in secret somewhere

[rm]

"You always feel like you are in the wrong place at Davos,
like there is some better meeting going on somewhere
in one of the hotels that you really ought to be at.
Like the real Davos is happening in secret somewhere."
- Steve Case, founder of AOL

I read this quote late last night and haven't really been able to stop thinking about it since. If you've ever been to a conference -- whether for work or school or fandom -- you've probably had this moment too. There's a glass in your hand, you're making small talk, maybe you're with your friends. Anyway, you're having a decent time, but the person you're talking to -- you're not looking them in the eye. Nope, you're looking over their shoulder just in case someone really cool/important/hot/prestigious walks into the room.

Look, I get this. I really do. Because I'm totally susceptible to it too. Over and over again.

But I want to tell you a secret.

You are not missing the cool party.

The cool party does not exist.

No, really.

I know you think I'm just saying that to make myself feel better or because I'm an idiot, but trust me, despite the lamentations linked to above I've also been at the cool party; I know the important people, I've been in the right place at the right time, and I've been told I'm special. And it's not any different than the party you're supposedly at instead.

It's really not.

Someone's making out with someone they don't know how to talk to. Someone is wondering if another drink will make them less bored. Someone is wondering why this person who is supposed to be their new best friend is such an asshole. Someone is wondering if they go home now, will they miss all the good stuff.

The secret about conventions and the cool party, the fabulous happenstance, or the movie magic moment is this: you bring it.

You take the moment you're given and you make it matter.

You look around at the people you're sitting with and you smile so wide it hurts your face and you let yourself feel like that line in Stand By Me as if these people are the best friends you will ever have, like the sort you had when you were twelve -- when life was scary and new and horrifying and malleable.

And if you can't find that moment in the party you're at? Well, go to a different one. But don't do it looking for the celebrity or the hottie to make out with or the deal. Don't do it to be chosen. Don't do it to be discovered. Don't do it looking for the gossip or the opportunity just to say Oh my god, and then he... and then she... and I WAS THERE.

Because, no matter how much you think you do, you don't actually care about that party.

You care about the party where you feel like magic, where you make the magic.

Chasing down societally approved versions of magic and wondering why it doesn't feel more awesome isn't going to bring the win.

Look, sometimes you're there. And sometimes you're not (seriously, let me tell you about the year I flipped a coin on a New Year's party decision and went to the one at which Ian McKellan and his 26-year-old boyfriend were not in attendance). Sometimes it's awesome and sometimes it's not. But you can't hunt the fabulous life. You can only make it right here and right now.

Shuck the jealousy, temper the envy, and shift your gaze a few inches back the other way and look at that person you're actually talking to right now. Laugh with that glass in your hand and lean forward and tell the best story ever.

This message brought to you by hey, I'm a guest at Dragon*Con 2010 wherein something totally absurd and awesome and surreal will probably happen to someone else while I'm nowhere goddamn near it.

And you know what?

That's grand.

Comments

[miscellanny.livejournal.com]

This is an awesome post. Thank you.

[tod-hollykim.livejournal.com]

Hey, cool is were you are at. Pure and simple. Sometimes it's better than someone else's cool. Sometimes it's not. And that's good, too.

But cool does happen. You just got to be open to it and it's not always big and dramatic. Sometimes it's small and just for you.

[podle.livejournal.com]

"The secret about conventions and the cool party, the fabulous happenstance, or the movie magic moment is this: you bring it."

Yes - this. Well put. Thank you.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

This is excellent. I'm blogging it.

[sixteenbynine.livejournal.com]

This is like the spiritual version of "why the other line moves faster," and for that reason completely excellent.

[pocketmouse]

Maybe it's my social anxiety disorder, but I never feel that way at parties. Why would I want to talk to people I don't know? I'm hard of hearing, and it's hard enough talking to the three or four people around me, possibly two of whom I know. And oh god everyone else is secretly talking about me (well, not GDL, but in small social gatherings, if I leave a group then come back, my paranoia strikes).

But -- if you aren't having fun, leave, and if you are having fun, why would you go somewhere else? I really don't understand the desire you talk about in posts like these. I don't want to be a minor part, a spectator. And at a con, that's the only role I could ever have. That's not the relationship I'd want, and I know I wouldn't have anything else.

[ckd]

You've put into words something which I think I managed to briefly comprehend last weekend during ConFusion...and which I hope to put into real practice going forward.

Thank you.

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

I'm reminded of the immortal words of Roger Ebert in his script for Beyond the Valley of the Dolls: "When does any party start? When you get there!"

[kaffy_r]

"You care about the party where you feel like magic, where you make the magic."

I can't tell you how much this resonated with me. Well-spotted, well done, good stuff.

[saoba.livejournal.com]

Oh. I want to make this into a tasteful flier and hand it out at high school assemblies! If even one kid gets it, you know, it would be time well spent.

thanks!

[cthulhia]

I should have this tattooed on me somewhere. or, laminated and in my purse, or... well, I suppose I could forward it to my phone.

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

Don't do it looking for the gossip or the opportunity just to say Oh my god, and then he... and then she... and I WAS THERE.

Someone who's there will post a transcript/details/pics on their journal anyway! :D

I love the internet!

[sunhawk.livejournal.com]

Great post! Very applicable to anyone in fandom who has some sort of emotional investment or just wants to be where the pretty people are. Would you mind if I reposted this entry on a fandom forum? If that's not cool, no worries :)

[fabricdragon.livejournal.com]

THIS
exactly this.

[wynkat1313.livejournal.com]

"You care about the party where you feel like magic, where you make the magic."

Yes. this. Absolutely.

I go to one con (ok, did before I got sick, will go again someday) because it is my passion, and I in the beginning I went party hopping looking for the right place to be.

Then in the off season during the next year or so I started doing the work I loved, brought the joy and end product of that work with me to the next con, and relaxed. I wandered the halls bouncing from joy to joy and this is truly what happened. I smiled and sat with people and had amazing conversations and the next thing I knew it was 4 am, I was covered in glitter, giddy, exhausted and invigorated.

We are our own magic.

And congrats on being a guest at Dragon*Con

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Resonance, I have it.

Lovely written post and oh so true. I often feel like I'm not where I'm supposed to be, but not because better things are happening else where, but because I'm stoked about being with all the cool kids! Or my lecturers :)

[delchi.livejournal.com]

There is a quote along those lines in Bright Lights, Big city ... and as soon as I find it I'll share. The thing is I think you have the perfect answer to it. I've had the exact feeling at hacker cons for years - and what you say applies just as well.

[mangosteen]

Completely agreed, and well said. Thank you.

A nearby concept is "I keep making more 'good old days' all the time."

[marcmagus]

rm++

[curly-chick.livejournal.com]

May I repost this? It's so great. I got it from mangosteen's livejournal.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

Here via mangosteen as well.

I really like your summation of 'be here now' as it applies to being social. I know a lot of people who suffer from Fear of Missing Something (FOMS for short) especially at conventions or parties, and this is an excellent explanation of why doing that can leave you deeply dissatisfied with your evening.

Lately I have been taking the laid back route to socialization. I figure, if I miss it, oh well. It gives someone else a story to tell me about 'how they were there when that thing happened'.

[nonlinearmusing.livejournal.com]

Love it! Words of wisdom. The grass isn't always greener on the other side. :)

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

The best party I was ever at involved a keg hidden deep inside a big city park, fireflies, and me being 16. Another best party involved a pool overlooking Clear Lake, and the fact that we weren't really supposed to be using it (belonged to the apartment complex next door, but you could sort of edge around the fence, out over the lake).

If I find any party, any time, with the sense of wonder I had at those, I will be there as quick as I can. I can't imagine anything a celebrity could contribute to that.

(Well, not strictly true. I've met some published authors who were extraordinary conversationalists. But whatever fame they had was a result of how interesting they were, not a cause.)

[coridan.livejournal.com]

Rock on! Well done.

A great bromide for me, who always gets nervous and feeling small at parties.

CB

[curriejean.livejournal.com]

I love this like fiery fiery burning wisdom and er, love. <3

[ex-serenejo.livejournal.com]

Oh, sing it.

[bugeyedmonster.livejournal.com]

Very wonderfully written... (now I'm wondering whether to term it as 'essay' or 'prose'.) Well, whatever it's termed as, you wrote this beautifully.

[miep.livejournal.com]

yes.

also, it's okay to leave teh party. the party will continue in your absence, and something wonderful may happen without you, and it's okay. it's okay to go home to your spouse/lover/child/cat.

and you might not be the one to tell the awesome story later, and that's alright, too.

[jslorentz.livejournal.com]

Fucking A! This is not only good great advice, it is also timely, as I'll be at Creating Change next week, and one of those deliciously thoughtful RM posts I've come to know and love. Thank you for sharing!

P.S. I suspect it extends beyond conferences to just about any party, all the way back to middle school.

[doctorpsycho60.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but...did you know that happens with marriages? With parenting? With, like, *lives*?

A year ago, I had to choose between two totally different lives, which offered me totally different benefits and challenges and inescapable regrets.

It literally drove me to the edge of insanity, and the only reason I have been able to embrace one of those lives (instead of losing both, which was a real possibility) is that I decided to get into the life I was having right there and then, and enjoy all the benefits it offered, and stop pining for the other life, which was No Longer An Option.

I think I'll go see if there are any cans of Mountain Dew left in the bathtub, but if instead I find someone dressed as a pirate sleeping in it, I'll deal with that outcome, too.

[natf.livejournal.com]

(added to memories)

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

"You take the moment you're given and you make it matter."

I think this is the hinge for me, the central point. And you're right. Sometimes you create the magic and create the cool party yourself; sometimes you're on the edge of it; sometimes you're the audience that hears about it. They're all good, valid places to be, if you make them matter.

[marrus.livejournal.com]

Well, spoke, R! And grats on re-guestdom - I should get me on that horse, ay?

[amberite.livejournal.com]

I applaud this post.

Only this year, since beginning to evaluate my life through the framework of having limited time to do cool stuff, have I realized how much cool stuff I've actually been doing all along, and how some of the social events I never really thought of as anything permanent were pieces of community-building that I think I'll care about for the rest of my life.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

Here via a link from roadnotes on a post of theferrett's.

Thank you - that's beautifully put.

I'd also add the coda that I tell anyone who can't make a party I'm running.

"There will be other parties."

Sometimes you have to work, sometimes you're not well, sometimes you just don't have the energy to go out.

There will be other parties, and they'll be great too.

[fallenpegasus]

And then comes the day when you are at a good party, with an interesting circle of people, and it seems like everything is worked and went well and you take away good memories and (you think) warm and positive connections with people.

And then you learn a month later that that "circle of friends" got together again, went and had another gathering, and another grand time. And forgot to invite you.

And when you confront one of them about it, the best you get is "Well, you weren't excluded, you just weren't... um... invited."

Your post is useful and warm and helpful and is a good model of interpretting the world, just for one's own mental health and happiness.

But, at the end of the day, people still suck, and yet you still have to figure out how to get alone with them.