The Costume Technician's Handbook 3/e DVD: Fashion for the Theatre DVD

Video: A Stitch in Time, Vol. 1 (2000)

DVD: A Stitch in Time, Vol. 2: A Unique Look at 20th Century Fashion (2001)

DVD: The Story of Fashion: Vol. 1, The Remembrance of Things Past (1996): DVD: The Story of Fashion: Vol. 2, The Art and Sport of Fashion (1996)

DVD: The Story of Fashion: Vol. 3, The Age of Dissent (1996)

Topolino: Make-Up Games

X-Ray

Make Up

Special Effects Make-Up

One should never underestimate the advantages of alienation.  Acceptance, contentment, happiness, they all lead to inertia and homogeneity.  There is nothing wrong with this, quite the contrary; one is lucky if this is one's lot in life.  However, when one asks the central question of life:  "Are We Having Fun Yet?" and the answer comes back a resounding NO with no relief in sight, this is when one is moved to do great things.  This is only natural.  When we are caught like a fish on a hook of pain, we will wriggle with all our strength to escape, and even if escape is impossible the struggles are often justification in themselves.

      Have you ever noticed how mediocre Romantic novels are all written by prosperous, happily married women with children, and how the Great Books of Literature were all written by tortured, alcoholic, manic-depressives?  This is not an accident.  Nor is it an accident that all our best film directors were persecuted "nerds" in their youth.  What is more, the whole computer industry was founded by people who felt so alienated from other humans that they invented machines they could talk to.  Yes alienation has its uses.

      My ultimate alienating experience came less than two years ago.  My last, my final hope for a mate, rejected me, very politely, but in such a firm way that I realized, at length, that there had never really been any hope at all.  I am, no question, simply one of those people who has absolutely no sex appeal, despite fair looks, a nice figure, and a good brain.  It was, in a way, the same thing as in my childhood:  no "reason", but some mysterious invisible sign of being untouchable.  If, by 35, a woman, despite a healthy sex drive, and tolerable looks, has not ever had a regular boyfriend, she has to face the fact that she most probably never will.  I can think of few prospects more depressing in life, for it is a whole inclusive chapter of disappointments:  No love, No sex, No marriage, No children, No family, No future.

      What to do?  Roll over and die?  No, one struggles on the hook, trying to find a way to stop the pain, no matter how extraordinary the measures necessary to do it.  I quit my job, I went to Russia to live, I wrote twice as much in the last six months than I have in my whole previous career, I painted five times as much, I photographed till I had to buy film wholesale, 50 rolls at a time to keep up, I walked in the forest picking mushrooms till my toes grew blood blisters, I drew, I kept volumes of diaries, I toured every museum, I adopted a cat, I painted my clothes, I learned to cook.  I even lost 20 lbs without dieting, just from the constant press of activity.  This, despite the fact that at least half my time is still spent inert and withdrawn in a state of depression.

      None of these activities is a "cure" for my broken life.  But all of them are good temporary analgesics for the pain.  And more importantly, they are productive:  I am now constantly getting my writing and photos published, I can eat what I cook, mushrooms included, and the starving flea-ridden street kitten of six months ago is now a healthy, happy, cat.  From the outside, anyone observing my life would account me more successful than I was when I still lived in hope of everyday happiness.  This is the value of misery, it spurs us on to do extraordinary things.

      Happy people must fear action because it may disturb the calm flow of their families, lives, and jobs.  The unhappy fear action only so far as they fear their pain will be made worse.  Once the point of rock-bottom misery is reached, fear evaporates, action is escape, and there is nowhere to go but up.  Up, and out, and around.  Any direction you go is better than the one you left behind.  Anything you do is better than doing nothing.  Once that thought strikes you, you can do anything.  Fear is the place from which you came, not the place to which you are going.  An extraordinary life becomes easy.  It becomes a necessity. 

      You start by looking for a "cure" for the problem.  When that fails, you will try to ignore it, and hope it goes away.  You may even try making everyone around you equally miserable, in the vain hope they will fix your problem for you.  None of these helps.  There is only one option: Escape.  As Noel Coward wrote "When your life gets too miserable to rise above, sail away, sail away. When your heart feels as weary as a worn out glove, sail away."  You can always return later.  You needn't go to Russia.  Go anywhere. 

      Then ask yourself, "what do I, in my wildest imaginings, want to be?"  Don't say "a painter" if you've just been blinded, or "a heterosexual" if you've just figured out you're gay, or "married" if you're like me, we are talking about possible, if difficult to attain goals.  Pick the thing that you can still feel a passion for, a hard to win prize, a terrifying leap, a crazy dream, long buried.  It has to be big, so big, that if you succeed and get it, making do with this "second best" option may be better than having got what you wanted in the first place.  As the song says "You can't always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need."

      And then, as Nike puts it "just do it."  You slog away at it.  You add more goals.  You chase after them too.  You do anything that feels fun or good that isn't self-destructive.  You make a spectacle of yourself.  You say what you really think.  You do what you feel like doing.  You look for new things to do.  You say "Why Not?" instead of "No" all the time.  You stop caring if people stare.  You learn to take chances.  You risk your dignity.  You may even want to risk your hide.

      Do not stop.  Do not listen to "sensible" advice from happy people---you are not one of them.  Keep at it till you are one of them.  And if you can't ever be one of them, keep at it forever.  Don't curl up and quit.  Don't hide.  On the contrary, be as individual as you can be and shout it from the treetops.  You will find, if you advertise, that there are other folks out there living on the edge of humanity, and some of them can accept you for who you are, without reservation.  One or two may even be a bit like you. 

      And if you never find happiness, you will at least find fame, and success, and a productive, useful life.  So many of the people who we admire as "Great" led tortured, frustrated inner lives:  George Sand, Sergei Prokofiev, Mary Wollstoncraft, Michelangelo, T.E. Lawrence, Catherine the Great, the list is endless.  They achieved greatness by refusing to let the world have the last word.  They fought, tooth and nail, for goals that were their substitute for happiness, and so they succeeded in leading extraordinary lives.