Author: Elizabeth Gaucher

The Science Fiction of Being Marilyn

/ Elizabeth Gaucher / Leave a comment

Many thanks to Chuck Hamsher for posting a reminder of the anniversary of Marilyn Monroe‘s passing on August 5, 1962.  She was a mere 36 years old when she died at her home in Los Angeles, her death ruled a probable suicide by consuming an overdose of sleeping pills.

Norma Jeane Baker

Several people commented on what made this woman so remarkable, and a common reference was to her “vulnerability.”  I’ve heard that word and variations of it used to describe Norma Jeane Baker my whole life, and not once — not once — has it rung true for me.

“Vulnerable” is a very popular and widely accepted way to label NJB.  And I will disclaim here that I know there is every possibility and probability that I just don’t get it; but I also don’t see it.  What I’ve always seen is a woman who, for whatever God-foresaken reason, became a sponge for what the rest of the world needed her to be.  She may be the most perfect reflection of a global codependent love story there ever was. 

NJB was in reality what in most human experience only exists in fantasy and story telling.  She was very much like a character from an old Star Trek episode called “The Perfect Mate.”  This character, Kamala, is described thus:

She is an empathic metamorph, a woman genetically-predisposed to suit the desires of any man she is with. She has the ability to sense what a potential mate wants, what he needs, what gives him the greatest pleasure and then to become that for him until she reaches the final stage of bonding, where she must imprint upon herself the requirements of one man, to serve as his perfect partner in life.

NJB was incredibly good at this, and that is why I think I’ve never seen her as truly vulnerable.  She impresses me as a woman who had an amazing talent in her relationships with other people, especially men, that allowed her intimate access to the likes of Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller — and my friends, that is serious range.

It is all unknowable now.  But I wonder if this lovely person did in fact connect with another individual above all others, knowing that in order to carry on her life she would need to suppress that connection and continue to meet the needs and dreams of many more in order to sustain her career.  That’s a story I can buy, and in the end would make her in fact vulnerable to only one person.

Herself.

Summoning Your Life

/ Elizabeth Gaucher / 2 Comments

David Brooks writes this week in his op-ed The Summoned Self:

Life isn’t a project to be completed; it is an unknowable landscape to be explored. A 24-year-old can’t sit down and define the purpose of life in the manner of a school exercise because she is not yet deep enough into the landscape to know herself or her purpose. That young person — or any person — can’t see into the future to know what wars, loves, diseases and chances may loom. She may know concepts, like parenthood or old age, but she doesn’t really understand their meanings until she is engaged in them.

The Burt's Bees Business Model - look anything like your life?

People who think this way are very skeptical of using a business model to manage their lives, as if life is a project to be mapped out and boxes to be checked off.  In fairness, Brooks allows that there is more than one valid and meaningful way to manage one’s life.  But seeing the different perspectives in black and white, there was no question in my mind I am living a “summoned life” and have been for many years.

I have tremendous admiration for people who have earned their MBA degrees.  Some of my best friends have achieved this, and I even considered going for it myself once.  It’s a very practical degree and can make one quite wealthy if you know what to do with it.  The trouble is, I’ve seen too many people confuse their degree with their lives.  I seriously had one friend drawing diagrams of his relationship with his wife and calculating how to get the highest ROI (return on investment) out of their marriage.  This was shortly after attaining an MBA from one of the most prestigious business schools in the country.  And you would be correct: They are no longer married.  Business model FAIL#.

There are parts of life that respond well to planning.  And there are parts that don’t.  If you saw George Clooney in Up in the Air, you know what a brilliant job his character’s young protege Natalie Keener does of illustrating to a T the bloody collide of the Well-Planned Life with things she can’t control.  George has a couple of crashes himself. 

There is a balance to be had between trying to uber-manage our lives and being open to what unfolds, as it unfolds.  Sometimes I think it doesn’t matter very much which you prefer, it just is what it is.