular input from non-personal sources, things you encounter because you’re on the internet.
I m not on the internet.
Hence: I don’t see them anymore.
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I interact with other people (yes)
I investigate topics, I watch dvd’s, and I will also chat/ attend live streams.
But I will not be attending and interacting and going after, everything that catches my eye and interest.
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What I make and write will inevitably be far less relatable than it has been.
And even the process will be different:
I ve been writing since 2006 under pen name, but always with all tabs open.
All social media open.
As I was typing, internet was my window at the world.
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And it no longer is.
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I’ve closed my digital work studio, where I have been having my adventures for the past 15 years and saying:
I live offline. I ve moved my art studio.
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When I m online I am a tourist.
I am no longer a resident online, and not an employee with an online office.
I am no longer dating online either, although I stopped that in 2010 officially.
But I simply will not be online to build a relationship and meet people that way.
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I have left the crowded squares, the public buildings, and now I am in a large spacious room. I don’t know where, but I assume it’s where all art comes from:
That I am in the world between worlds.
.
And I ve taken my place at the table.
.
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Suzanne L. Beenackers
s_beenackers@hotmail.com
Paypalme

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Creativity Is Like Pandora’s Box

Published on by Suzanne BeenackersLeave a comment

“Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction.”

Pablo Picasso

Pandora’s box floating in black acid in Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life
It was when I once again tried to find something about what happens when you’re highly creative, and how you can learn to control it or dampen it. How to make creativity go away, even. Just hypothetically, it was a question that interested me. Although I was aware even the thought was ungrateful towards my creativity, my art, my purpose. Just like speaking about how “it” haunted me down each day. And how times when I had experienced peace and serenity, were the days I managed to stay from its claws. That was ungrateful too. I hoped one day I would take my responsibility for my part in our relationship. That I would be able to show up as a pair: “This is my significant other. His name is Art and we’ve been together since 2006.” And that I would not feel the need to add: “In good and bad times.” Art too, would just smile and be nice. And we’d have a harmonious relationship, not just for the outside world, but also in the way we lived together. I hoped that day would come, but it was not yesterday when I tried to find YouTube videos or articles with Google, how to be relieved from the presence of art. Or how to soften its destructive slipstream that had the power to derail  friendships, and break your self-esteem. That the slipstream of art had the power to destroy you, was a consequence the internet did not seem to know of. Least of all the creators of YouTube videos that promised you unstoppable creativity. Or the authors of articles on daily habits that nourished your creative inspiration, and coached you through getting through a tough, uninspired time. Their Art seemed to be scared away if you breathed to loudly. Instead of a thing that chased them down, and sunk its teeth in them and sucked them dry. Their Art did not do that. There were three thoughts that came up, seeing these people summoning their creativity with an optimism that I had never experienced. And the thoughts were kind of related. The first one was of course: “Be careful what you wish for.” I don’t think you have the slightest clue of what you are trying to summon into your life. And even less of a clue of how to deal with it. My guess is no preparations have been made, to accommodate this beast.   And the second thought was: “I sincerely doubt it can be set free, or unleashed, by your tips.” And the third thought was: “Which is probably a good thing.” Complaining about lack of inspiration, and being proud of yourself for showing up for your work on discipline and willpower alone, seemed from my perspective preferable to having unstoppable creativity. In particular because I, personally, would absolutely not show up for my art, for my creativity, on discipline or willpower. If I woke up and art was gone? I would throw myself headfirst in some sort of all consuming job that would prohibit art from ever coming back in! Like opening an animal sanctuary or something. I would make sure it was something with a lot of responsibility towards people or animals. Because I would not be able to fight art off by myself, if it changed its mind and came back. But if lives were at stake I would. So to me, those people struggling to create art? I don’t understand them. And why you would want to be unstoppable in your creativity, baffled me even more. Once again, I was left to my own devices figuring out my problem with too much creativity. How did I get from “this”, from “here”, from feeling like I didn’t control my life and that it was run through me, but not in a God And The Angels From Heaven kind of way; To “that”, “there”, and having a mature relationship with art where we were equals. How did I not just stop blaming Art for not taking my needs into consideration; But also be clear on how we could work together, what I was going to do for him, and paint the picture of how we would make wonderful things together. But that we needed to have some boundaries in place. How? What ultimately helped me, was an analogy used in the movie Tomb Raider, The Cradle of Life. They use the story of Pandora’s Box, and give their own interpretation to what’s inside of it. They say what was left in Pandora’s box was anti-life; Ramante. The plagues, the destruction, that were the natural companion of the creation of life. The aftermath of my creativity, the slipstream of it that could swallow anything in its way? The chaotic energy surrounding me, on days my had projects soared?  They were Ramante. As I created, Ramante uncreated. Ramante undid. Ramante destroyed. And suddenly I saw how the force of this creative push, which robbed me of my ability to really connect to other people; How my creative fire that seemed to physically poison me; And how the emptiness, and the pain after creation, the darkness and the restlessness of insecurity if you have done right, if it was good enough; All resembled how I am with a man. How, if Art was a man I was in love with, the insecurity, the one-on-one playtime, and the devastating loneliness the day after, would all have been exactly the same. And in comparing Art to my love life, I also saw how to go about it. After a night with a man, the pain is so strong and unbearable, that you think the only way to ease it, is to hear from him: “It’s okay, I love you too.” Or a text message: “I miss you too.” Or even: “How about we drop this whole playing hard to get, and you move in with me this afternoon?” Similarly to the craving for connection with a lover the day after, I have always felt the desire to create again after creating. To create even more. The reason I am so prolific (I work on multiple media, and under multiple names) is because creating something new is the only thing that makes the pain go away. After sex with a man, I know the only thing that will help, is more of him. Another night, another day, or an entire life together. But I have taught myself to resist that. I have taught myself NOT to call, not to be needy, and in all honesty, I often ease that pain by writing. And it works. As the Ramante of our night together does its destructive work of pulling me into loneliness and despair, I team up with Art behind my desk. We have a beer, some Japanese balls (pretzels) and commence writing. We are a real team. Art really has my back, and we create a beautiful story from what happened. Until the day after that, when the second wave of Ramante comes. A second wave of loneliness, disconnect. And by now there is no way of telling if this destructive aftermath is from the night with the lover, of from creating the art. Or, most likely, both. All you know is that the only thing that helps, is to create new art. That the act of creation will take away the pain.  But I m going to break that habit of automatically going for the art, creating new things, when Ramante comes. Let it rest. Sink in. Integrate the pain, however uncomfortable it may be. What I have done with men, and which has allowed me to take more emotional risks, and be in relationships most people would not be able to sustain; I must also do with Art; To NOT treat it as an everyday thing, you can just be in day after day after day. That you need something different, to ease the pain afterwards. And I don’t know what that is yet! But that you, or I, can’t keep reaching for the same thing. Just like I do not want to be the sobbing, or accusatory lover who loses her shit the next day, and blames the man for taking advantage of her; I do not want to be the one blaming art for the devastating Ramante, destruction, that always takes my breath away and causes havoc in the days after creation. It’s not his fault, or its fault. You can’t have the highs without the lows. You can’t create a beautiful sexual encounter, or a work of art, without suffering the Ramante, the destruction that follows in its steps. But what you can do, is stop being reactive when dealing with it. What you can also do, is to stop wishing for unstoppable creativity. In Tomb Raider, Lara Croft prohibits the box from being opened, and lets it sink back into the vulcano. She gives the key, the legend, to the tribe that guards the mountain, the Cradle of Life, where the box is buried. And she says: “Some things are not meant to be found.” Suzanne L. Beenackers s_beenackers@hotmail.com Paypalme You can subscribe to the Wold Between Worlds and receive new posts in your Inbox. The button is on this page, probably somewhere on the right. my personal Twitter account Also by me: Rock Star Writer And Rock Star Writer on Facebook & my rock star writer YouTube NEW 2021: Art & Popular Culture: World Between Worlds (current site) NEW 2021: YouTube Rock Your Business NEW 2021: My Main Project: Daily Bon Jovi Yoga  Liefdeseend en vintage yoga (Nederlands/ Dutch) beertje Puux op Facebook (Nederlands/ Dutch) At 3:30 Lara Croft explains all about Pandora’s Box;
Categories art

Great art, great yoga, and great life; Can fail

Published on by Suzanne BeenackersLeave a comment

What started as this blog World Between Worlds, the most abstract subject I have ever written about, is spreading itself through the rest of my life.

The existential questions I have been asking myself with regard to art – How do I keep it pure? What comes if I do not DO anything? Where does it come from? How can I get closer? – are the same questions I should have been asking myself in every area of my life!

I am just learning what that means, and the vast extend to which my life will be different, if I unlearn all the habits of control and by the book, the habits of grasping and molding and WILLING it into existence;
And start applying the same principles in every area of my life instead. The principles as I have understood them with art.
Let go.
Sit with it.
Let it come through you, not by you.

Let God or the Universe work through you. The entity called “the Genius” or the Genie.
Or, alternatively, but probably simultaneously, let the conversations you have, the things you read, the world around you and its collective consciousness (the Scenius, as named by Brian Eno) work through you.
But do not DO the work.

I m currently on a really big project, which you can describe as the rediscovery of yoga. After 20 years of being on a professional path of learning yoga, teaching yoga, and also practicing yoga without that joie de vivre that it had prior to that; How can I go back to not knowing yoga and let it come to me?
Can I get that beginner’s enthusiasm back?
Can I unlearn?

And if I have found “that” yoga back, that I lost two decades ago, can I then develop it from there? 
Can I share it with others, or even teach it?

And what do I teach from this newfound happy place of doing yoga?
Do I teach yoga, or do I teach the love for yoga?
Do I instruct or do I inspire?

It was in this project of excavating my love for yoga, that I realized the answers to these questions are similar to the ones I have been asking myself for this blog.
My goal is to let yoga flow through me, like my writing flows out of me.
I wish for the incentive to go to the yoga mat, to be as loud, demanding, and relentless as my urge to write.

But also, and this is what I have done in writing and not in yoga;
I wanted my yoga to be pure, straight from the heavens so to speak! 
And not have yoga tied up and tied down to things that were proper yoga, and things that were not.

If you want to follow this “journey excavating yoga” (from the ashes of my 20 year career!) you can sign up to my new YouTube channel
No Yoga with Suzanne Beenackers
And! 
And you’re gonna love this, or at least I did, I m unlocking my YouTube vaults, hundreds and hundreds of vlogs but also yoga videos. And I m reposting them on the following blog:
Suzanne Beenackers Curated
So follow it for my curated video content, including yoga videos.

Once I understood my yoga had turned sour because I had learned to “do it properly”, and after watching my own yoga videos where I was not just doing it properly but I was totally rocking it;
I knew I would find my love for yoga back.
Once I understood what had happened, it lost its power over me.

I no longer mourned what had felt like two lost decades of studying and teaching yoga. No longer felt like I wasted 20 years that I would gladly tear out of my life like pages from a book.
I was okay with it.
Wrong turn, wrong path, not for me.
Let’s start again.

And because with regard to writing I did have the positive experience of how natural and in flow it becomes if you only write what comes out of you;
I knew what to aim for.
I knew what it was.
And was excited by the idea of letting go of the reins and letting the horse, or even better, the stallion of yoga run free!

The videos where I teach yoga, rock. You can see this woman is not going to drop the ball and mess it up.
This is yoga capital Y on repeat, and you know it.

Which brings me to the title of this blog post, about great art, great yoga, great life, being fallible.
It comes from Marina Abramovic, and I think I remember her having it from one of her teachers;
Great art can fail.

And this illustrates what the difference is between what I want, and what we know as yoga; Yoga as we know it can’t fail.
The yoga teacher can’t fail because the class is build up with a certain formula that will always give a “B+”
And a practitioner on their mats can’t fail because just showing up is enough.

But if you let yoga be pure and let it flow out of you, just like this blog post flew out of me?
It can fail!
Maybe what “comes out of you” is not recognized as a yoga class. Or maybe if you practice yourself, you are distracted or not in tune with what you feel, and you hurt yourself.

A yoga teacher letting go of the reigns and teaching purely from soul can fail, because he or she will not know what comes out.
And a practitioner can fail because they may not even find the flow, it may stay clunky. Yoga can even give you a headache. I ve had countless times when I felt worse after yoga, or quit because I was just disgusted being on my yoga mat.
It wasn’t until now that I realize that meant I was taking it seriously!
If I had stuck with a known routine, I would not have gotten so frustrated.

Another way to illustrate the difference, and the importance of work that can fail, is compare it to a craft.
You can only get better at a craft.
If your work is something you will only get better at as you age, like teaching yoga, like working with your hands (like a craftsman); It is a craft.
But if you can fail even after 30 years?
If you can fail it is art!

Before this blog post I spent time on a different blog post for my Rock Star Writer blog.
When I started I knew it was something I had never tried before. Even if I succeeded, I probably would not be finished until midnight or even later.
But 75 minutes later?
I pulled the plug.
Deleted the draft, but this is called “move to trash bin”, so for good measure I went to the trash bin and deleted it there too.

At first I was bogged down that I had wasted 75 minutes.
How could I have done that? What a waste! I have been writing for 15 years, I know how to write a blog post, I know how to keep the time frame limited.
I know what topics to avoid not to ruffle feathers, and I know which feathers I will never get tired of ruffling.

But then I relaxed:
With my new mindset, my new values, my new goal of wanting to be in flow, and letting things come out naturally;
The fact that I had started a blog post without knowing how it would end, or if I would be able to pull it off, was from now on going to be labeled positive!
It was a good thing!

I really like that idea of unlearning the rules of your craft, and of going to the edge accepting risks, and excited to see what’s up next.
Yes, it can be failure!

But, as Master Yoda said in Star Wars;
“The greatest teacher failure is.”

And, in all likeliness, the greatest art.

.

Suzanne L. Beenackers

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The button is on this page, probably somewhere on the right.

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Rock Star Writer
Blog dedicated to Bon Jovi, sex, and rock n roll.
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Liefdeseend en vintage yoga (Nederlands/ Dutch)

beertje Puux op Facebook (Nederlands/ Dutch)