Yes, Yes, Nanette

To note: I wrote this a few months back. I'm publishing it now because I think it's worthy of being read, even in its meandering and incomplete form.



So I've been trying to put more comedy back into my life, because given everything going on in the world--both in my little bit of the world and the world at large--we need a release valve, something that can give us a lift. Strangely, I chose Netflix as my source of this comedy (next time, I promise, I go back to HBO). So I hunkered down and watched Nanette, the new comedy special by Hannah Gadsby.

Well, I watched the first half (which was good in a subtle comedy way) over the weekend. And then I turned on Netflix today (normally I watch Colbert with dinner but he's off this week) and saw that Dave Chappelle has a new special on, which I immediately clicked on before realizing that the best part of the Dave Chappelle special is hearing Morgan Freeman do the teaser for it. This breaks my heart; his eponymous show brought some of the greatest comedy to the world, and I think it was as honest about race, gender, and ethnicity while still showing great comedy as we will ever see in my lifetime. (Don't believe me? Watch The Racial Draft–currently free and uncensored from Comedy Central on YouTube.)

I had to shut it off.

So I went back to my main screen, remembered Nanette, and thought, "Well at least her subtle comedy was comedy, and I chuckled at some of the bits." Yes, it was subtly delightful--right up to the point where Hannah Gadsby explains why she has to give up comedy.

I'm not going to tell you why.

And I'm not going to tell you what happened after.

All I'm going to tell you is that if you watch nothing else this year, go watch Nanette.

Come back to this space after you watch it, because we have much to talk about. I'll give some space for you to go do it.
















































Ok. Now:


If you did not cry during the last 20 minutes, or at least get slightly misty about the eyes, we have nothing else to say to each other. Ever. Because at some point, we have to talk about the broken bits. I've rarely seen such bravery as I saw in Hannah Gadsby in Nanette. But I think we need to talk about being brave in our everyday.

We need to talk about our broken.

We need to discuss the self-loathing in all of us.

And we need someone who is not me--NOT me, I'm the idea human, I'm the one who can figure out what needs to go into the plan and help make a brilliant plan, but then SOMEONE ELSE has to go execute it, because I am a thinker and not a doer. Anyone who has seen my housekeeping skills will testify to this. I'm great at thinking about housework, crap on the doing--we need someone else to go execute a plan on how to shift what is socially acceptable in our treatment of each other. We need a complete shift in language--there's a reason I try to shift the language around me, and not just because I'm an SLP.

I do mean a COMPLETE shift, by the way. I've seen the new curricula (I live in California now, that's where a lot of the "crazy touchy-feely" stuff starts), and I've encountered versions of it in preschool and Kindergarten. And it's not enough.

It's not nearly enough.

These words, they dance around the ideas they mean to convey, because those who wrote the curriculum are so afraid of offending anyone, and we have to teach ourselves and our children the bare facts:

YOU'RE GOING TO BE OFFENDED.

Being offended and being wounded is NOT THE SAME THING. (Sorry for the shouting.)

Offended says that you think someone else is out of line in their ideas. Example: Much of what Dave Chappelle said in his current comedy special offended me. (I am offended mostly because I have two X chromosomes and think that there is no way to joke about pedophilia. It simply can't be done. Sorry, Dave, but totally not sorry because while I think you're brilliant, you're not using that noggin God gave you.)

Wounded means that the actions of another person have now affected the way you view yourself, other people, and the world. Example: Nothing in Dave Chappelle's current comedy special wounded me, because I understand that Dave is clearly not thinking with his noggin, and he didn't say anything that I thought was directed at me specifically.

THIS is what we need to be teaching our children. Not to say that using the words "Well, that was unexpected" when something "bad" happens isn't a good idea, teaching to roll with the punches...but that protects nobody and no one from the freaking human condition that we all carry within ourselves to be absolute jerks to each other.

We all can be jerks, we all have done it, and most of us experienced this within our own families of origin from those people we call siblings.

I know this is an uphill slog, because it's an uphill slog here in California--imagine trying to get the members of the Bluff Hill Rod and Gun Club to buy into a completely different way of thinking and speaking. (I think my father is still a member, by the way.)

But we have to start now. Up with People tried to start when I was a kid, and it was a completely failed idea because people are also those who wound. Trees and animals do not give self-hatred to us. The Ocean isn't known for making people be filled with utter self-loathing. Nope, that would be other freaking people.

We have to tell our kids the truth. Those of us with a Christian background, we heard this as kids: we all sin, and we all fall short of the glory of God. And instead of making it be about being bad, we need to teach our kids that we all have the capability of hurting each other. Which is, in my opinion, much worse than the attempt to cheat on the 6th grade spelling test.

If you look at the sins that we as people categorize as the "really bad ones", you'll note that all of them have to do with the imposition of one person's will upon another. Those are the kinds of wounds that may never heal. (Look, I'm not talking about parenting, because you're training another human being and teaching them right from wrong. You're also teaching them to learn to fly solo someday, if you're doing it right. It's about giving tools, not about imposition--and if it is, you might want to consider taking the entire family in for counseling immediately.)

Teaching our kids--heck, teaching ourselves--about personal responsibility and owning it when we hurt another person, be it through imposition of will or simply words aimed to cut another person, is the one of the most important works we can now hope to achieve.

And then we need to talk about shame resilience, and how to work through our own pain, and give our children the tools our parents never thought to give us, because life was far smaller and more controlled. I am in no way saying it was better.

I want Hannah Gadsby to sit down and do another Netflix special with Dr. Brené Brown. If you are new to Brené, I suggest you stop reading this and go watch her Netflix special. Nine years ago at this writing, Dr. Brown did a TED talk entitled "The Power of Vulnerability", which is a lot of what came out of her being a shame researcher.

It changed my life.

Because I try to live by these principles everyday, principles that I find to be far more Christian than whatever evangelicals are currently spouting. It starts with self-love. I've written about this before, in the Kate 2.0 and 3.0 Reasons Why entries. Self-love is so difficult. Modern American Evangelical Christianity pretty much says it's a sin. But RuPaul Charles is right: "If you can't love yourself, how in the hell are you going to love anybody else? Can I get an Amen up in here?"

That's because when you give out of need instead of out of your overflow, you'll never ever find enough to fill your cup. (I remind myself of this frequently, Laurie Larsen. I am blessed that you were in my life.)

If self-love is crucial, then we must start the national conversation about shame that Dr. Brown has wanted to get to for 20 years, and we must do so immediately. Because the opposite of self-love is shame and fear.

The principles that Brené Brown has made a career about all came out of her researching shame. She found those that were "shame resilient" were the ones that she called "whole-hearted". In her expanded, 6-hour talk The Power of Vulnerability, and then further in her seminal work Daring Greatly, she talks about the 10 Guideposts for Whole-Hearted Living:

BRENE BROWN’S 10 GUIDEPOSTS FOR WHOLEHEARTED LIVING

1. Cultivating Authenticity: Letting Go of What People Think
2. Cultivating Self-Compassion: Letting Go of Perfectionism
3. Cultivating a Resilient Spirit: Letting Go of Numbing and Powerlessness
4. Cultivating Gratitude and Joy: Letting Go of Scarcity and Fear of the Dark
5. Cultivating Intuition and Trusting Faith: Letting Go of the Need for
Certainty
6. Cultivating Creativity: Letting Go of Comparison
7. Cultivating Play and Rest: Letting Go of Exhaustion as a Status Symbol and
Productivity as Self-Worth
8. Cultivating Calm and Stillness: Letting Go of Anxiety as a Lifestyle
9. Cultivating Meaningful Work: Letting Go of Self-Doubt and “Supposed To”
10. Cultivating Laughter, Song, and Dance: Letting Go of Being Cool and “Always in Control”

I think Dr. Brown's 10 Guideposts are a good place to start for trying to live a life in which self-love is key, shame is minimized, and pain is therefore lessened.

All of that to say this: Hannah Gadsby was brilliant in sharing why she has to "give up" comedy. (Side note: I did peg her on the spectrum 1/3 of the way through the show. She has since come out as ASD.) All of us need to start getting on the page that creation of the "other" that we fear has to stop, has to end, and it will only end when people are willing to give up their goddamn superiority dance and get on with loving themselves so they can love others honestly.

Because if you can't get on with this?

Please get off our boat. I don't mean off yourself, but perhaps I can interest you in a lovely ranch in the middle of nowhere in Montana where you can sort yourself.  Maybe you can exchange Pony Express letters with Kanye in Wyoming.

Self-love is the answer. Honest, radical self-love. Not self-superiority. Not "I must tear you down to feel good" or, God forbid, "I must beat up this woman because she is different from me because I fear that which I do not understand."

No one deserves what Hannah Gadsby has survived.