Killin' it! with Paul Crik

In just 5 short years, the number of people on facebook is approaching the size of the total U.S. population. Type in any of the approximatly 250 million names of facebook users and you’ll likely get a photograph and a country/city where they live. For some, the “current city” information on facebook means so little that it remains unchanged for years after the individual moves on. For others, a particular city carries so much meaning and nostalgia that they keep the name of, for example, their birthplace or where they went to college, even after they have left the place behind. Between sentiment and indifference – there are those who just want accuracy.  Some residents of Kashmir, a disputed territory between India and Pakistan, are upset because facebook only allows them to choose India as their country. Tensions that have long existed on the physical borders between countries have now emerged in cyberspace.

So where do we really live when many of the activities once associated with life in a particular city have shifted to the Internet? I have more friends on facebook than I have in my current city, New York, and I do much of my shopping online. Additionally, while I still get a portion of my news from the online version of my hometown paper, The New York Times, the vast majority of the news I consume comes from a unique batch of ever-changing, worldwide sources. I like the legendary artist and architect Vito Acconci’s take in the video below. Instead of fretting over the loss of the “hometown” as it was 50 years ago, we should re-define what a city means.  This is our chance to manifest our fantasies, make the world into a new creation. Though our physical community is less and less a place where we find a mate, start a business or go to school, maybe it can be appreciated as a unique place where the intersection of virtual and real reality are actually experienced together – an enriched junction where flash mobs, celebrity sightings, and elaborate hoaxes are possible.  While the once mysterious cyberspace is becoming a common location for our more mundane tasks, actual reality is becoming a more exciting, creative space than it’s ever been, even if it means getting comfortable with our new “homelessness.” And that’s Killin’ It!

If someone asked you to describe what outer space was like, you’d probably say dark, big with some scattered twinkles. For most of us it seems not much of the “space” in our brains reserved for imagining a richer version of the world beyond the earth’s atmosphere. The astronauts who’ve been there say the sounds are surprising and the scent is both indescribable and unforgettable.  Most of us indulge in some sort of fantasy life, how much of it is based on other past experiences and how much is truly creative?

I believe the best way to have new experiences in reality is to have new experiences in your fantasy life. In your daydreaming, the question should not only be a choice between Morocco and DeLorean or Hawaii and speedboat, but also pin-ball gravity and ladybug feet versus black light sun and polar bear grass. By inventing new sensations within our fantasy scenarios, we’ll be able to discover the uncharted feelings and emotions that exist unrecognized in our lives. For example, the closest thing scientists have been able to come to reproduce something like the smell of space is a combo between melting metal and a hotdog. Have you ever imagined inhabiting a place with such a smell while experiencing zero gravity? Killin it is knowing that there’s an infinite number of experiences available if you just invent the map to find them.

This  clip of Andy Kaufman on an old Letterman show singing Slim Pickens’ Rosemarie is the total essence of killin’ it.  Here comes the wacky comedian, dressed in a diaper with a turban and a fake mustache…what’s he gonna do to make us laugh?  He’s gonna sing a totally heartfelt, sincere, beautiful rendition of the song…no catch.  You gotta love it, a gesture like this.  One part hilarious, one part utterly sincere. The expectation of comedy rewarded with the power of a genuine singing performance.  Andy shows us that the way he looks and the way he acts need not have a thing to do with one another.  That alone is killin’ it.  Total deadpan, a magic moment.  I’m holding Andy Kaufman up high in the ranks of the retro killin’ it hall of fame.

Ted Kennedy was a man who had two brothers assasinated, was in a plane crash that killed a pilot, and was also of course at the center of the Chappaquiddick story.  He had every reason in the world to become jaded and cynical about the world of power and men.  And yet he held onto his beliefs (whether one agrees with them or not) and fought for them throughout his life.   He wore the scarlet letter of Chappaquiddick that kept him out of the presidency, but rather than begrudge the limitations that episode put on his aspirations, he instead let it guide him to use hs senate seat as few others have ever done.

The legacy of Teddy is not a democrat or a Kennedy, it is of a man who repeatedly had his heart crushed by personal tragedy and still believed in fighting for the good of the American people right up to and even after his death!

That’s right.  Even in the last couple weeks before his passing Ted Kennedy was working to have rules changed so that his vacant senate seat could be filled as quickly as possible after his death.   Under current rules, the governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, must wait at least 145 days to appoint Ted Kennedy’s successor in the senate. This final effort speaks to Kennedy’s unique combination of idealism and pragmatism.  His last endeavor also stands in contrast to the most common types of last wishes – usually in the form of a will – where chips are cashed in and scores are settled.  Despite all the adversity he suffered being a central member of the tragic Kennedy clan, and through all the evidence of human power and frailty he’s seen in 46 senate years, in his final days Ted Kennedy was thinking about the work that needed to get done the morning after he’s gone.

Killin’ it in your life is not so much about monumental achievements, eloquent statements and grand finales as it is about understanding that the most important tasks we undertake will be the ones that outlive us.

Nadya Suleman, better known as “octomom,” was recently quoted saying that her decision to give birth to and raise 14 children has “screwed up” her life.  Though the unemployed, single mother of six was really not killin’it it when she defiantly celebrated the simultaneous birth of 8 more children, she might actually be killin’ it now.  If we’re honest, what Nadja was seeking isn’t much different then what most of us want: a lot of people to love, a lot of people to love us, and a little social notoriety along the way.  Octomom chased these desires; now she’s feeling the pain and admitting that she thinks she messed up her entire life.  I’ve met so many people who feel the same way about getting married or going far down a career path that doesn’t pan out?  In these situations, most are too embarrassed to admit such colossal mistakes. Nobody will to force us to own up to it, and I suspect deep down that people would rather not hear about it anyway.

Imagine:

“Good morning, how’re you today?”

“I feel like I screwed up my whole life.”

Likely it would go more like this:

“Good morning, how was your weekend?”

“Weird, I got married to someone I met on facebook last week.”

“Whatever floats your boat!”

The more we allow ourselves to judge someone else as a joke because of their ambitions and failures, the easier it becomes to ignore our own shortcomings in life.  Octomom is showing us something about killin’ it by having the courage to admit she failed because of her own choices.