I was out running this am, feeling a little sorry for myself--probably because I hate to run, but today I simply couldn't make myself go to the gym, yes my life of grim suffering--and I suddenly thought that as tough, in some ways, as my life currently is...for many people, it'd be a joyous walk in the woods.

Specifically, I was thinking about Nadezhda Mandelstam, widow of (murdered) poet Osip Mandelstam, and an amazing author in her own right. She wrote her first book, a memoir of her life with, and without her husband, Hope Against Hope...when she was in her late 60s. (http://amzn.com/0375753168) Not only was she a senior citizen, but she had spent the past 40 years surviving conditions of almost unimaginable poverty. She was constantly hunted and persecuted by the Soviet government, and had to witness the government-sponsored harassment and killings of her friends. If you're interested, I would advise you to Google Joseph Brodsky's wonderful obituary of Mme. Mandelstam.

Anyway, despite her decades of loss and grinding poverty, in her late 60s, she wrote a book that is completely honest, passionate and almost incandescent. She writes about her life, about the love she shared with her husband and about poetry, among many other things. She wrote about working overnight in factories, keeping herself awake by memorizing all of her dead husband's poetry, since it was far too dangerous to write any of it down. She wrote about how her husband was snatched from her and sent to the camps, and how she had no idea how he had really died...nor where his grave might be.

Yes, I have a huge hard-on for Nadezhda. I love her because she was old, she was cranky, she was smart, and very funny...and she was fearless. She had seen Stalin come and go and she knew that one day her values would be triumphant.I have a big thing for people who can dismiss dictators, no matter the personal cost.

So I thought about this (astonishing) woman this morning, on my run, and realized that the things I was whining about...would be like riches to Nadezhda. Here I have the freedom to read and believe what I want, to use my intellect (or something) in starting this business, to express myself without fear. And here I was kvetching because...what? Because I haven't taken a vacation in a few years? Because I have to work hard to earn what's important to me? Oh, meow meow meow. Suffice it to say, I stopped whining, finished my run,went home... and got down to work.

You took away all the oceans and all the room.
You gave me my shoe-size in earth with bars around it.
Where did it get you? Nowhere.
You left me my lips, and they shape words, even in silence. 
                                                            -Osip Mandelstam, 1935 (http://amzn.com/1590170911)

"Hell, there are no rules here, we're trying to accomplish something!"-Edison

I'm going to do my best to ignore the fact that today is September 1st (*shifty eyes*) and that Monday is Labor Day (*extremely shifty eyes*), and that the summer is over (*rage rising*) and stay on some kind of message. To wit: yesterday, sports fans, I wrote about the need to follow your dream, no matter how insane the haters may say it is, if your dream makes you happy. I mean, yes, you need to temper your dream with some reality, but: life is hard. Maybe you've heard that before? It is true; the cats and I can verify. Life is very hard, not only in Queens, and if  this is your dream, whether it's of writing the great Jewyorican novel or meeting a fun man who is sexy, smart and will win the approval of the cats (If the Kitten was awake, that would make him chortle.)...you have to fight for it. That's not a suggestion, son. It's far too early for me to be kidding.

Because if you don't, if you let people frighten you otherwise, you don't just lose that dream...you lose your confidence and that is a very serious loss. Because, let's face it: in life, in art, in business, there are no rules: no one knows what the hell they're doing. You think other people know what they're doing, when they do crazy things that lead to great things? Ha. Don't believe the hype. Later on, if they're honest, these people will sort of chuckle bitterly and admit they were just sort of messing about and praying that it worked before they got evicted, and now, if you don't mind, they're going to do infomercials and reap the intellectual rewards (translation: "date" their yoga instructors and be as naked as possible).

Business, like art, like love, is about whatever works at the time. Think about how many things, throughout history, were, at the time, expected to fail miserably. And then, for whatever reason, that "mistake" caught on and suddenly, the inventors went from zero to hero. (It's 5:30am, so the best my brain can come up with right now is the film Alien. A film which would eventually spawn a franchise, and make obscene amounts of money around the world but which, at the time, the studio was convinced would be a horrendous bomb: weird sets, weird music, and a female lead?? Mwah hah hah.)

So, I need you to take whatever frightened gibberish people have chanted to you about rules, or being nice, or fitting in, or listening to your elders...and hit the (mental) delete key. I need you to block that sh*t. I need you to think: "F**k that noise," as a former boytoy of mine used to say, in his great nasal, Chicagoan accent. Because the people who harp on the rules...they're the people who never got it. Whatever the "it" is/was. Remember: they. Never. Got. It! They're the ones anxiously trying to research why some people succeed and others fail, instead of just succeeding. They're the ones who, sadly enough, never experienced what the masterful Russian poet Osip Mandelstam spoke of, when he was truly at the height of his extraordinary powers and he described the knowledge of his powers as "feeling [his] wingspan." He was murdered by Stalin's thugs, and died in the Russian gulags, his body thrown into an unmarked mass grave...but while Stalin lies, pox-marked and blood-stained on the dust-heap of history, Mandelstam's clear voice rings on. Reading Mandelstam's poems today, one can witness his tremendous spirit and gift because... he knew he was right. 

In business, in art, in life, you're "right" when you make it happen, and you animate your vision, when you feel your wingspan...so tell me, please: what could rules ever have to do with being right?