This morning I spent half an hour listening to one of the best interviews I’ve heard in a very long time. Jian Ghomeshi, host of the outstanding CBC Radio arts and culture show Q, spoke with Mandy Patinkin about his career.
At the end of the interview, Patinkin mentioned that one of the things he loves about his life right now is that, unlike at earlier points, he relishes not knowing what will happen next. Ghomeshi asked him if he’s scared. This is, in part, how he replied:
I’ve been scared. Fear ran my life, and the greatest lesson I learned… has been to stop thinking that I could run away from fear, of any nature. And I’ve been learning and practicing to invite any and every kind of fear to sit right on my shoulder, give it a front seat… Let it make me shake and sweat and be terrorized. I will eventually get bored with it and proceed… I can’t run away from it. And so I’m learning and practicing to let it be there. And it will be part of my process, work, journey for the rest of my life. But it consumed me so up until this point, and I no longer am trying to escape it. I welcome it into my life, every second. I encourage it.
If ever there were a person whose wisdom I’d want to listen to on continuous loop, it’s him.
i heard that too. remarkable!
random aside… i heard him sing at a funeral once. i think it was the most moving thing i’d ever witnessed in synagogue.