You Cannot Gatekeep the Moon
Everyone is free to shoot for the moon and play in the same creative craters.
Note: Don’t like reading? The Podcast audio is at the end of the story.🫡
Welcome, welcome! Let me just start by saying thank you for coming in today. I know it wasn’t easy, particularly since you thought you were going to see a top-secret screening of the new Matrix and were probably looking forward to the Milk Duds. Sorry about that. The ruse, I mean. You… look upset. Is it the Milk Dud situation? My assistant can probably go out and fetc…no? OK. All good? Excellent. Now, where were we?
Please, take a seat. Get comfy! I swear this’ll be painless—I mean, mostly. But just in case, would you like to hold this pillow? Some people find that holding the pillow keeps the anxiety gremlins at bay, and this one’s like, newborn fresh. Just got it out of the package this morning—it doesn’t have any soggy corners or anything! I mean, some people like to suck the corners when things get bad in here, but this one is totally saliva-free. A real freshie! OK. So….
You might be wondering why you’re here. Haha, no, this is not an intervention—although your affinity for gin has been noted on your file. In all honesty, though, we felt it was best if you were in a safe place with non-threatening furniture when we told you the news. Because there’s a strong chance—the Magic 8 Ball said Outlook Not So Good—that this is going to come as a shock to you. That this news may discombobulate your teeter-totter a bit. Probably. Who knows?! HA! Amiright!?
Look. I’m just gonna come right out and say it. Brace yourself.
You don’t own the moon.
Woof! There, I said it. Whoa, Whoa, settle! Grab the pillow! Stroke it, gently…gently. Cuddle. Shhh. Calm. Breathe in. Breathe out. I know from experience that it can be quite upsetting when you first hear that you don’t own the moon, but you have nothing to fear. I deal almost 100% exclusively with matters of the moon, and I’m confident that we can clear up this problem of unearned ownership perception almost completely in the next 30 minutes. It might only take 15 minutes and then we can just chit-chat to fill up the time. Although I will say that if we go over the 30 minutes, my rates do go up, but don't take that personally. That’s just commerce—it’s not part of the therapy. Listen to me rambling! Let’s get back to the moon thing. As I was saying: The moon. You don’t own it.
I know. You really believe that you do. You got there first, right? Your footprint is right on it, all bold as brass and such, and that flag you planted is really quite something. I get it. This moon is your moon, your niche, your lunar destiny, and you found it and landed right on top of it. You got there all by yourself and you slashed your name on it with the ornamental head of your creative scepter, and people should just back off and get the hell away from it. Believe me, I know how you feel. Someone eats my lunch out of the communal fridge every day and putting a ‘do not eat’ note on has been completely useless, so I really get where you’re coming from with your moon situation. But here’s the thing I want you to know about the moon.
Anyone can shoot for it.
I mean, have you not noticed that everyone has a podcast now? That’s a giant clue right there. Sheesh, that moon has well and truly flown! Now, you get that I’m using podcasts as an example of a moon that everyone has an equal right to shoot for, even if other folks got there first, right? I know you don’t have one. (Yet. We can brainstorm that in a different session if you like). I know that your art is entirely original and creative and no one does what you do in the way that you do it and you might possibly be the first to do… whatever it is that you do. I respect that. But this is ground control, and Major Tom, we’re not talking about what you do with the moon. We’re talking about the universally held real estate of the lunar surface and everyone’s unfettered access to it.
A listing for the moon has never appeared on Zillow. At no point did you swoop in and pay cash for it and yet something in your brain has pfzzed and made you think that you bagsed it first. But no. Truth bomb. It’s not yours. It never was. It never will be.
This is quite a blow, I know. You’ve spent a couple of years plowing acres of grey moon dust and planting your seeds of divine art with no one bothering you. And you felt safe. You came down that ladder first while everyone was off looking somewhere else and you did your one small step and good for you! Way to be a pioneer! But kid, and I’m not sure how I can make this any clearer, there is no deed for this property because you don’t own the moon.
Geeeennnnntle with that pillow. Just suckle quietly on the corner without the zipper. Don’t chew. There you go.
Here’s the thing about moons. There is only one for this planet, which makes it very special. There are movies made about it, and pies named after it, and bare butts would just be nakey nuddy and flashing freckles without the terminology. But as I said before, the real beauty of it all is that anyone can shoot for it. And because of the myriad different approaches and rocketships, because of the trajectories and flight plans and grandiose dreams for what folks are gonna do with all that cheese, it can’t possibly bequeath itself to just one soul. It belongs to and is beholden to no one.
It’s an equal opportunity moon. It rises the tides of all our boats. Isn’t that beautiful? I’m the first person to say that. And it always shows us the same face—every one of us no matter where we stand on this rock—and we can all read that face however we want. Some of us yearn to get to the dark side, you know, like Pink Floyd? That was a little joke. Probably before your time. Just trying to lighten the mood. Your attention was waning. Ha! Another moon-related joke! Levity is the anti-gravity of our meeting.
This is good. I can see we’re making real progress here, but I don’t want you to feel like you’re being singled out. The moon can make anyone crazy enough to think that they own it—you’re not the first, and you won’t be the last. We wax, we wane, we go insane for that lump of space garbage! But you can’t call dibs on it. You can’t call shotgun on the passenger seat of the lunar surface or they’ll start to think you’re a Moonatic. Ha! I just made that word up—see that’s the kind of creativity the moon inspires in me. And I am free to be inspired by that little rock up there precisely because YOU—and I can’t stress this enough—YOU DON’T OWN THE MOON!
It’s like what Keanu says in the new Matrix: “When there were two sets of footprints, we were taking giant steps together—because that is what you take when you’re walking on the moon—and when there was only one it was because you killed me and you were carrying my body to the lunar lander so as to stick me in the airlock and shoot me out to space.”
Or something like that. I can’t remember exactly. Is it the red or blue pills that are the bad ones? The point is this: greedy moon fever is never good and oh, will you look at the time. Our session is almost done. Are you worried about leaving here and thinking you still own the moon? OK. Take the pillow—be my guest!—but a word of advice. When you leave here today and find yourself returning to thoughts of complete and total moon ownership—perhaps when you see someone practicing moonery, or putting out their own interpretation of a moon dance and you become enraged about it—just remember this:
Making things is hard. Shooting for the moon is a hit-and-miss affair and far too many cows have died mid-jump. Some of us never get past pointing a telescope at it and declaring, “That’s no moon!” before settling down to a life that will never require space exploration. But not you. You get in that rocket. You go. You moonwalk like nobody’s business. And the reason you can do that is that deep down you understand that the moon belongs to no one. You have known this all along. We are, all of us, free to don our spacesuits and go to the moon. We can all forge our exploratory paths to this magical earth satellite in rockets of our choosing, and witnessing the results of everyone’s moon landings—failed or successful—will validate the strength or weaknesses of our own expeditions.
Don’t think of what you have learned here today as losing a property, or of being forced to share a precious moonbeam that until today had shone brightly only upon you. Think of it as gaining perspective on the universe of your feelings. Keep shooting for the moon, always. Let the dark side illuminate your work, let the fullness of it fatten your creative spirit, and when you feel your will slipping, clutch your pillow to your face and whisper into its soggy, spit-filled stuffing:
Yours in tiny thought,
Janeen
This week’s amends…
“I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package,” she said. “I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave’s a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that’s what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it.”
- Joan Didion, commencement speech, UC Riverside, 1975
Do you know what you need in your life? A little Zamrock. In the 70s, WITCH (We Intend To Cause Havoc) was the biggest rock band in Zambia. The song below was served up to me via Spotify Discover one beautiful morning and threw me promptly down their song hole. Take a listen. Fall in love. “WITCH is like the Beatles of Zambia.” Nuff said.
A little reading later and I find out there’s a 2019 documentary about them (on Apple). And here’s a Spotify link to a 64 song playlist. Just put it on and work.
This is the cutest. Sometimes ads can be so pretty.
The ad “…uses Smart-X conductive thread to send electric currents through figures stitched into gloves and around yarn-based architecture, illuminating each scenario with tiny bulbs.”
Read more about it at Colossal.
Via Colossal
Via Kottke
Did any of this spark a tiny thought of your own?