My friend Lou shows me a picture of a friend of hers, dancing and lip syncing, and says, “Who is she doing this for?”
I feel defensive, ’cause I do that. Yes, it’s at a higher level. Yes, I’m a good dancer, a good singer. Yes, I can make it look professional. But it’s basically the same attempt to connect to the world.
I say, “She’s trying to be seen.”
“By who?” she says.
“Herself,” I say.
In the last two weeks I’ve seen The Social Reckoning, the four hour Musk, and You Can See Everything, the Elizabeth Holmes doc. Also, I’m excited to see Artificial, about Sam Altman, which opens on Christmas Day. Does anyone else find it ominous that this is our entertainment now? Watching our lives up on the screen, simultaneously explode?
All of them show this strange performative world where people see themselves as the main character in their own movie, and ultimately lose themselves in the process, and are seemingly taking the whole world with them.
I know something about that.
As I’ve probably told you a thousand times, I wrote a solo show about my health problems and bipolar II disorder. (I know, I know. Sorry to bring it up again.) It took six years and I’m still working on it, in this weird personal manifesto sort of way, so I mention it constantly, to make myself feel less crazy for having such a strange compulsion about one idea. My friends and family are like, enough with this show already.
When I’m on stage, performing my own work, I feel closest to myself.
The self that stays in the moment, totally in alignment.
The self that says all is right with the world, my brain, my body.
The self that can’t feel my illness until I step off.
Flow, and self, as I sing through my story.
It’s a tremendous feeling. Like I’m sitting squarely, deeply, in my purpose.
But in order to sell that purpose? Well…that’s what Elon and I have in common.
Switch to myself online (yours too, maybe?) and that self is wildly thrashing.
Desperately looking for approval. Hoping for a break.
For applause.
Looking for myself, because there, she can sometimes get very lost.
I can easily get a bad hangover from posting something built in haste to justify my existence. I often cringe, imagining my son’s future in-laws watching something I posted and thinking, “Oh boy, not sure I want my daughter to marry her son.” I know a lot of people clicked on one of my lastest essays, Can a Friendship Make You Sick?, because they wanted to know if it was them I was talking about.
That essay left me feeling very vulnerable and at the same time proud of myself for saying it out loud, because I know plenty of people wonder that same question themselves. I just have to withstand the shame that writing something like that gives you, knowing that plenty of people probably rolled their eyes and thought, “there she goes again.” This is another topic for another day, but I live in a very mainstream world, in the heart, and I mean HEART, of Silicon Valley, where I can literally run into Zuck, Sheryl, any of them. I present as a mainstream type of person, but I’m actually an artist who wishes she could run around like a hippie who doesn’t give a shit. But I don’t. And I struggle with that so much.
To participate in the world as a performer, or any kind of ambitious thing, you have to have a web presence. It’s a bummer, but if you’re serious about getting your work out into the world, welp, that’s how you do it.
But that comes with gremlins.
I have a shadow audience inside my brain. The friend from my childhood who rolls her eyes, thinking I’m too much. My brothers, who are also performers and can be strangely competitive with me even though we do different things. Even my mother, who is wonderful, but I can’t go to her when I have an idea because she can’t see the vision and gives me a half smile, like, “Why don’t you just take a break?” Sorry if you’re reading this, Mom. (She doesn’t, because I don’t think she gets this either.)
But I get over it quickly, because the fulfillment the work brings outweighs the cringe. And honestly, most people see something, think it’s cringe, and forget. That’s the upside of living in an attention economy. Nobody can remember much.
I kept asking Lou’s question in the theater. Who are they doing this for?
Persona.
The word persona comes from the masks actors wore in Greek theater.
Having a persona isn’t the problem. You need one to exist. I put one on to teach, to sell tickets, to make small talk in the school pickup line looking like I slept.
To pretend I’m well at Girls Night Out when I feel like dog poo.
You might put on one when going through a divorce trial, or while talking to your mother-in-law who forces you to put a fake smile on your face.
The problem is FORGETTING IT’S A MASK.
That’s the plot of every doc I watch. Elon. Elizabeth Holmes.
A person builds a character.
The world applauds the character.
The applause gets so loud they can’t hear anything underneath it.
The persona thickens.
Holmes did the deep voice. The Steve Jobs black turtleneck. Watching her poor parents desperately try to be there for their daughter showed me that at some point there was a real person in there, and the costume ate her.
Or maybe not.
My god, You Can See Everything is so confusing and confounding. I insist you see it so we can chat about it!
Anyhow, the first half of life is for building the persona, and if you’re lucky, the second half asks who’s left when it stops working.
I don’t think Musk or Holmes will get there. Most people don’t really. They spend the second half of their lives making snide comments about people like me who, frankly, hope to.
But before I start feeling smug for working so hard on myself, let me tell you that of all my personas, my online self feels the worst, mostly on Instagram and Facebook. Similar for you?
She’s built to sell, gain attention, and drive engagement. I’ve never been able to dedicate myself to building a real, consistent following AKA Influencer Status. My higher self gets in the way, thank GOD. She knows this isn’t the real work, and she intervenes a lot of the time. In a sense, my higher self saves me from my lower self.
But this persona is strong. And talented! (brag).
She lives on my phone, thrashing around, begging for a little heart under a post I wrote, composed, or choreographed in ten minutes to prove I exist.
Like a snack that feels good in the moment and causes turmoil underneath, a little like the Swedish Fish I ate at 10 pm three nights ago and my stomach regretted at 2 am.
Offline in the real world, live and on stage is where I really thrive.
I feel most like myself. I know the work I’m doing is a service to the world. And as a result, the mask and the face line up.
Everybody has a version of themselves auditioning for approval.
Nobody wakes up wanting to be the villain. Well, maybe Stephen Miller does.
These stories all start with a hunger.
A kid who needed to be seen. Who needed somebody, usually a parent, to say good job. Who needed to prove something to someone who wasn’t watching.
So they build a character to get the applause.
And the applause works, which is the problem. It never touches the original wound. It just covers it. So they need more.
More money, more power, more people saying yes. And anyone who gets in the way of the character starts to feel like a threat to the whole structure.
The costume gets upgrades too.
Elon’s hairline and, according to the internet, his high T jawline. Bezos went from pencil-necked geek (Elon’s words, not mine) to action figure. Zuck grew out his hair and put on a chain. New costume, new man.
Same wounded child underneath.
Wound plus ambition plus the need for approval.
That’s when the shadow takes over. A hurt kid with a VERY big budget.
It doesn’t excuse a thing. But it explains a lot.
Here’s what I think I’ve learned, and I’m saying it to myself as much as to you.
The mask isn’t the problem. The question behind it is.
The first half of life asks, “What does the world want of me?” The persona is how we answer. Dance for it. Smile for it. Post for it. Build a company for it. The world says yes, hands us a heart or a billion dollars, and we do it again. Louder.
The second half asks something different. “What does the soul ask of me?”
I think that’s Lou’s question in different clothes. Who is she doing this for?
On my phone, I’m doing it for the heart. On stage, I’m doing it for the work. Same dancer, same singer, same me. One mask thickens. The other one lets my face show through.
I don’t know if Musk or Holmes will ever ask the soul’s question. I’m not sure I answer it most days either. But I try to slow down and ask Lou’s question. Who is this for? And I try to answer honestly, even when the answer is “a little heart.”
“By who?” Lou asked.
“Her self,” I said.
I’m still finding out who that is. Trying to get there, one cringe post at a time.
P.S. My lovely new friend Leslie over at The Preferred Edit wrote about me in her latest newsletter. She calls me the colorful ball to her beige square, and I’m framing it.
Go read her! Leslie writes about life as it actually unfolds, the things we think but don’t say, from inside real transition. She lost her husband at 49 and has been rebuilding ever since, and she writes about it with so much poise and confidence. I love her style.
🎁 Molly’s Goody Bag
For staying to the end, here’s a little treat. A round up of links I’m enjoying lately.
🎧 Take a listen to The Surreal Experience of Making ‘You Can See Everything’ with Co-Director Lance Oppenheim. I found him so humble and loved learning about the camera work, his relationship with Nathan Fielder. It’s only about 20 minutes.
📚 I am reading/listening to What My Bones Know, by Stephanie Foo. Unbelievable memoir. Highly recommend listening to it as she speaks to her therapist and you get to hear.
📺 STREAMING: The Lowdown is a noir from Sterlin Harjo, who also co-created Reservation Dogs, starring Ethan Hawke, and it streams on Hulu. It is awesome.
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If offline on stage is where you thrive, Molly, hold that close and don't let it go or get distracted by the online pursuit of hearts and validation. I'm probably going to be writing about a similar topic this week, but you've posed so many good questions here about who are we doing this for? Thanks for such a well written dive into a topic that I'm sure is on so many of our minds.
And OMG thank you for the share! You’re my ball!!