Sunday Sermon [Gettin' Naked]

Hola mi Gente,

Happy Sunday and all that! First: if you want to grow and be an Intellectual just like your Uncle Eddie, then the first rule goes as follows: 

Eddie Rule #1 for Intellectual Wannabes: You cannot disagree with something you have failed to understand.

 

Gettin’ Naked

Fear is excitement without the breathing.

Have you ever had a dream of being naked? Being naked or partially naked is a common dream theme. It may be a negative or a positive experience, depending upon how you feel about being naked in the dream. The clothes we wear in waking life help identify us -- they represent how we want others to see us. Clothes also hide our imperfect bodies and, metaphorically, our emotional and psychological imperfections. In our nakedness, we are stripped of our identity and others can see us as we really are. That can be a scary thing or empowering experience, depending on how you see yourself.

Recently, I was discussing the creative process with a friend who is an artist. Mostly, we spoke about how creating art and offering it to the world for its judgment is often an act of courage. Or, better put, it is often very scary. Who among us doesn’t fear public exposure of our creative ideas because we then will feel naked and vulnerable in front of others, and believe we may end up rejected or laughed at in our vulnerability?

Our creative output usually holds special significance for us. They express something that we have been quietly nurturing in our inner life, sometimes for years, away from the eyes and ears of others. It is risky, or seems so, to go public with them. All of sudden, we’re out there, and despite being clothed, we feel a profound nakedness.

Yet we must find a balance between the need to expose our creations to possible public criticism with the fear that our offerings may be somehow cheapened or ridiculed -- maybe even stolen.

People say I am an excellent public speaker but, like many people, I suffer from a fear from being on a stage, or in front of a crowd. Add to the fact that I often am presenting controversial views in front of other professionals who often disagree with me, and public speaking for me can be both a fearsome and exhilarating process. I would be lying if I didn’t admit that being in front of others can be rewarding, and that a part of me thrives on the attention and the adrenaline rush. Perhaps there is a healthy exhibitionism beneath the courage to go naked -- but we had better have something to back it up!

On the other hand, after a while, an experience that produced trepidation and excitement can become routine or boring. What for some can be an experience of a lifetime can become tedious for others. We need the courage to go naked, but it is much more than simply overcoming fear. Perhaps stage fright is not just a fear of being out there naked, but a desire to be out there really naked. Perhaps along with presenting our creativity to others, we also need to know that we are pushing our own boundaries, along with those of our audience. We are naked to ourselves as well as to others.

This all involves a degree of risk-taking, to be sure, if only because we have invested so much of ourselves in our product that we do not want to see it flop. We have risked everything -- our hopes and dreams -- on our creative ideas, and we desire some measure of recognition and reward, whether the rewards are social or financial. 

I guess the moral of today’s “sermon” is to get out there and do it! Take it off -- take it all off! As in love, in the realization of the dream resides self-realization; in its impact is its proof, in our creations we complete ourselves.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…