America's Got Talent and Giving Your Power Away

When I was a child I wanted to be a singer. I sang a lot, played the guitar. I also started learning the piano. But I let my dreams be taken away from me, until in the end I believed I couldn't sing or play piano well at all. Eventually I forgot how to sing, thus fulfilling the prophecy that my dreams of being a serious musician were delusions of grandeur.

But they burned at me. Then about five years ago I opened the door again. Started playing the piano, and went to singing lessons. Spent most of the time crying! Gradually I got my voice back, and with it my dream re-emerged.

But alas as soon as I tried to sing in front of somebody my voice would disappear. Just couldn't sing. It was really weird. I didn't give up, but I lost focus, backed off and have been in a kind of limbo ever since. It's no fun, limbo. Last night I watched some of the America's Got Talent NYC auditions and something clicked into place.

I usually get impatient with these competitive reality shows because I can't stand the pompous arrogance of the judges and how they enjoy tearing somebody apart. I think it's weird that audiences crave this kind of persecution. In Roman times people watched men being thrown to the lions and ripped apart; during the French Revolution and after the crowds gathered to watch heads being chopped off; in the Dark Ages they amassed to watch people being burned at the stake.

Now emotional brutalization draws the crowds. The most twisted part of it is that exceptionally talented, brave artists expose themselves to this kind of emotional flaying, believing it's the only passage to seeing their dreams come true. Last night in America's Got Talent a young woman in her late twenties got up on stage. She auditioned for Idols ten years ago and didn't make it. She gave up. Or she tried, but some part of her couldn't.

10 years later, here she was, seeing if she could make her dream come true one more time. You didn't have a clue looking at her that she was any good. She was terrified and seemed mousy, apologetic. You could see her yearning, but she didn't look as if she had any real power. Nevertheless, she'd overcome all that to at least make it to the stage. The amount of courage that takes is awesome.

Then she started singing. She brought the house down. Unbelieveable. It was the most soulful, musically satisfying performance I've seen in a long time. She poured it out, and held nothing back at all. There was a kind of raw but polished vitality to her singing that thrilled. Of course she made it through to the next round, and got great strokes from audience and judges, as she deserved. The woman who walked off stage was a very different person to the one who walked on. She had found her power and exercised it brilliantly.

I sat thinking about her for ages. It's incredible to me that someone of her musical caliber could have given up because she didn't win Idols! She's a stunning performer, but she pinned all her hopes on one show, and when she didn't win she thought her career didn't have a chance. I wonder what'll happen if she doesn't win this time round. Will she give up again? It was clear last night that she believed this is her last chance.

Her last chance! With a voice and a soul like that!

These reality shows of emotional bloodlust and spectacle have really distorted what a singing career is about and what success is if you really have talent.

It's about letting your heart out through your music, giving expression to your soul. It's not about money and it's not about conquering the world. Those things happen in consequence, for better or for worse, but it seems these reality shows have made people forget that if you've got it, nothing can stop it, and there's never just one chance. There are countless chances, they keep being generated, so long as you keep going and allowing yourself to be open to them.

In fact that's true no matter how talented you are. Didn't Einstein say he wasn't smarter than anybody else, he just never gave up? Good on you, Einstein.

The shows are entertaining, thrilling, exciting, and make great careers for some, but it's a bit unreal, and doesn't last, because as soon as somebody wins the next round is already happening, and the public has forgotten them. And what if you're brilliant but that night is your off-night? That's it? You give up on your dreams?

Worst of all, Idols and America's Got Talent make people think that their capacity for success is in somebody else's hands. It isn't. It's in their hands. Great singers become great because they sing all the time, they exercise their talent, they work, they don't give up when people reject them. They don't let others be the ultimate authority even if those others are three judges and 47 million people. It's the journey that keeps them there, not some illusion of a destination that by definition is fleeting anyway.

The woman, whose name I can't remember, was flying, vocally. What, I wonder, stops her from getting gigs and just singing? Is there anybody who wouldn't pay to listen to her? I seriously doubt it. She was unutterably beautiful, and I'm sure that if she let herself take the small steps, she'd make it all the way to the top, she'd have the world at her feet. And whether she did or not wouldn't matter, because she'd be enjoying her journey. She doesn't need to win America's Got Talent or Idols. I hope she realizes that.

Whether she does or not, watching and listening to her, I could see that the only thing stopping her from fulfilling her dream was her ridiculous idea that she only had one chance! It gave me the inspiration I needed to see that whatever is stopping me is equally ridiculous. I don't have the kind of voice or power that she has but that doesn't mean I can't have my journey and my dream. I can.