#23 The freedom to change, and why we need art
I already had an idea for this week’s newsletter when I was finishing the previous one, but then I got distracted by art. So prepare for a long read, or maybe park this one until you have more time.
On Friday, my dear friend L. and I went to see a rehearsal at the Paris Opera, and we noticed that the conductor was a woman, a rarity in the classical music world. I spent half of the night reading about her, sent her a message of admiration on Instagram, and can’t stop thinking about her story.
So even though the newsletter will still be about the freedom to change, we will all learn from Maria Seletskaja, as we did when we learned about Sylvie Guillem in a past edition.
The sunk cost of your previous life
Have you ever thought of a major transformation as a betrayal? A betrayal of yourself, of the people involved, of all the efforts put into something. When you have spent so much time being one person, it is sometimes very difficult to let go of that person.
The sunk cost in economics is the cost that has been incurred and cannot be recovered. The sunk cost fallacy is the cognitive bias that describes our tendency to continue to pursue unsuccessful endeavors simply because we have committed resources to it.
The decision science teaches us not to pay attention to sunk costs when making future decisions. The same should apply to life: let go of the past and focus on the future.
Authenticity does not equal rigidity
Continuing with the topic of whole self at work from the previous edition, one of the narrow definitions of authenticity is behavioral consistency. Some people take this misconception to the extreme by refusing to adapt their behavior to the demands of the situation. It is equally nonsensical to think that we should express our true self in every situation, since we all have multiple selves and self-complexity is part of who we are.
There are huge benefits to questioning your life and exploring the possibility of becoming different versions of yourself. There are endless ways to live your life, and the less attached you are to one thing, the broader your horizons will become.
How a principal ballet dancer became a conductor
Yes, that’s right. Before stepping on the conductor’s pit, Maria Seletskaja danced on the international stage for 15 years and performed with companies like the Royal Ballet of Flanders, Staatsballett Berlin, Zürich Ballet, and the Estonian National Ballet.
Seletskaja started playing piano very early in life and never abandoned it during her ballet time.While reflecting on her future after ballet, she once mentioned conducting to a musician friend. Maria was encouraged to pursue conducting, so she started observing conductors during rehearsals and eventually had the courage to talk to them.
She continued to dance while taking courses and gaining exposure to conducting. She then received personal tutoring and mentorship from celebrated conductors like Paul Connelly, James Tuggle, Paavo Järvi, and Rodolfo Saglimbeni.
In 2018, Seletskaja made her conducting debut at Stuttgart Ballet with La Fille mal gardée and took her final bow as a ballerina. She did all of this while also being a single mother to her beautiful son, Benjamin. According to her social media, Maria had a baby daughter in December last year with her partner, who is a pianist.
What fascinates me in this story is how Seletskaja was able to transition from one very challenging career to an even more difficult one, all while maintaining the humility and curiosity of a truly sincere and decent human being.
You don't actually know what your future self wants
In his TED talk, journalist Shankar Vedantam says that when we look forward, we tend to imagine that we will be the same people in the future. While that future version of ourselves will have different perspectives, preferences, and might even feel like a stranger.
He gives three pieces of advice in light of this:
Stay curious and be the curator of your future self. Spend time with people who are not just your friends and family, and spend time on avocations and professional pursuits that are not just what you do regularly. Expand your horizons, because if you are going to become someone different, you might as well be in charge of deciding who that person is going to be.
Practice humility. Whoever we are today, our future selves may disagree with us.
Be brave. Our future selves will have capacities, strengths, and wisdom that we do not possess today. So when we confront opportunities and tell ourselves, 'I don't think I have it in me to [insert your example],' what we really should be saying is 'I don't have the capacity to do those things today, but that doesn't mean I won't have the capacity to do those things tomorrow.'
So why did I put art into the title?
Seletskaja shared in her interviews how her mother told her to keep the piano in life while pursuing the ballet career. “One day when you grow up, you might experience strong feelings that might be good or bad, but you will not have enough words to express them. And then you will sit at your piano, and you will play your heart out.”
I can relate to that a lot. Ever since I moved to Paris, I started going to the Opera and later other theaters to see dance performances. For a long time, I couldn't understand why I would leave the theater feeling completely renewed so often. The same was true for exhibitions of abstract contemporary art. I was able at least to figure out that the energy that I saw on stage often matched my emotional state, and some choreographers and artists had a visual vocabulary that was close to how I saw the world. Mayerling, performed by Hugo Marchand last November, turned me inside out, even leading me to become a patron of the Paris Opera.
So a brief answer is that dance and abstract art is where I feel understood, and that complicity with art creates a strong driving force and helps me move forward.
On Saturday, I went to another rehearsal with my close friend H. That evening, there was quite a bit of turmoil at the Paris Opera. We had to do a test fire alarm evacuation, and then equipment got stuck, and they couldn't bring the curtain up for almost an hour. Hundreds of people patiently waited, and then the pianist of the orchestra started playing Gershwin to cheer us up. It was a beautiful moment of unity with all the strangers stuck together in the Palais Garnier. We laughed, applauded, and he made us all happy.
So whatever is going on in your life right now, listen to some Gershwin and you may feel understood. And then you will make another step forward.
No reading links today, since you have done quite a lot already.
Until next time,
Nat
To watch