Coin-Operated Boy

Have you ever reached a point where you are so much “in this world” that you feel like you’ve lost touch with yourself? Maybe like you’ve become more the product of the world than a product of your own authenticity? Or maybe like you’ve allowed that world to shape you, stuffing you into its neat little package of who you’re supposed to be? And one toe out of line, from that preconceived notion that the world has set up for you, and suddenly, you’re not being genuine; you’re not being real anymore, when really, the real you is who you are when you’re not allowing yourself to get stuffed into that neat little box that’s really not terribly neat at all? Yeah, well, I’m officially there, and that’s why this week I’m on a self-guided spiritual retreat.

I honestly thought I was going on this journey within because I am sad and tired. Over my years here I’ve learned (usually the hard way) that sad and tired is what immediately precedes deathly sick and tired, so I’ve also learned to do my best to take steps to avoid that. Hence: retreat. Last week, I joined my Beloved and some very dear friends in attending Amanda Palmer’s Boston show on her There Will Be No Intermission Tour, and as I sat in the audience, I realized repeatedly that, for those reasons, this retreat was definitely the right idea. You see, Ms. AFP instructed the audience: “If things get too sad, yell out ‘I’m sad, Amanda’, and I’ll play a bit of Coin Operated Boy.” I’m sad, Amanda; I thought this retreat was going to be my mid-life performance of Coin Operated Boy. Instead, what I’ve discovered is that I’ve become a coin-operated boy. Trust me: that’s not nearly as much fun as the song.

I’ve been too much “in this world”, and that led to the initial sad and tired, sure. It also led to me becoming a product of that world, rather than a product of my own authenticity. I’ve let that world shape me and stuff me into its neat little packages of who I’m supposed to be. I’ve allowed myself to become convinced that no one is going to hear what I have to say if I say it with my own goofy voice, instead of cloaked in reams of academia. I am a boy in a box, and I let it happen, all the while telling everybody else “don’t let people shove you into boxes”. I mean, don’t get me wrong: it’s great to teach from personal experience, but where is that line in the sand that separates that from abject hypocrisy?

Thing is: you’d think I’d know better. You’d think I would’ve seen the signs and this would’ve been an easy trap for me to avoid. I’ve written pages and pages on authenticity and Sovereignty, after all, haven’t I? Yet, here I am; stick a coin in my ass and I’ll play you my archaeology and spirituality playlist; I’ll be your scholar-for-the-day, careful to remain serious so that you’ll take me seriously because the things I have to teach are super serious. Anything less, and people might think I’m not as smart as I say I am. Anything less than what people have come to expect, and suddenly I’m no longer real. Because that has been my life for the last twenty-six years: the second I no longer fit into someone’s neat little box of who they think I’m supposed to be, I become the figment of someone else’s imagination.

None of the rest of you out there (unless you’re a dead guy, too) can possibly know what that’s like. If you don’t fit into somebody’s preconceived notion of you, the worst that happens for you is they decide one or the other version of you is “fake”; they might label you “two-faced”, but you don’t simply cease to exist. Yet that’s what I’m up against. It has happened to me countless times before, and I really need it to not happen again, especially not right now. So stick a coin in my ass and I’ll play you my archaeology and spiritualiy playlist; I’ll be your scholar-for-the-day, careful to remain serious so that you’ll take me seriously because the things I have to teach are super serious and I seriously want to remain real. Being a non-person sucks.

It’s too sad, Amanda.

I spent my whole life typecast as the “charming pretty boy”, hiding the poet and the scholar behind a thin veneer of cool because I knew neither of those things fit the description the world had written on the outside of my “box”. I wanted to break free of that so badly in death that I built a new box, one that says poet and scholar right there in big letters on the outside of the box, for all the world to see. But the bottom line is, a box is still a box, and there’s a reason why all boxes say, in fine print somewhere “this box is not a toy; keep away from small children”: people can suffocate inside of boxes, and I have been and I am.

There was an episode of Legends of Tomorrow on the CW a couple of weeks ago where one of the main characters found herself trapped in her own personal version of limbo, and one of the aspects of that was rows and rows and rows of giant toy dolls of her, all lined up in boxes, with convenient labels on the outside. Each “doll” was an aspect of the totality of her: there was “action” her, and “gentle” her, and “authoritative” her. And as her girlfriend frantically ran down through those rows and rows of boxes, I realized sometimes my Beloved and my friends must feel the same way, when dealing with me: which Connla are we going to play with today, boys and girls? Archaeologist Connla? Vitki Connla? Goofy Connla?

Sad Connla. Today, we are unboxing Sad Connla. I have a humble feeling he’s not gonna be this year’s Toy of the Year.

I’m not gonna be this year or any other year’s Toy of the Year because guess what? I’m not a toy! I’m a real man; a male individual. I’m not a figment of anybody’s imagination, and I don’t need anyone else’s definition of me in order to be real. I don’t need anybody else’s definition of me to make me smart, either. I know my shit; I know what I’m talking about, and how I present that material shouldn’t decide whether or not it’s accurate, the accompanying bibliography as well as my hours upon hours of study and experience should do that, all by themselves. Anyone who cannot register a difference between my writing voice and Michelle’s or anyone else’s—or, for that matter, my speaking voice—needs to read or listen more closely. That’s not my problem, or even her problem; it’s their problem. I’m officially taping an “Out of Order” sign over the coin slot that the world has carved into my ass.

I am Connla Freyjason: an Amer-Asian dude with his own damn voice, his own damn identity, and his own damn personality. I have a voice, and it is my own, and from now on, it will distinctly be that. I was a “real boy” before I died, and I’m still that guy. Yeah, I’ve grown a lot over the last twenty-six years; let’s hope we all have. When we stop growing: that’s when we’re well and truly dead. I am an archaeologist (yes, I’m still learning in that department, too; so is every other archaeologist in the world if they’re worth a damn!), a Vitki and Freyjasgodhi (still learning in that department, too; so is every other spiritual teacher, regardless of path, if they’re likewise worth a damn!), a spouse, a housekeeper, a kitty-daddy, a loyal friend, a writer, a poet, an artist, and a whole lot of other things that I refuse to keep hiding away from the world for the sake of fitting into somebody else’s neat little box. Take it from a guy who is in a position to know: life is far too short to live it inside a box. I’m dead, and I know things; I’ll leave the drinking to Tyrion Lannister….

I am no longer sad, Amanda, and I am nobody’s coin-operated boy!