This could be the most complicated gagablog yet – (*PLEASE skip to the last paragraph, the summary, added the following morning to the original writing on 8-29-13, to save time) it might only be possible to understand it as an attempt to describe something about magic, I mean, it might not be possible to understand it in any other way. So it might force the type of magical understanding that I have been going for throughout the gagablog. I decided to call it “overshadowing” and address some things about Gaga's VMA performance, though I haven't seen it yet, about the relationships between lovers and the war in Syria, and about Oz.
My upcoming book is about Oz/Gaga/magic/technology, and I would say this is the last edition of the gagablog before I focus on that, but I'm currently listening to the remix of The Edge of Glory, from the BTW remix album I just got in the mail – that was the one edition I titled and never came back to write yet. But aside from that epilogue I want to wrap things up here. I certainly want to end the war in Syria with a peaceful solution, not one that leads to WW3, and this has been a theme to this gagablog for years. And for far longer, decades, I have wanted to heal the rift between men and women, do my part to figure something secret about that out. In my mind these are two ends of the spectrum that includes all suffering on this planet, the rift between and within individuals at “one end”and war at the “other” - but all other problems fall between these. And I think all our problems spring from the same source, that rift between people and especially male/female, and the most extreme of these continues to be war – that's the furthest complication of this same problem from the actual root cause. But it is also the root cause of all other problems, the most prominent ones that figure in are rights and justice, greed and poverty, and pollution and health, from disease to global warming. I can see how all of these arise from this same rift between people, but the most extreme one is war, the one we can make go away first, even though it seems the toughest, then quickly fix the others, is war. And of course we could get rid of war the way we should – our leaders could work to resolve differences and come up with solutions that don't involve violence, but that is what they should do when unfortunately they have shown time and again their willingness to send others to war. If we have any special love or respect for underdog rebels it could be based on the idea that at least they risk their own lives to fight more often, but we should respond to our better natures and say it is time that we stop giving respect to anyone who would rule by violence. Unfortunately the current news is that America is sending more warships to the region and possibly preparing for punitive strikes, not aimed to remove Assad from power but to diminish their military abilities and punish them for using chemical weapons., so goes the claim. I say this is unfortunate for a number of reasons, but of course if this is what it takes to end the situation, then maybe it has to happen and maybe should have happened long ago – but I can only say it is what “should” happen if it would prevent greater violence and not lead to larger war, and in that case all I can say is I hope the attack is well done with the least loss of life possible and the least repercussions. I do have some idea that completely removing the regime's air and missile capabilities in one strike, which maybe I am duped into thinking it would be pretty easy for the US military to do, would effectively end the situation before anything more dramatic could happen, and leave the regime begging for any sort of deal.
But I don't promote violence and see this is a last ditch attempt to avoid that resolution and certainly to avoid an outcome similar to that but with far worse results, like a broader war. And when I say “attempt”, I mean magical attempt – I know no one reads this so it is more an appeal to the universe, or a prayer, but with the dimension of trying to “purely magically” change the course of the world. And what am I really trying to change, how do I expect this to happen? As I said, I think war and such massive violence is one end of a spectrum of difficulty caused by humanity, and at the other end is something about a rift in intimate personal relationships. I know I was responsible for great anguish and suffering in my love relationship with my wife, but also within myself – I cause that suffering and can see how I cause it and why. And my only “defense” for doing it is that it is a mistake, a mistake I make in trying to be closer to her, or trying to be true to my real self when there are parts I have been neglecting (“meet me, meet me” over and over at the beginning of this Electric Chapel remix) How does that compare with Syria, for instance? Can it be said that one side, in its way, is trying to be closer to the other, to make the country whole – but maybe is making mistakes based on its insecurity?
What am I really trying to say here? Am I complaining that my relationship troubles are bad enough that I should be comparing us to Syria? No – things are really good between us, actually, but I have recently made the same mistakes over again and caused more unnecessary pain, all out of my own insecurity or fear of losing the relationship, ironically over initially my own insecurity but then creating the only condition that actually threatens our relationship, my anger when we are “negotiating” whatever my issue is - and it usually comes back to my insecurity. In some ways I feel like Assad, in some ways I feel like the rebels – I feel like my sentiment can be compared to them, my desperation and willingness to violence in these situations, in my case the violence of getting angry or desperate and yelling, but I think it is the same basic emotion that makes people, men, continue this war. I truly think all of these issues arise out of the rift between men and women, or between the masculine and feminine within two people in a relationship or within one person, but of course they have arisen with the force of culture and governments behind them into different structures which collapse in their own unique and sometimes fantastic ways. But within all of that is the same rift between men and women – for all the widespread violence in Syria it is almost entirely men who are responsible for it, women were only responsible for the initial stages of nonviolent protest that sparked off all that has happened since - but the part of the women was and continues to be nonviolent. I believe in some way of healing the rift between woman/man and finding a new discovery or setting a new example that can heal the world. In a way it is talking about the mystery of love, but at first focusing on some of the darkest, twisted parts, the problems, before allowing the light and best of love break through, and knowing it will break through, trusting in that to make us bravely face the bad, is the only way, otherwise the bad can be so awful-seeming it makes us reach terrible conclusions instead – we are trying to save the relationship, or country, by dealing with something but end up destroying it instead, in our “passion” or whatever, but it's destroyed, we ruined it. We have to find the way to avoid that.
What does this have to do with Gaga, with Oz? It is the principle of overshadowing – I want to write the Edge of Glory edition right now as that remix plays – its just about going all out, to the extreme, for what you believe, in this case Gaga, and how you can go completely nuts with it, to the most mystical and psychadelic and meditative and ecstatic extremes, how you should do that, how that is what it is all about – but I will get to that in detail in that edition. Here is the principle of overhsadowing as I just devised it this morning: when I am upset about something that seems like my wife does not care enough about me or our relationship, and in getting upset about that I end up acting terribly and actually causing a scene that is a threat to our happiness, where previously it was really in my head, well, that is a big mistake. I should not go down that desperate, violent path. And the thing I have plenty of evidence of is that it is a mistake, I always understand it afterwards when I calm down and think more rationally – and it helps to get something out in the open and addressed, that is an important part of how I can calm down and stop feeling insecure, but there are other ways to get to that needed communication without throwing a fit. I know this, and I should have enough experience to keep me from going through that again, but I have not fully learned my lesson. The lesson is overshadowing. It is a dark shadow that I am facing, my own insecurity, that makes me worry and act out in the first place, but this creates a far darker shadow, upsetting my wife. And this threatens the darkest shadow of all, my greatest fear, losing our relationship, separating from her – and again, the only thing that could really make that happen is me acting awful out of my own worrying about it, when there was really nothing to worry about. This is essentially the rift between male female or between lovers, the rift of love, and the source of all problems. Some people deal with that rift much more easily or expertly than I do, they are more confident or have some more established or traditional roles in their relationships. I think many people deal with it in unhealthy ways, including many of those traditional forms, and these ways give rise to greater complications – oppressing women is, I think, the basic source of all complications and suffering on the planet. But we all have that rift, however we deal with it, and I can't really look down on Assad for instance for something I imagine he might have of a sexual problem and how that contributes to him wanting to cling to power when I myself have some sort of issue that still makes me whiny and upset at times. I can say this, when things are good between my wife and I, and has thankfully been the case for much of recent times, I sometimes think of Syria and what is going wrong there, what could be done. When we have an argument, the place really isn't on my mind – it has been overshadowed, in my experience, by something “even worse” - from my perspective. Of course if my wife and I were in Syria we would not be arguing about these things, those concerns would be overshadowed by fear for our safety and future.
And if I learned my lesson, I would let my fear of actually losing my wife due to being an asshole to her overshadow my fear that something that just happened might indicate she does not love me as much as I wish and let that start me down that dark path. Now, when I think about how that compares to Syria, what should they think should overshadow whatever is bothering them now?
I guess I don't know all the original complaints in Syria, one of them was surely that the people did not have enough power in choosing their leadership – an issue we struggle with in our own special way in America, too. But soon the issue became government oppression and killing of its people in response to the protests. This overshadowed even the original concerns, and though it might “just” be an overt manifestation of the same problems that have been underlying the unrest, as more and more people are killed that in itself becomes the reason for the fighting. In comparison, I might be upset at my wife over one little thing then I complain about it, don't like her response, and in the argument that ensues you can't really say it all “came out” of that one complaint, that was just the trigger that brought it up but at some point in an argument, and at most points in a heated argument, you aren't even arguing about the original issue anymore, you are arguing about the very fact that you are arguing – though that can sustain itself for a surprising and terrifyingly long time. If it was a more productive conversation where we weren't saying increasingly mean things and reacting to those, if it actually stayed focused on the orinignal issue without getting “overshadowed” and more negative, we would call it a debate or disussion, not an argument. The sign of an argumentis the increasing, escalating negativity, and this is the process of overshadowing - one thing gets overshadowed by soemthing worse. And in arguments in a relationship, you put each other through saying mean things to one another because you know, or hope, or are testing that the love will shine through at the end of it and resolve everything. In a civil war, you fight and destroy things based on the idea that the side that prevails will be the best caretaker of the country after the fighting is all over. After saying it so simply it is easy to see there is a flaw in this reasoning – why let control and protection fall to the one who is most successful at violence? And the reason that flaw is easy to see when looking at people perpetuating war, but hard to see when it is me myself perpetuating an argument, is because of all the “build-up” between personal relationships and war: you can notice that whole spectrum by thinking about that difference and how it is hard to notice when it is “too close” but easy to see how utterly ridiculous the idea is of “fighting” to resolve conflict, when it a whole nation of people. But the question is equally ridiculous when asked of two lovers in a fight: why test love with meanness?
This is the main message that I got out of the story about Jesus confronting the devil – he concludes by saying not to test the lord, thy god. I'm not saying I have learned to apply this lesson, if I had I would not argue, but I have always understood it to mean do not “test 'God'” and that “God is Love” so that means do not “test love” - meaning, do not set obstacles for love to overcome, do not make it more difficult to love, do all you can to encourage love and make it possible, because in addition to being the strongest power in the universe there is something fragile and delicate about love. The problem with an argument between lovers is it starts with something small, or maybe a “really big deal” but still nothing compared to the whole immensity of love, but that something small represents an absence or miscommunication of love, it represents that terrible rift. And it may in fact be tiny, it may only be a misunderstanding or it may all be in my head but it still gives a sample of and opens us up to that energy of the absence or breaking of love, to heartbreak and despair. In a civil war we get opened up to that awfulness by our family and friends and neighbors being killed with no justice. Opening up, being faced with that awfulness is just the triggering event, though, and it is the escalation phase where everything gets worse, overhsadowing the original problem and creating a badness that takes on a life of its own. In personal relationships that flare-up of a new, self-sustaining evil energy dies out again mostly after the two people reconcile – I use the terms “triggering”and “escalation” from my work with abused kids and have seen the cycle all the time, the kid gets upset, is taking it out on the caregiver, saying and doing all sorts of violent and cruel things to you, and you know it is not actually personal but rather something based on their childhood of abuse and neglect, and if you end up reacting to it as if it is personal it feeds into the energy and prolongs the outburst but if you can somehow avoid that then the outburst allows the child to release emotion and then a positive relationship can be restored – but in a way, subconsciously maybe, the child is trying to test the relationship you have, in most of these cases because they came from families that really failed them in major ways and you are the first person who is taking care of them that they are learning to trust, but wary of trust and trying to push you away.
This is the case anytime there is a problem – for me, it is a problem of insecurity and when it comes up and I feel like I don't get the loving response that I desire. When people protest nonviolently, they are hoping their concerns will be addressed. But when the government instead of showing concern kills them, well that quickly becomes the more pressing concern and can overshadow the peaceful beginnings. If all I really want is to get a kiss I feel like I missed, then it turns into an argument, then that is a problem, but we can expect to resolve it. If a kid at my work acts out and we respond to the action instead of the kid's underlying desire to feel loved and cared for, it prolongs the outburst. In that case the kid does not know there will be a good outcome, so many interactions with adults have ended up badly, and they can go all out in desperation and violence over what seems to be the smallest trigger, not being called first in line for instance. But the adults know that “everything will be okay” and can act accordingly – we weather the attacks and screams and slurs in order to model that. The person in power, Assad, should be able to do the same but obviously has some problems. And we have problems too when we let the attacks get to us – and these are kids so the attacks don't generally hurt that much physically and I feel rude suggesting that the same principle could be applied to Syrian rebels when their family has been murdered, to not let the attacks bother them. I feel less rude saying the Syrian government should not have acted so threatened and killed people in response to the non-violent protest in the first place, that was the worst move and the greatest “flaw”, as well as continuing and escalating the killing. But I should not get mad at my wife over a perceived unlovingness and should not continue to argue with her if that comes up, either. In one reading of the analogy, the governement is responsible for being the adult and weathering complaints without reacting violently, they, like the staff at my work, are the ones in power so they are responsible for how things go down. Another way to look at it is that the non-violent protestors have the greatest power, truth and justice on their side as proven by commitment to non-violent change and holding to the belief that this power is greater and will ultimately win out, like we know at our work that the kids will be able to accept being more cared for and give up their behavior that is based out of fear of not being cared for. When I'm not being immature in my love relationship I know that our love will see us through any difficulty and can trust in that and not get upset,not give in to how insecurity mkes me feel and fear the negative. This is truly the greatest power, trust in love and in the power of non-violent change, and the adults in the room are the ones who are committed to it – knowing that goodness can win out without violence, and that even violence does not require a violent response.
You can say it must be easy to remember that dealing with little kids, no matter how badly they behave because they are just little kids and they can't really hurt you physically for the most part. This is true, and remembering it is part of what enables us to deal with stuff that really would totally freak most people out, and maybe even cause them to respond to kid in a way they never would expect of themselves. But we get used to it, and even then you always feel that pull of negativity, and that is how I feel so certain of the nature of the power of overshadowing. Because your wisdom and better nature and training and everything are eroded by reacting to negative behavior negatively and it can happen to anyone, it drags you in and overshadows goodness. And this happens with me and my wife, whom I love dearly, but getting into something negative, getting a negative response, and then responding more negatively myself sets us in a spiral that is only saved by the fact that we are really in love – but again, that whole process is the only thing that really tests our love and the whole idea of testing love is wrong.
But it is something we all do – everything we do is in some way a test for love in the world, though most of these are really positive, like testing the water to get in – the things we do to get a response in the world, our work, our art, our helpfulness, friendship and contributions. But love we already have and are afraid of losing in some way, or feeling the lack of love that we need, these negative experiences are what tempt us to “test Love itself” in that way that Jesus warned us against. Fear is what makes us act in ways that ultimately manifest our fears, feeling that someone has been uncaring and feeling the need to test their caring, or in the case of rebels, feeling so disrespected they feel like the government does not value their lives at all, acting in response to that and finding that it really seems to be true and even worse than they thought. But of course it is not like the Syrian government detests its people out of some organic evilness, they are responding out of fear and demonizing the enemy to justify war – it happens on both sides of any violent conflict. And the essential principle at play that makes this possible is overshadowing, which is why that is the focus of this blog.
Overshadowing drags you in and just gets worse, and that can be “okay” in a relationship if you realize you love each other afterwards and make up and learn something from what was addressed. You can resolve any conflict with Love, as long as love is the goal and basis for everything -love is the ligh that will ultimately break through any darkness. That is supposedly the case when both warring factions “love” the country, but there obviously is not enough focus on love to avoid destroying it – just as, in any relationship, someone can get so off focus from love that it destroys the relationship, no matter what they say they feel. I feel like even though I say I have learned this lesson, I really need to apply it and not get mad when I feel like I am not being loved or appreciated, to just be patient. This is because I truly know that we are in love. In some relationships that is not the case, just as in some countries the government really does not care enough for the people, and in those cases people should be able to change the situation, the relationship or government, or get out. But there is also the possibility of a relationship that could be saved, or a country that could be preserved, and the greatest threat to that is the overshadowing process when problems come up. Even a country that is destroyed or a relationship that is ruined can provide a lesson to do it better next time, but wouldn't it be better to have a good break-up than a bad, or even learn the lesson about why it didn't work out and still be friends? If there is a lesson to be learned from Syria, or America, or Russia, or any country and the unique problems that country is currently having, isn't it better to somehow learn that lesson while there is still something left, instead of only having the example “look what happened to Syria” or “America” or, as we say now, “Rome”. Wouldn't it be better to change things and have living examples of success instead of dead warnings against failure? But this is the danger of overshadowing, letting negativity continue to take over until only the worst outcome is possible.
This is why I say any problem can be solved if both parties are committed to love, but saying you love your country means conducting yourself in a way that shows you want there to be something left of it. There are “adults in the room” in Syria, there are people there who are still committed to nonviolent change, and probably even more who are good and peaceful people but who have become overshadowed into violence. But the purely good ones left are not in power, and the two sides what are fighting for power are pretty violent, increasingly overshadowed – they aren't up to the challenge of resisting that pit. So, in theory, we rely on the adults at the UN, or in the most powerful countries, to help sort things out. But apparently their aren't enough adults to do things properly that way, either - you can't argue that they don't have enough power, it's the misapplication of power that is allowing this whole situation to continue.
In the case of two lovers fighting, between them hopefully at least one can get the focus back on love. In the case of working with abused kids, the kids may be stuck in the rift, feeling totally unloved and unloveable. Their behavior responding to being stuck in that rift where is seems there is no love can really have an effect even on an adult who knows better, an adult who has felt love in their own life and has the experience to know that even a “tough kid” can find it, too – but in the moment the negative behavior can make the adults feel that way some, too, can expose us to experiencing that terrible rift of fear ourselves and overshadow wisdom and calm. That negativity can overshadow our better nature and knowledge that love and goodness will win in the end, at least in the moment, and we can have a bad reaction to them, but ultimately the adult knowledge, the faith in goodness to win out and other good adults to give the kids good homes, that wins. Sometimes, in fact it is the most highly reccommended action at my work, it requires the adult to “switch out” with another adult who has not gotten so furstrated and upset that they are starting to react negatively – and often you keep switching back and forth, it is not like one person is better at being yelled at and attacked than another, it wears on both and starts to overshadow them, that is why the best solution in that case is to be able to leave the situation, shed the overshadowing stress and return to your better nature of calm, then absorb more fof the negativity while your co-worker does that process and gets calm enough to deal with the kid again. Eventually though continually addressing aggression with calmness the anger subsides, the actual problems are identified and discussed, and things get better. Calmness wins – always, in the end. But who wins in Syria? Is there faith that the “good” side will win, or is there a good side?
We have to try to see how even if they are only saying it, not acting like it, both warring sides want to preserve the country. In the same way that I really need to learn the lesson and stop threatening my own relationship by responding to paranoia that it is threatened, the warring parties need to realize that worse can happen than what they are currently afraid of and maybe they should chill out or change course completely. Of course, from the very beginning I was worried that this would turn into WW3, and a really bad outcome – we only just missed people's anticipation for the end of the world in 2012 and it is right in that neighborhood of Armageddon that I have been worried many people in America truly believe will be the battle that end the world and some of those people even seemed to be plotting that course in the Bush administration. But we did manage to avoid ending the world in those wars, and maybe we won't end the world in the next war, but also maybe if that is a possibility we should take extra care to keep that war from even starting.
I'm kind of afraid to even check the news, to find out that there is even further escalation today, that we carried out a missile strike or something – but I'm also hopeful that that did not happen. For one, my wife and brother and law have been here on the internet and probably would have mentioned it if there was big news. Anyway, last night I was racking my brain for some magical approach, even to formulate a desirable intended outcome for Syria, and just couldn't do it. I think it speaks to how ineffective the diplomats have seemed at anything other than continuing to prepare for war that we did not even think until this morning that one possibility could still be the “standard” diplomatic solution – but that is still possible.
All along my magical focus has been on manifesting some surprising event – and the best outcomes I recall were higher-up generals defecting and growing international pressure and support. Of course there have been various breakthroughs and setbacks of support for the Syrian people, but I knew I had not hit upon any real good solution. My wife is a great witch but did not want to get involved with me on such an unfocused spell, which is where we most often differ in magical practice - focus. I was still wondering about it today when I considered how I really would approach the situation according to what I call Gaga magic: how do the magical ideas in this gagablog apply to finding a real peaceful solution in Syria? Well, one of my contentions has been that world events can be magically connected to personal events and that the artistic and entertainment and liberating superevents that are pretty much everything Gaga does is a way of examining those connections and looking for magical clues. Gaga's work is always personal, to her, between her and her fans and to Art itself, but it is also a big deal and a world media event – which is why she is such a good example of magic itself and paying attention to “how she works” is so instructive about magic – in this case the magical priciple of uniting the “outer” (public/world event) and “inner” (private, personal, intimate experience of art) worlds.
She said very explicitly on her interview for GMA that she is showing transformation as a form of magic, and this will be a major theme of my upcoming book on Oz/Gaga/tech magic. I've been focused on how the “eventfulness” of her performances can be related to world events or events in my own life - I've always had a fondness for exploring that type of “coincidental” magic and this is another one of the main themes of the new book I'm writing. The reason I am writing this now is to address, and dispose of, a negative magical function that I don't think I will put in the book, this idea of overshadowing. It is all about dealing with the negative, the shadow – and this must be done. But just as in a relationship it is better to deal with the difficult things when you can be sure that love will be the outcome. Of course it usually works the other way and you deal with the difficult things when they have made things especially difficult, even to the point of making you question love. But we can get to where we know things will be good, and can be so sure of that that we are willing and able to face the tough stuff.
Governments should be secure enough in that as well, to honestly face the citizens complaints, and our government is as guilty as others, though maybe not with as awful consequences as in some cases. But we certainly have room for improvement, and could certainly stand for better examples and ideas for helping improve relationships. The biggest factor is having that security that you know the other party actually cares for you and not having to test that in the process.
When I thought this morning, “what is going on with Gaga and how does that relate to the current crisis in Syria?” I came up with the idea of overshadowing. I missed Gaga's performance on MTV's Video Music Awards, and I was really excited about it too, since I basically became super-devoted to her after her performance of Paparazzi at the VMA years ago. Even though I don't have MTV I would have tried to stream it live or whatever to take part in the event, but I just missed it, wasn't on the computer and did not hear people talking about it until the next day. And the “news” of the day was how Miley Cyrus's performance was so scandalous it even overshadowed Lady Gaga's intro performance. I detected a familiar theme, this overshadowing, and not in the same sense as an escalating conflict, but a similar principle – what drags us down, something “worse” happening and spoiling our chance at something “better”. Now I'm not here to say Miley is dragging us down or representing anything bad, I even want to praise her, but the whole “event” brings out this issue and it is an issue that Gaga addresses in the lyrics of “Applause” itself, ironically or magically enough.
It is the critics and media who decide what the most talked about part of an event is – these days it is also the activity on Twitter so it starts to reflect people's actual passions but it is still steered by the media. I'm not saying the media had a nefarious scheme to deflect attention away from Gaga, but I am saying that the way this works out is a familiar pattern of overshadowing and teaches us something about the problem of it and how to resist it – it is basically like the magnetic attraction of the negative, of absence, and could be analogous to a black hole, and love would be like light itself or stars in the analogy. You could say that whether Miley or Gaga got attention is really a trivial thing, especially when compared to war in Syria or even my own relationship issues. What I'm saying is that according to the theory of Gaga magic there is a relationship here, based on things happening at the same time. The way to explain that relationship, this time, takes the subtlest magical understanding, so I'm using it as the perfect opportunity to go for that which has been eluding me.
Gaga had an artistic message with her performance of Applause – I know because that is what she is like and because I saw one image of her from the performance, looking like a blank canvass to me. After missing the live broadcast I decided to save watching this performance to use it like a spell, anticipating watching it and it changing my world – so, watching it soon, but with the condition of having the awareness that watching it could coincide with a major breakthrough for peace, just when we need it. I also did not watch the Miley performance but got what I think is a good enough idea of it from all the descriptions and comments. I just think it shows our level of maturity as a society that whatever Gaga's message was, and I won't speculate beyond “artistic” since I haven't seen it, we don't really want to talk about it but would rather talk about Miley. We say that Miley's brazen sexual display is shocking to us and we can't stop talking about it, but it is only shocking because of the brazenness of it or because we think of her as young – which shouldn't be shocking at all since following the example of other Disney kid stars like Brittany it is completely predictable that she would shed the good little girl image. We say it makes us 'uncomfortable” as a society but this is the same society that seems pretty comfortable with teenage and younger girls with things written on the ass of their pants so that's kind of bullshit. What really makes us uncomfortable is acknowledging that we are not culturally and socially mature and sophisticated enough to have a conversation about art – its just above us, at least the mainstream.
Gaga is making art pop, mainstream, and doing so by transforming what the mainstream is. This means she is making the mainstream accept feminism, for instance, and female sexuality and even Miley twerking is a sign of progressing in that direction. It is thanks to Gaga, and Madonna and others as well, that Miley even thought to do that, but Gaga is doing even more than reviving sexuality and feminie power - though that is enough to save the world. She is also aware of the artistic potential, liberating creative power and creative people around the world, taking everything to a whole new level, a real cultural revolution, but you would have to pay a little attention to her to realize that instead of just dismissing her as “weird” - or, the one that really shows how messed up people can be trying to comform to a messed up society, when thye call her “ugly.” (its the same use of the word people have when they are racist and think all people of a certain race are “ugly”, and even the same things as homophobia- its their fear of their own attraction to people that makes people call others 'ugly' who just aren't) But it is really a testament to Gaga, and to her mission, that the media and public responded the way they did to the VMA show – because it all goes to prove Gaga's point and advance her mission at the same time, even if it seems like a “step back” instead: Gaga's ultimate mission may be to make everyone happy but this is to be understood as truly seeking to achieve an utmost ideal, including liberating people, art, and ideas and breaking down all sorts of barriers. She has the greatest vision for what we can be, and gave us a message of it in her performance of Applause – and all this writing, including what I'm doing now which was supposed to be editing and reducing the length of this (the next day from when I started, its now 8-30-13) but instead has me adding what I missed, here, all of this is me trying to prepare myself to watch it, much like I wrote my Judas blog to anticipate/ profess what it would be about to show how she lives up to my grandest artistic magical ideals. I'm already getting excited about watching it, and remembering another detail I had forgotten and anticipating how that makes my magical point – they say she piped in boos over the speaker system to begin her performance … maybe the artistic statement is how she changes that into Applause, transforms it, that kind of magic, but the Gaga magic it makes me think of is more cosmic, having to do with the whole nature of the event and how the world would receive it, immediately and in the eyes of history. Because Miley did get all the initial attention after this show – and it was a lot of boos, in a way, “ironically”, magically, according to Gaga's “plan” - not like she “made” Miley twerk or “made” the media or public aghast at it – she's not that kind of Goddess, controlling like that. But she is aware of the power and effect of her art, as well as aware of what we need in society, where we are at, currently, and how we need to grow so that we are all as repsonsive to art (and love and magic) as we can be, as we always could be, if we weren't held back by overshadowing. It is liberating the spirit, no less, and it is a kind of magic that she accomplishes through performance, and getting people's attention. I think she very well could have been aware and planned for Miley's “breakout” of lewdness and that informed the decision to play boos to start the performance – and it could have come from anything or not even happened, but I'm suggesting it either as deep magic, deep subconsciousness, or deep genius and saying those are all kind of the same thing, or closely connected. I think, knowing the way Gaga studies fame and pop culture, that she could have been very aware of these conditions for the VMA show- and just as likely or more likely was completely not thinking about any of this, but it is possible – that Miley would do something bold and America, the critics, “would not like it.” That's not hard to imagine anyway, and while Gaga probably never did think of it it could have influenced her subconsciously – and all of this stuff works that way, this is just an attempt at such reaching conjecture that if any of it makes sense it could show how art, magic, and the subconscious conspire together in this way.
If you don't want to give Gaga much credit, looking at the negative image of Gaga as a famewhore that only craves attention with no higher value, you could imagine that she might be jealous and resent being “overshadowed” by Miley. She could conclude, “well, I did overt sexuality and just wanted to move on and do more but if that is all the people want I will go back to overt sexuality only.” When my wife makes fun of my Gaga worship, looking at the possible negative, she might say I would like that, if all I care about Gaga for is as a sex symbol anyway. I see this all as the power of “overshadowing” and I do know that Gaga is sensitive and sometimes responds to the media and I do think it is possible that she could get somewhat caught up in the shadow and negative pull of being “overshadowed” - but that is something that could happen to her mood, just as sometimes something gets to me in my relationship or dealing with kids. I'm sure that Gaga feels not only secure enough in her own success but genuinely supportive of other artists that she would not resent Miley at all, but instead would be proud of her. In fact the most recent message I read from Gaga was an appeal to everyone to support all artists, to end all fan wars, etc. These themselves show “where we are at” as a society and where we need help, and the danger of overshadowing, as if we are so starved for artistic appreciation that we can't “afford” to love more than one artist. Now that I am reminded of this I realize how Gaga shows us the way to stay positive and avoid getting sucked into overshadowing, and it is in that letter to not be negative at all or engage in fan wars – or any other wars, of course. The principle is about feeling good enough about yourself, and realizing their truly is enough goodness to go around so that everyone can feel good about themselves, despite it being currently trapped. This is the cure for bullying, too – bullies, and anyone acting meanly, does not realize there is plenty of love to go around, they are stuck in a rift of feeling unloved and feel the only way to feel more loved is to make someone else feel less, and this is just the opposite of how it works. Gaga realizes this, and even she succumbs to sadness at times, even amidst all her success – that is the power of overshadowing, a little negative things has the power to overshadow great wonderful things if we give in to it. But even if we do, even the things that make us sad, there are lessons to to things better next time or to make us aware of something new we neeed to address. There is somehting good in anything bad if we have the love and security to see it through, and that is the key, knowing that is there so in the process of dealing with something bad we don't react more and more negatively, deeper into overshadowing. Even America being aghast at Miley's twerking, which really shows the problem of how the mainstream is so sexually juvenile, not really a problem with her, has some positive light to make it okay – someday we will probably laugh at ourselves for focusing so much on it and wonder why we didn't have more to say about Gaga, because by that time we will have a more artistically and sexually mature mainstream and wil be proud of our ability to relate to Gaga's Applause message – but if it is hidden for a little while by overshadowing hype of something baser that will just increase a certain secret power until it is revealed.
I'm the one who was just complaining about kids with words written on their butts so I certainly can see how negative outcomes from some things like scandalous performances can overshadow good things – indeed, most of the response to Miley seems to be negative right now. My mother-in-law called to say that she wasn't going watch it but had to see what all the hype was about an her response was “it was pure nasness. People are comparing it to Madonna but Madonna might have rubbed up against some stuff but never did anything as nasty as that.” But I want to look at the good in it and see what it means. First I have to echo something I read in an article or blog, that the great thing that Miley did with that performance was make Robin Thicke uncomfortable on stage with her. Again, I didn't see it but there is something like justice in that, that his current fame is built partly on his video of dancing sexually with girls a few years older than Miley, but she's technically legal – it was a case of something coming back to bite him, and maybe I was eager for that after hearing he proactively sued Marvin Gaye's estate for stealing one of his songs for his big hit “Blurred Lines” which the media wants to call the “song of the summer” and certainly has been on the radio every other song, at least here in Denver – he just seemed to have made a big egotistical mistake and gotten a lot of ill-will directed towards him. But mostly it sounds, to me, like some sort of table-turning, that his whole schtick is about having the traditional male power over women but Miley took control of the stage. That's the light breaking through, even after increasing darkness. He put a message out with his song Blurred Lines about persuading women to have sex with him, that has certain undertones that themselves overshadow any goodness in the song though there is goodness. But we weren't really talking about the issues that song raises, but we are talking about the issues it raises that Miley was twerking and grinding on a foam finger. To me this exemplifies the double-standard of sexism in society and the way it was never really scandalous for Robin Thicke to sing his song, any more than it is for so many other male songs with the same message – but it is scandalous for Miley to claim and own her own sexuality and use it for her own purposes, instead of just grinding on a guy because he wanted it, or knew you wanted it even if he was kind of acting like he didn't. But I imagine there wasn't really a cool way for him to act like he wasn't really into her – cool in the sense that of course he was into her but was playing it off, like with the models in his video – and of course there was no way to be cool about acting like he wanted her – “she's too young!” - though, again, maybe only a few years younger than the girls he is acting like he is properly entitled to in his video. This is an example of latant (I missed typing the b but it is blatant and latent, I guess) sexuality turning the tables on a power structure. Kind of like the women of Congo or some African country that ended a quarter-century civil war there by just saying they were tired of it and refusing to have sex with the men until they stopped the war, and they did. That took organization, too, and all those women are heroes, I should really look it up and give some credit to people involved or at least get the country right for sure. I end up mentioning it a lot because it is a fantastic example, and maybe the only example of it's kind on that scale, but its not like that is the only place that could happen, its not like those particular women have some super-special pussy that can end wars because the men can't do without it – we are all like that, we would all respond that way, it just takes people getting the idea and using it. It has to do with women reclaiming and using the power that is naturally theirs. It reminds me of the guest judge on SYTYCD who told one dancer “If I had your body I could end world hunger – there's nothing I couldn't do” -and I'm like, well, you have her body, you are a woman too – or if you really think there is an important “difference”, write down what your amazing brain could do if you just imagine the confidence or whatever you are lacking as if your brain had that body, then hand the instructions to the “girl who is so hot she can save the world.”
Turning the tables on a sexist power structure is essentially what Miley was doing and the extent that people have a problem with it just shows how far off our society is from the natural order where women have plenty of control over their own sexuality. What does it all have to do with Gaga? Well, she did her part and continues to do her part to help liberate people sexually. There is something very subtle but very powerful and important, an insidious type of overshadowing, that is revealed by examining this. And I know no one even considers this – no one except Gaga herself and little monsters even care to discuss what her message was from that night's performance, and I'm not even doing it here, since I didn't see it, but I'm talking about how that message got drowned out in the media and public perception of the whole event, and how this all shows the same nature of overshadowing that an escalating argument or conflict has, the dragging down element of negativity. It's not like Miley intended to steal the spotlight from Gaga or was part of some conspiracy, and it's not like anyone decided that we weren't ready to discuss whatever Gaga's message was – they maybe didn't even consider it. You could say it's just over their heads, art or whatever. I don't know what the message of Applause was but it wasn't just pure sexuality, and Gaga has been “accused” of that before as if it were a bad thing. Now that finger wanting to shame someone for sex is pointed at Miley, and making the pointers look foolish – though again, I haven't seen it, it could be absolutely awful and no one can say it is good on any level, but I kind of want to side with the idea that she can do whatever she wants and there is value to making people question what they find acceptable. But Gaga had some other message, about more than sex, about art, and we aren't talking about it. Partly because we just aren't ready to talk about it, we just aren't that cool, culturally, though of course the little monster community is I just have not been online to hear what they have been saying. And partly because of Miley Cyrus, but only because it reveals how juvenile we all are, the whole culture, that her performance was such an issue for us. But mostly it is the process of overhsadowing, the fac that we gravitate to a negative because it is easier to deal with than the more challenging, positive topics of love and magic and art.
In a more conspiratorial moment I would say that the whole thing was planned to steal the spotlight from Gaga and divert us from talking more about her message, but I believe there is an element of truth to that, as if the collective cosciousness's subconscious did not want us to talk about it, but would rather start the national conversation on twerking – mainly so we can mostly collectively express disdain at Miley, and all that entails – venting fears about feminism and sexuality in the same way that electing Obama seemed to open floodgates of racism as people acted like it was all the sudden their right to express their racist ideas because it coincided with something political they'd been brainwashed into extremism over. They did the same thing to Gaga and Madonna and still do, condemn them for expressing sexuality and encouraging sexual liberation when all the critics are doing is revealing their own hangups.
So the VMAs and fallout from it does a lot to show where we are at. I hope Gaga is in no way sucked into overshadowing, thinking that the hype about Miley somehow means her message got lost. I'm here to say that even before I have seen it I know that the whole event all serves to prove her message - and I'm cheating for having heard the song and seen the video and some quotes about it. But the line in applause about the critics saying whether something is right or wrong is what gets to the heart of all of this.
Gaga herself was influenced by seeing Brittany kiss Madonna at one of these affairs, and as Joe Calderone at another one told Brittany about it, but Brittany refused the kiss, which was just awkward and revealing and unfortunate on all sorts of levels, but again telling about where our society was at the time, the boundaries that Gaga was pushing in our ideas about accepting gender – it was cool and quirky in that decade for girls to kiss, Katy Perry launched a career with a song highlighting that quirkiness, though that seems old now that we are a little more mature and more accepting of love between people in all its natural manifestations. But a girl kissing a girl in drag was still a little too much, at that time, and the awkwardness of the moment says something about us all, at the time. You could see it on Brittany's face, “is it 'right' or 'wrong' to kiss her – how will thie be perceived?” and when she said she had “already done that before” she seemed to mean “kiss a girl”- I did that quirky thing already that society thinks is quirky, I checked that quirky category. And of course when Madonna kissed her it was mostly quirky, for shock value. But Jo told her how hot he thought she was, how he had pined for her and masturbated to her posters – it was not quirky, it was romantic, even love or infatuation, it was certainly passionate – not what she had done before. And of course she had not kissed Gaga before, just “a girl” - filled that category. And she had never kissed a girl in drag before – so when she said that it was like encapsulating the current mainstream view on all of this, and shows where the frontier was at that time. But this frontier keeps getting pushed further, the artists push it further against the resistance of critics and conservative and closed-minded society. The artsis generallymove us forward and the critics generally try to hold us back. These kind of events get a lot of critics attention because of their ability to shape collective opinion and therfore culture about things, and this is where I think it all relates to that line in Applause, is it right or is it wrong.
Different people form and shape and direct culture in different ways. Artists are at the frontier and critics have a lot to do with the way culture is shaped, too, but by choosing which artists to focus on and promote and which to ignore. And if critics had the talent and genius of artists they would be artists themselves but since they don't they content themselves with influencing culture around the artistic world. Since the average person does not identify as an artist, but can more easily identify with a critic simply by assuming they are both in the non-artist category, they are ready to accept a critic's view of something, someone who supposedly knows about art but is more like a “regular guy” to explain it to the other “regular guys”. Of course people have their own views of any art, that is what makes it art, it connects with people and they respond to it, but critics have an influence on whether someone sees or hears something in the first place - they decide if it is right or wrong. But of course their judgment is proven wrong about many things they scorn by the passage of history – 80's music is an example, but so is music of every decade. And when you think about how “scandalous” Madonna and Brittany's kiss was, well, by today's standards its pretty embarassing but that is where we were at the time, culturally, at least as the lesser directors of culture had positioned us. It does show improvement, but Birttany not kissing Jo Calderone a few years ago is another level of embarassment, and of course our horror today at Miley will seem silly in a few years. Of course it is the most conservative people who “simply must stop being so horrified” as the wealthy dowager said on the Simpsons after breaking another monocle. But critics who are supposedly familiar with art and culture should not give into pandering to the negative social elements of shaming and dismissing with disgust, especially when it comes to oppressed people, including all women. It really shows where we are still stuck that people get so uptight about black people demanding fair treatment under the law or women expressing sexuality and these still are big issues in 2013. It is up to artists to wrest the culture from the influence of the wealthy and conservative and the power of the media from reinforcing their stifling conservative values. They do a good job of it and it is up to us to form our own opinions as a responsible audience. Having said that, I really should conclude this and watch both videos. In the case of Miley, I can mostly hope that some of what I say seems true and that I don't want to come back and erase it all because her dance is just too embarassing for everyone – barring that I will feel happy. But when I watch the Gaga video I fully expect a magical transformation to occur, to me and to the whole world, and maybe the reason I missed it and spent all today writing this and doing other things and coming back to it, all day long, but have postponed watching it until now, is so all this buildup creates the biggest magical effect. *Now, the next day, in editing, my wife came up to see if anyone was broadcatsing the Obama address on Syria, but no one was, so I'm eager to check on all that has transpired, and do the magic of watching Gaga perform Applause for the first time for the best outcome, as soon as I finish this final “edit.”
In this way it shows the power of being overshadowed, the reason why Miley is being compared to Madonna and they really don't want to mention Gaga. I think they were mostly fully on board with promoting her to the extreme when she seemed to them to be another “mere” sex symbol, just weird. They never realized how much more there was to Gaga than that, but now they might not understand it or really realize it but they know it is there, and frankly it scares them. So ever since BTW they have been happy to not overpromote Gaga and even to dismiss her – I think karmically that is one reason I missed the VMA's this year. Even though I was planning to watch I still hold a grudge against MTV for slighting her from awards for BTW – I guess because she didn't perform there that year but it was just wrong to ignore her that way. The very fact that they omit her from the comparison of Miley to Madonna kind of is an honor to Gaga as more than “just” a sex symbol – though there are very good things about that and certainly Madonna used being a sex symbol to accomplish good things and hopefull Miley will too. But Gaga is undeniably more than that, and more and more the more you know of her, and it scares the culure-makers who can't get with it, though of course we will all be with it someday since, like all the greatest art, it shows us the way to the best future. So they try to ignore her, and some of them quite consciously, though others responding to that collective conscious subconscious that is just scared of growing and expanding its outlook. But its going to happen, and as Morrissey sings, “The More You Ignore Me, the Closer I Get.” I saw a version of this with the wonderful Grateful Dead's legacy and image being dragged down by the Phish fad, this was a dismissive overshadowing that I thought had some careful orchestration by the Man, as much to shift the youths exposure to LSD to an exposure to XTC as to shift from a spiritually inspiring and instructive lyrical catalog and the community it inspired to some bullshit mockery instead. I also feel something like this happened with the popularization of the Wizard of Oz movie – though that in itself was great art - and dismissal of the book and other books about Oz, and even worse with further substandard retellings and twistings of the stories, with the exception of the Wiz which I just like for all sorts of reasons. But all the attention on Oz that refused to acknowledge or draw more from the actual original stories only watered down and diverted from the real message. I think there was intention behind this because the message is dangerous to the status quo, just as Gaga's is, and that is the real parallel that I will explore in the upcoming book, how both are part of this revolutionary spirit that shows us the future.
And what does it all have to do with Syria, or stopping fighting between lovers? It is that if we succumb to overshadowing, well the only thing that defeats darkness is greater darkness until the light comes. But if we aren't really going for the light enough, if we keep reacting to the bad, it keeps getting worse. Sometimes we need the threat of something worse to keep things in perspective and keep us from making mistakes and being mean to each other. It seems now that nothing could be worse to the people in Syria than what is going on, but some outcomes could be worse – it could start WW3 and really kill everybody, that would be worse. It could result in becoming like a suburb of Isreal and then they would be another Palestine having to worry about increasing Israeli settlements there - maybe they would like that better than the Assad regime? Ok, my cribchair international politics may be completely off on the possibility of that, but it popped into my mind this morning – as a possible outcome, presumably one they would not like, would the possibility of being ruled by Israel be enough to get the two sides to compromise, if not the threat of all out WW3? And I guess I don't mean that some Twilight Vampire could show them the “inevitable” future and cause them to change actions – maybe that is what the idea of the US sending 5 Destroyers there when it seems like one could blow up the whole country, show them some “inevitable” end – and I don't know that they aren't crazy or desperate enough to act violently even if you could somehow magically show to them the outcome of that action. But I'm not talking about people changing their mind because they finally realized what some outcomes could be, though that would be great. I certainly don't think you can convince enough people of a greater possible fear that can keep them from responding to their current greatest fear ever – and ultimately the only solution to fear is hope, the only cure to darkness is light. I certainly have trouble reminding myself of love when my lover and I are fighting, but then again the negativity goes away when we make up. But until the light comes, the only thing that will replace darkness is greater darkness. When we are lucky and loving we can pull through any darkness by believing in the light for ourselves, and hopefully the Syrian people can find the same, but it is so hard to imagine how they will make up after what they are putting each other through. We have to be able to show them a way, or maybe all forge a way together. If the UN is not living up to its purpose maybe there is a way it could, if we all insist it gets involved and stays involved as positively as possible in as many problems as it can find and we all support it enough to enable it to solve them. This is just the principle of living up to what we say and claim and not getting dragged down by overshadowing negativity. We all are easily guilty of complaining about our government, for the people by the people, supposedly, and some people even seem to complain about certain cultures being “good” at democracy, as if there could be cultural aptitude for it, or as if we are somehow really good at it and don't have our own unique cultural flaws that make democracy uniquely difficult here. The whole principle of the UN is that a right thing can be determined and acted upon and if we really pursued that idea we would have enough experience to be better at it, but the crisis in Syria shows how far we are from living up to our ideals. But it is also the challenge that is an opportunity to find out how we, as the whole world, really can effect change and provide lasting support to individual countries. It's a “crisitunity” as Homer says when Lisa tells him the Japanese word for “crisis” and “opportunity” is the same.
That's all we really need, an environment in which we feel we can safely work out differences – and we can solve any problem if we can ever get to feel safe enough to trust again that the light will come through. We just have to create those conditions, the ideal of the UN that we are still missing so many years later. This is the issue at every level of human conflict, giving into greater negativity, the overshadowing. But we are also missing that security and comfort in our own relationships, many of us are, and that contributes to the same feeling that we can't “do more” or that “larger issues” are out of our power to influence. It all feeds into the same system, but if we can feel good enough about our personal lives we can do more to help the world and if we can get warring factions to feel like there is just enough security and trust between them, or even common fear of occupation or worse, to actually work things out then it can actually happen – but it is hard to convince people that is possible in the middle of war which is supposedly why we formed a council, to deal with issues in a more adult manner. But we just aren't as mature as we'd like to think and we get dragged down into overshadowing – we get upset about a young lady twerking and also get upset about Syria, but just enough to wring our hands and feel we can't effect the situation. But we can by resisting the overshadowing that takes place in our own lives and always being focused on helping more love break through. I'm convinced that if anyone does this fully enough, interacting with everyone or even just to a new level with their own lover, they will cause a magical event that will end war. That's why I promote these ideas and why I expect watching Gaga's performance will coincide with a breaktrhough peaceful development in Syria – to test and prove this magical theory, not because I have an doubt, not that kind of test, but toeing the water kind and jumping in in order to invite others, to say, let's all do this magic, imagine the best ways to help, talk about things, do the ones we discover we can do practically and spell the rest to do it magically.
Gaga's performance is like that secret message that will come to light and change the whole game. I expect it to work that way, magically, and transform things – and I really want that to happen for its own sake but I also want it to show the power of Gaga and belief and art, even if it is a “little late”. I may add more, I know, its terribly long already and I will edit before I post this, even though the whole idea was to write something that could magically prevent war and do it today in case it was about to go the other way. But I expect the Gaga performance will be a clue, just as Paprazzi was a major clue for me about Gaga as a religious figure and BTW's 1st performance was a clue to me about the (begiining of, still?) liberation of Egypt. I feel I will return to that topic as well since it is still ongoing and even seems to be repeating some of what was going on then, and I realize that whatever solution, no matter how surprising, happens in Syria there will need to be continued involvement by the international community to keep things from going bad again, and that means that like so many other places in the world, including America, we need more awareness and conversation about things. One of the main problems of how overshadowing effects us and keeps us feeling personally helpless in the face of national issues is it is something we avoid – we don't want to think about difficult things we might not find a solution to, or are mostly convinced we can't. But if we don't talk about things because we accept them as unsolvable problems then of course we cant solve them. This is the first step, and the main and only step, to overcoming the evil of overshadowing – know that the light is there, behind it all, waiting to break through and know that as long as we keep that belief we will break through any darkness – then we are brave enough to face any challenge an secure enough to solve it.
(*final thought, added the next morning) But, to sum up all of this, the key is to know the light is there waiting to break through, to know there is a good outcome, and use that knowledge to resist getting dragged further into overshadowing and negativity. In buddhism I guess this is like having the enlightenment to avoid getting sucked around the “wheel of becoming” I think it is called, that increasing overshadowing negativity which produces all suffering, and for a biblical refrence I guess it could be compared to the faith of Job and others knowing the goodness of God will come through enabling him to bear hardships. In Oz terms it is like discovering or accepting that everyone is under the protection of Ozma and there is nothing to worry about, though there are problems to deal with, usually caused by those who haven't accepted or realized the comfortable condition they are actually in. Of course we will face hardships and evil, but it is all about having an attitude that creates a secure, safe, loving enough space to know we can deal with any hardship and find a good solution. In relationships it comes from knowing you are truly in love and getting back to that even after enduring or putting your lover through negativity. At my work it comes from the staff knowing that the kids will learn enough and get comfortable enough with someone caring for them that they can live with a family and that a family will, eventually – I wish there were more of them and they were all well-prepared – come along and take them into their home. We know this, even if the kids don't or can't believe it or even conceive of it, but our sureness creates enough of that certainty of ultimate good that we can deal with a lot of negativity in the meantime. In the case of Gaga it comes from living her dream and having such great art and success that she can be fully encouraging to others, both other established artists and people who are just discovering that they are artists, or realizing that they “can be.” That is why she is so important to me, as an artist, is the world and current economic systems are set up against art, and love, in so many ways, hiding it and creating exclusive scenes and industries out of art, and Gaga is poised to turn that around. Her artpop revolution will return rightful power to artists by helping subvert the system of critic and industry control – it's been happening for decades and increased with the internet but Gaga is poised to make a transforming move and really revolutionize it. Instead of a world where there does not seem to be enough love, or love for art, to go around to support everyone's happiness or creativity, we will realize it was there all along just needed to be let loose and flow between us. Its a very grand and beneficial design that can really save the whole world and each of us individually from overshadowing – help everyone feel good enough about themselves, be happy enough, to face any problem and know it will come out okay. The fact that it is hard to translate that to the situation in Syria, or continuing injustice in America, shows how we have not lived up to our best vision of government – but it would be giving into overshadowing to conclude that we can't. Now I know there has been some address by Obama to the American people about Syria but I don't know what it is. I know Gaga performed Applause for the first time at the VMA but I have not seen it yet. I'm going to watch the video, fully expecting to be amazed, transformed, and “do my magic” to let the world be equally transformed. Then I will look up what is going on in World Events and find a special, magical hope reflecting this most powerful intent: to help everyone overcome negativity in their own lives and to help the great evils of the world today to not fall into greater evils but to find that light that always comes through, to hold on to the hope of peace and love enough to create a space for it to happen, then let it happen and go with it and never return again to the hatred. It's the same message as Gaga's latest letter to her little monsters, to not engage in any negativity, and if we can really truly do that, to the point of making a way of life about it, we will be able to foster those kind of spaces to help anyone or any country work out any problem, and we will gain confidence and skill in the art of happiness, ensuring our own and providing it to others, resisting overshadowing, so that we can get really good at it until we can face and solve any problem and free and teach others to do the same. Thanks Gaga, I love you!
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