By Scott Shaw
Long
ago I coined the statement, “You know you’re famous when people you’ve never
met say things about you that aren’t true.” This came about when I read an
article someone had written about me that was full of unsubstantiated
falsehoods and flat out untruths. Yet, the person who wrote it had the
appearance of being credentialed in his field and presented the paper in a very
formulated format. Though the reading of it amused me to no end, I later began
to contemplate how someone who didn’t know me and read it would believe the
false words to be fact, not fiction. And, here is where the problem(s) begin…
Ever
since I first began writing poetry, novels, articles, books, painting, and
making music and movies, people began to draw conclusions about me. This is a
fact of life, when you create, people who love, hate, or don’t care about what
you create are going to come to their own conclusions about your work and
yourself; be they true or false.
In
times gone past, opinions were kept to one’s circle of friends. If you were
going to send your opinion about a person or their creation to a magazine, more
times than not, the magazine would fact-check the writing before it was ever
published. This is the world I grew up in. Throughout my studies at the various
universities I attended and later when I began to be published as a journalist
and an author, what I wrote had to possess a verifiable factual essence. You
had to prove what you said. Then came the age of the Internet and the
publish-on-demand world of printing. Anybody could say anything and there is no
one there to challenge what a person says. Sure, you can get into twitter wars
with a person but what is the point? People believe what they choose to
believe, whether it be true or not.
The
fact is, in today’s world, when someone says something about somebody that is
not based in fact, the lie simply continues to spread. I have seen one person
say something about me that was completely untrue and then I have seen that
same statement quoted by another and another. All false, yet it is presented as
if it were the truth, when it is not.
This
is the thing about the life of the creative… The creative, create. The others
talk about those who create.
Whenever
I teach a university class or a seminar I always pose the question to my
students, “Who do you want to be? The creative or those who talk about the
creative?”
In
a world where you can say anything about anybody with little consequence, the
only person you are beholden to is yourself and the karmic destiny you lay out
that will unfold in front of you based upon your deeds, actions, and words.
Therefore, it is you who must ask the question of yourself, “Are you a person
who speaks of others, expounding your opinions about an individual based upon
your own appraisal of their words and creations or are you a person who is the
source of your own creations?” Yes, being the source point of your own
creations will put you in the bull’s-eye but it will be something wholly you
own. If, on the other hand, you spent your time focused upon analyzing the
creations of others and the personage of who created them, all you are doing is
further spreading the myth of that individual.
If
you speak the truth that is the truth, then the truth will be known and the
truth will embrace you. If you spread the lie, based upon your judgment(s),
then all you will be known as is a liar once the truth is revealed and all you
will be defined as is an individual who relished in the limelight of others.
This is Life.
This is Zen.
This is Scott Shaw Signing Out.
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