By: Jay Trachman
Sometimes you stand outside yourself and look inward, and you’re just amazed. This time, I was mainly amused. I was watching me being me, in spite of me, and I knew when I had some spare time, I’d have to reflect on just what was going on.
It was the second guided nature walk in Kings Canyon for me in two weeks. Those beautiful experiences I had with my son in the national park, which I gushed all over you about last week? I had to go back and Share them all with my wife. There was a different ranger this time, but all of the scenery and much of the knowledge was the same.
And there was Jay, being Jay: every time the ranger asked a question, part of me was screaming, “Me, me, me! Pick me! I know the answer! Me, please!!” The other part was saying, “Hush. Let someone else have a chance. You don’t have to prove how smart you are, every time; it doesn’t matter here. Just blend in and let them think you’re normal.”
I’m not normal, of course. I’ve just learned how to pass for normal, just as I’ve learned to pass for humble. Deep down, I really believe I’m pretty hot stuff. But when you compliment me on my intelligence, my personality, my wisdom, even — I’m always going to respond with something like, “Oh, it’s nothing… You’re too kind…” Deep down, that other part of me is going, “Yes, yes! You noticed! I’m great! You’re great for realizing it!”
These two aspects of me are in constant tension whenever I’m among people: the part of me that absolutely has to be noticed and will do anything necessary to make it happen, and that other part which desperately needs to blend in and just be like everybody else. Is this just me, or is it (or other things very similar) part of the “performer’s psyche?” Do you need to be noticed — some of the time — while at other times, you envy those people who can quietly fit into the group?
My guess is, this trait is closely allied to the deep-rooted characteristic I’ve seen in most other performers: our passion. We respond to things. We feel so strongly about every little detail in life. Everything matters to us. Most of all — for better or for worse — how others respond to us and, yes, what they think of us — matters so much. That’s why we’re so afraid of offending. Knowing full well — intellectually — that bosses aren’t afraid to offend, Howard Stern isn’t afraid to offend — we die a thousand deaths inside if we think we might have offended in even the slightest way.
So, did any of this knowledge affect my behavior on that nature walk, in any way? Not really. I did manage to keep my mouth shut unless I really had something to contribute — most of the time. But if the ranger asked a question (“Does anyone know what forces might have acted on this area to bring it to the way it is today?”), the quiet me would wait a carefully timed nanosecond to give anyone else a chance, before the show-off me blurted out “Erosion? The movement of the tectonic plates?”
(“Oh, you’re so smart,” says the cute, brainy young ranger inside my head, lighting the lecherous spark I try to hide. “My hero!” she purrs…)
Know what? That’s who I am. I’ve done most of the changing I’m ever going to do, and I’m reasonably comfortable the way I am… most of the time. I can stand back, observe my own behavior and be amused by it, but I’m not going to stop responding to things, I’m not going to stop needing to be noticed. (Especially by cute, brainy females who are way too young for me.) I’m not going to stop being passionate about practically every little detail in life, nor will I stop getting some of my greatest pleasures from being able to Share them with my family, my friends and you.
Do you identify with much of this? I think it’s very close to the root of what makes us performers: the passion, the need to be noticed, along with the wish to be perceived as “normal.” You don’t have to be crazy to work in this biz… but it helps…
Jay Trachman is publisher of “One to One,” a weekly information and humor service for broadcasters. Jay can be reached at: phone (559) 448 0700, fax (559) 448 0761, e-mail at 121@att.net, or www.121online.net. Reprinted with permission.
