Things That Only Others Can Bring Out
The writers C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams were part of an informal literary club known as The Inklings. Shortly after Williams unexpectedly died, Lewis realized he stopped hearing the way Tolkien specifically laughed at a specifically Williams joke. Which made him then realize, Lewis wrote, “In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets.” Stories in which others call out of someone something that might have otherwise been left dormant—that’s what this SIX at 6 is all about.
Tell Them About The Dream, Martin!
Shortly after meeting at the National Baptist Convention in 1956, Martin Luther King Jr. and the gospel singer Mahalia Jackson became good friends. King confided his hopes and dreams in Jackson, and when he felt down, he would call her and say, “Mahalia, I’m having a rough day. Sing for me.” “Mahalia would sing to him in the phone,” one of King’s biographers, Clarence B. Jones, writes. “He would listen to her voice, and sometimes tears would come down his face…She was not just his favorite gospel singer, she was practically his muse.” On August 28, 1963, before King took the speaker’s podium at the historic March on Washington, he asked his muse to sing to the audience of 250,000. So when King began to give his prepared speech, his muse was behind him, where, at one point, Jackson can be heard shouting, “Tell them about the dream, Martin! Tell them about the dream!” Only because it came from Jackson, Jones writes, “could he instantly understand the value of the suggestion and run with it. In an instant, Martin saw the opportunity in front of him. He saw it through Mahalia’s eyes.” Brought out of him by Jackson and against the advice of his advisors (the night before, one advisor explicitly told King, “Don’t use the lines about ‘I have a dream.’ It’s trite, it’s cliche.”), King went off-script and began to improvise some of the most famous lines in history, “I have a dream that one day…”
Artists Don’t Come From Nowhereville, Ohio
Austin Kleon grew up in the middle of a cornfield in Circleville, Ohio. So, he writes, “I never thought an artist was something I could be. I didn’t know any artists, I didn’t grow up around any artists. I had it in my head that artists didn’t come from little places like Circleville, Ohio.” When he was a sophomore in college at Miami University of Ohio, he learned that his school had this “Leadership in The Arts” program. Essentially, a select group of students were flown out to New York City for an all-expenses-paid week-long trip in which they met Miami University alumni who were working in the arts. “That trip changed everything for me,” Austin told me. “It completely shifted that narrative in my head from like, ‘artists don’t come from Nowhereville, Ohio,’ to, ‘there are people who were exactly where you are and made it in the arts. I don’t know how I’m going to get there, but I now know it’s a possibility.’” After that trip, he writes, “I knew what I wanted to be: I wanted to be an artist.”
Let’s Do That Free Fallin’ Song, Tom
Tom Petty’s first solo album, “Full Moon Fever,” includes some all-time great songs: Free Fallin’, I Won’t Back Down, and Runnin’ Down a Dream. But when Petty took the album to his record label, MCA, in 1987, they rejected it. There are no hits on here, the MCA executives said. “I was hurt so bad,” Petty said of the rejection. “It was just a board to the forehead.” “The rejection knocked him down,” Petty’s biographer writes. Petty was depressed. He stopped making music. And he tried to completely forget about the album. Then, Petty went to a dinner hosted by two Warner Bros. Records executives, Mo Ostin and Lenny Waronker. After dinner, another musician in attendance, Petty’s friend George Harrison (the lead guitarist of the Beatles), said, “Let’s get the guitars out and sing a little bit.” Petty, still down about the rejection, didn’t really want to, but Harrison insisted. After they played a couple of songs, Harrison said, “Let’s do that Free Fallin’song, Tom. Play that.” After Petty sang Free Fallin’, Waronker said, “that’s a hit.” “Well, [MCA] won’t put it out,” Petty said. Then Osten said, “I’ll fuckin’ put it out.” With his band, The Heartbreakers, Petty was locked into a contract with MCA, so he couldn’t release an album with Warner Bros. But he could tell MCA about Warner Bros.’ interest in the album. That’s what he did. “I went back [to MCA] and I played them the same record,” Petty said. And after MCA learned that another label was interested in the record, Petty said, “They put it out. And it was a huge hit.”
A Yearning That’s Bigger Than Your Body
While directing a play in 7th grade, Greta Gerwig got made fun of repeatedly. Her classmates called her “bossy” and “annoying” enough times that she deliberately stopped showing all of her facets. She gave up her dream of being a director, and instead, she pursued a more solitary career: writing. Then she met the director Sally Potter, who immediately sensed something about Gerwig. The two met at a party in 2012, about 17 years after seventh-grade-Greta gave up on directing. So, Gerwig explains, “I asked her about writing.” What’s your process? How do you write? Do you do it first thing in the morning? Do you write longhand? At first, Potter was kind and answered Gerwig’s questions. “But then,” Gerwig says, “she grabbed me by the arm, and she said, ‘Why don’t you ask me what you really want to ask me?’” Greta was confused, “What do I really want to ask you?” “You really want to ask me about directing,” Potter said. “How do you know that?” Greta asked. “It’s written all over you,” Potter replied. “The word is ‘dor,’ which means, ‘a yearning that’s bigger than your body.’ You have that and you need to do it. You need to be a director.” Four years later, Gerwig and Potter met a second time—this time at an event for Gerwig’s directorial debut: the award-winning movie, Lady Bird. “She came up to me,” Gerwig says, “and she said, ‘You did it.’”
An Extinguished Piece of Coal
One of my favorite ways to visualize the effect others have on us comes from the Stoic philosopher Epictetus: “Place an extinguished piece of coal next to a live one, and either it will cause the other one to die out, or the live one will make the other reignite.” By ourselves we are not large enough to call the whole of us into activity. There are extinguished pieces within us that only others can ignite or reignite. There are things—hopes, dreams, and yearnings—that only others can fully bring out of us.