Ariadne's Thread (Le fil d'Ariane) by Moebius
Any Real World fans out there?
You know, the show were they put a group of strangers together in a very cool house and film them for like six months while they drink and party, fall in love and fight, look for jobs and get fired, and generally just be 20-somethings?
I was living in Peru when that show started getting popular and I loved it. Now remember, this was 1995. Dial up internet was just getting started, I chatted with my friends after school on AOL Intant Messenger, and Blockbuster was the biggest American cultural export in Lima where we lived.
As a budding expat pre-teen I ate it up. This was real American life afterall!
My favorite season was Real World Hawaii with out gay folks, people from blended families, unrequited loves, and of course, one massive drinking problem.
Ruthie, one of the cast members, was a blackout binge drinker though she was far from being the only one on the show. She was just the one whose alcoholism was abcessing on TV, a situation which first clued me in to showrunners.
Up until that point, I just thought it was cameramen filming and directors making chronological and completely neutral footage, like news reporting.
But when Ruthie started driving drunk one night, the producers came out from behind the cameras and stopped the situation. I remember being astounded at how many crew people there were just out of sight.
I won’t say it ruined reality TV for me, but it did remove some eye wool. Since then I’ve learned these people are called ‘showrunners’ and they do a lot of running behind the scenes to manufacture all kinds of good-for-TV drama.
Reality TV has come a long way since early days Real World.
We’ve come to expect, and even encourage, a certain amount of manufactured drama. Far from helping people get into rehab and address their drinking problems, show runners nowadays make sure there’s champaign in everyone’s hands from sun up to well after midnight.
There was even a scripted TV show, unReal, all about the truly insane showrunners working behind the scenes on a Bachelorette-like show.
The only reality TV I watch these days is Great British Baking Show (also highly produced) and Hoarders when I’m feeling real trashy.
But this question remains no matter what I watch; who’s the real showrunner here? On GBBS it seems like Paul and the judges are in charge, but I think they’re just filling a role.
On Hoarders, there’s some kind of diabolical showrunner who slots in a psychotherapist to confront someone with their own sickness and make it appear as if whatever mental illness that leads to hoarding can be cleared up with a dumpster and a scrubbed fridge.
We all know it’s not gonna work but I love to see them try.
But I’ve come to really appreciate the idea of a showrunner in real life.
In fact, it’s my number one questions when I’m working with clients; who’s this person’s showrunner?
Is it the voice of their ancestral lineage telling them forgiveness is for the weak and family loyalty is the most important value? Is it bone-deep religious programming from their childhood church still keeping them vigilant for sin and threatening them with inner shame?
Or perhaps it’s their father’s voice telling them not to pursue anything artistic because look how poor and disgraced you’ll be in front of your male peers? Or maybe mom’s voice trying to convince you of the societal limitations of being in a female body and just have kids already.
I myself have some pretty brutal showrunners that will install themselves in my head if I’m not careful.
I’ve got the showrunner who tells me to ignore signals from my body (needing to pee, needing to go for a walk, needing to eat) because this email I’m working on is wayyyy more important than that.
Or the showrunner who tells me I’ll be safe if I always play nice and never get into a confrontation. Or the one who jumps on my shoulder every time I drive a car and informs me that every other driver is suddenly a supreme idiot and it’s my right to punish them by cutting them off or not letting them merge, those morons.
Good and Evil by André-Jacques-Victor Orsel
Don’t feel bad if you’re suddenly identifying an inner showrunner. It’s part of the game of life.
We’ll all have to try on a few different showrunners over the course of our lifetime(s). It’s kind of like a spiritual experiment we all get to have with our own souls.
Of course everyone always tries the Guru showrunner (at least for a few lifetimes). This is where you hand your spiritual power over to someone who seems to have all the answers but eventually ends up just emptying your bank account.
And everyone loves to make a romantic partner their showrunner. Some people make societally-validated productivity their showrunner and work til the day they die even though they could retire and spend time with the grandkids.
And don’t get me started on the folks who have Victimhood and Martyrdom as their showrunners. My god, what a dramatic show they can make out of that.
But eventually, every spiritual showrunner meets its end.
We realize that these showrunners are actually kind of limited. They’re full of fear, contraction, and usually a lot of separatist anger. They keep us isolated and stuck, and they have no imagination for the future.
The truth is, the only showrunner you really want behind the scenes is - you guessed it! - Spirit. In other words, the energy of presence, compassion, faith, and creativity.
You want the pure form vibes of sovereignty, seniority, and clarity running your show. You want the showrunner who will show you things as they really are and then encourage you to get in there and astound yourself with your own capability and power.
More than anything, you want the showrunner of unconditional love.
This is the showrunner that protects your self-worth and inner worthiness from anything that would tell you you’re ‘less than.’ This showrunner endlessly forgives all past mistakes, releases your chains from ancestral trauma, gently squishes your perfectionism, and encourages you to see the astounding magnificence of life all around.
In other words, Spirit is the only showrunner you’ll ever need.
Now! If, in the course of reading this newsletter, you’ve realized your show is being run by manipulative demiurges with fear-filled bloated egos, I’ve got just the thing! Book a session, let’s see who's running your show, and let’s fire them together.
Amen, somebody. Amen.
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