I started thinking and came up with an embarrassing number of personal anecdotes. From Diet Nazi ex-husbands to hand-washing ex-boyfriends to, oh you know, how I get when I take on a goal and become iron-willed and sanctimonious and ignore everything that makes life good, like friends and rest and food.
My friend DB hates it when I have a goal because the chances I'll stay up all night drinking vodka cranberry with her dwindle to zero.
Obsession is what gives a person drive isn't it? Obsession gets things done!
Lance Armstrong is riding the Tour again. You wanna talk obsession? Lance Dahling is the poster boy of obsession. He's racing this season for no salary, just so he can prove to the French that he's not a doper. Get a freaking hobby, man! Although, I can deal with more photos like this one:
Yes, ma'am, I can. Bounce a quarter off that ass. Thank you Vanity Fair.Anyhoo.
There's an amount of obsession required to be an artist – or any conscious, courageous human being living on that bloody razor's edge I always talk about. I'm still labouring away at Henry Miller. Late in the book there is a kind of manifesto on being an artist and living at the edges of life, the extremes of existence. On grabbing hold of every, single moment and consummating it. It is inspired and inspiring, this section. Because these is a certain amount of discomfort, of pain, associated with making great change. Whether it's change within yourself – your life, your body – or on a grander, global scale.
And any obsession comes with its cast-offs. A committed person leaves a wake of collateral damage in the form of neglect. Look at Lance. His personal life is a travesty. Seriously, the longer Sheryl Crow dated him, the thinner and blonder she got. It was creepy. He's got Bad Boyfriend written all over him.
Dana said to me once: Sometimes you have to give up one part of yourself in order to discover another. Maybe it's a matter of what you need to find and how far you're willing to go in order to find it.
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