Shane
06-14-2010, 04:21 PM
Author's note: About a month ago, my mom blacked out while standing in the kitchen. She had been losing blood and they said she should have had a stroke. They found cancer, too. They haven't been able to do anything about the cancer because they needed to know if it had spread. When they sought to know this, they found an infection that prevented the process. My mom has been weak and her mind has certainly been affected. As I am only home for the summer, I chose to disconnect the internet, and have spent most of my time helping with her. Today, we got a good report, the first one thus far. Next month she will go to UNC and hopefully we will know if the tumors are isolated.
This experience has caused me to look with fresh eyes at what it means to be bored. I have spent my spare time sitting in a chair that looks like a recliner but is actually a rocking chair. I, like probably most of you, have the capability to never be bored...yet, I now think this is a perversion of what it means to be human. The over-consumption of everything around us is directly related to the refusal to be bored. I highly recommend, once and awhile, breaking with everything you're "used to doing," doing nothing, then putting your schedule back together and figuring out how much of your normal routine was healthy or necessary. I hope the columns I write, when I can write them, will not be disappointing.
I am believing the best and the frequency of my columns will depend on the space available in my mind which will depend on how things go with my mom. One guy here actually reached out and forced this conversation out of me. I won't say his name, but he told me to give my mom a bear hug.
Shanetime (015)
The Ego Trip
(part 1)
Life is a constant journey. Anyone with a little age can attest to this. How particularly difficult this must be for the professional wrestler, particularly for a veteran who has given most of his life to the business. His journey is a dual-journey. He must attend to both his professional and personal evolution and growth. Sometimes changes in one can affect the other: like how HBK and his drug years bled into the DX-Michaels-persona or how his religious transformation paved the way for his return and change. This column is not about HBK, at least not directly. It is about a wrestler who has been on the national scene for almost 15 years and in the wrestling business much longer. My research began as a non-wrestling study of the ego but moved all-too-smoothly into the journey of a professional wrestler, of Chris Jericho.
Egoist
The ego is the "I." Therefore, we are best suited to begin with the personal aspect rather than the professional. Already we face a collision of thought: is the ego a good or bad thing? Is it positive or negative? Certainly it can be either. For Chris Jericho, it was necessary and essential, especially in WCW, which served as a birdcage to anyone with the ability to fly.
Being an egoist has nothing to do with what you say; it has everything to do with what you are. Understanding this principle will transform the way you look at Chris Jericho and maybe even yourself. If you look at the early WCW days of Chris Jericho, you would not be able to find ego in his words. Jericho describes an early promo as "wooden as a stake" and tells of how he would sit and watch the masters in WCW (guys like Flair and Arn, for example) do promos. Jericho was learning that you had to sell yourself, but he must have already sold himself...to himself. It takes an egoist to sit on the floor at the feet of the masters while they do their promos. One might think this shows humility. One would be wrong. The Disciples sat at the feet of Jesus only by invitation. No one--not Bischoff, Hogan, or Flair--had extended an invitation to the Canadian whose job description probably read something like, "Be the cruiserweight. Wrestle. Hide under your mask. Don't speak." When Chris Jericho was in the room, he was only taking up space. Yet, he demanded this space! Even if it were on the floor, overlooked and unused.
The audacity--the ego!--of a man who could not perform verbally (and wasn't expected to) to begin the process of dreaming up a persona based on character. It was his mind that created the Lionheart, a multi-dimensional character who was Warrior-esque in that he became a philosophy, a catchphrase machine, and (dare I say) a way of life. Sometimes I wonder if he wished, nay expected, to be worshiped. Considering he couldn't even get regular time on TV, I'd say that's a hell of an ego.
Good thing, too. From that ego ascended The Paragon of Virtue, The Ayatollah of Rock N Rolla, Your Role Model, and the Epicenter of Excitement.
Also: Monday Night Jericho
And: Jerichoholics.
And: Ralphus (case closed).
Jericho's self-belief was all he had in WCW. He used it as a springboard to launch himself up and out of the world of "Vanilla Midgets," over Kevin Nash, Hulk Hogan, and Ted Turner's money and into the world of entertainment.
Egotist
A glaring problem with WCW was their failure to pick up on what was happening in their own arenas. Consider the built-in panel of a live audience. Even Scott Hall knew to take a survey every week, and still WCW could not translate that into understanding that Chris Jericho was connecting like nobody outside of an nWo t-shirt. Remember the phrase "missing what is right under your nose?" Well, 20,000 fans weekly is a gigantic nose, and Chris Jericho was scratching and picking it each week and WCW didn't even notice the blood trickle!
The Egoist had tapped into the Egotist. Being an egotist has everything to do with the extra "t", it is how you talk. Jericho had created a way of life and saw it reflected in the signs in the arena and the weekly reactions. He points out, correctly, that two of his hottest feuds (two of WCW's hottest feuds, as well) came against Dean Malenko and Bill Goldberg. What is so intriguing about these angles is both were at their hottest when Dean Malenko and Bill Goldberg were not involved! Jericho didn't need a partner in order to dance; he wondered if there existed a partner verbally who would not slow him down.
Still, it would have been reaching to translate this ability to talk into being more than a US champion, if that. WCW had rejected his request to join Raven's flock and only requested he join the nWo when it became mandatory that every heel do so. Fed up, Jericho rejected the offer to join the nWo. Jericho rejected his contract extension. Finally, Jericho rejected a pay raise to stay with WCW.
See, the vision of the egoist aligned with the abilities of the egotist had allowed him to both dream and expect something entirely out of his league. Chris Jericho believed he belonged on the same platform as the Rock! In keeping with the illustration of Jesus and the Disciples, understand that for WCW's Chris Jericho to even view himself on the same stage as the Rock in the privacy of his imagination was more blasphemous than if a Disciple claimed to be capable of greater things than Christ! First off, unlike the Disciples, Jericho had still not been invited to the big boy's table. Moreover, Jesus himself said, "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me, will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these..." Nobody in the wrestling world was saying anyone would do greater things than the Rock. Keep in mind "The Great One" was in the process of transcending the wrestling world with his single-tier-verbiage. Therefore, Chris Jericho, who had to create his own design for a t-shirt and whore himself until WCW would "waste" the marketing effort on him; Chris Jericho, who couldn't get a major push; Chris Jericho, who WCW thought it blasphemy to even be squashed by Goldberg on pay-per-view; this same Chris Jericho saw himself on the level with the one man who was not only at the top of the sport but beyond it.
Chris Jericho saw himself as able to transcend wrestling. This will be very important later. For now, can you see it?
The Countdown Clock.
As you visualize the clock, you are seeing what Jericho saw in thought before anyone spoke it out loud. You are seeing how belief in self promotes a vision which promotes hard work which eventually translates from dream to reality. But what is the distance between a dream and reality? 10 seconds? 5?
4
3
2
1
Welcome to the new reality. Chris Jericho has arrived as Y2J, and he is standing on stage with The Rock.
Let the Ego Trip continue.
This experience has caused me to look with fresh eyes at what it means to be bored. I have spent my spare time sitting in a chair that looks like a recliner but is actually a rocking chair. I, like probably most of you, have the capability to never be bored...yet, I now think this is a perversion of what it means to be human. The over-consumption of everything around us is directly related to the refusal to be bored. I highly recommend, once and awhile, breaking with everything you're "used to doing," doing nothing, then putting your schedule back together and figuring out how much of your normal routine was healthy or necessary. I hope the columns I write, when I can write them, will not be disappointing.
I am believing the best and the frequency of my columns will depend on the space available in my mind which will depend on how things go with my mom. One guy here actually reached out and forced this conversation out of me. I won't say his name, but he told me to give my mom a bear hug.
Shanetime (015)
The Ego Trip
(part 1)
Life is a constant journey. Anyone with a little age can attest to this. How particularly difficult this must be for the professional wrestler, particularly for a veteran who has given most of his life to the business. His journey is a dual-journey. He must attend to both his professional and personal evolution and growth. Sometimes changes in one can affect the other: like how HBK and his drug years bled into the DX-Michaels-persona or how his religious transformation paved the way for his return and change. This column is not about HBK, at least not directly. It is about a wrestler who has been on the national scene for almost 15 years and in the wrestling business much longer. My research began as a non-wrestling study of the ego but moved all-too-smoothly into the journey of a professional wrestler, of Chris Jericho.
Egoist
The ego is the "I." Therefore, we are best suited to begin with the personal aspect rather than the professional. Already we face a collision of thought: is the ego a good or bad thing? Is it positive or negative? Certainly it can be either. For Chris Jericho, it was necessary and essential, especially in WCW, which served as a birdcage to anyone with the ability to fly.
Being an egoist has nothing to do with what you say; it has everything to do with what you are. Understanding this principle will transform the way you look at Chris Jericho and maybe even yourself. If you look at the early WCW days of Chris Jericho, you would not be able to find ego in his words. Jericho describes an early promo as "wooden as a stake" and tells of how he would sit and watch the masters in WCW (guys like Flair and Arn, for example) do promos. Jericho was learning that you had to sell yourself, but he must have already sold himself...to himself. It takes an egoist to sit on the floor at the feet of the masters while they do their promos. One might think this shows humility. One would be wrong. The Disciples sat at the feet of Jesus only by invitation. No one--not Bischoff, Hogan, or Flair--had extended an invitation to the Canadian whose job description probably read something like, "Be the cruiserweight. Wrestle. Hide under your mask. Don't speak." When Chris Jericho was in the room, he was only taking up space. Yet, he demanded this space! Even if it were on the floor, overlooked and unused.
The audacity--the ego!--of a man who could not perform verbally (and wasn't expected to) to begin the process of dreaming up a persona based on character. It was his mind that created the Lionheart, a multi-dimensional character who was Warrior-esque in that he became a philosophy, a catchphrase machine, and (dare I say) a way of life. Sometimes I wonder if he wished, nay expected, to be worshiped. Considering he couldn't even get regular time on TV, I'd say that's a hell of an ego.
Good thing, too. From that ego ascended The Paragon of Virtue, The Ayatollah of Rock N Rolla, Your Role Model, and the Epicenter of Excitement.
Also: Monday Night Jericho
And: Jerichoholics.
And: Ralphus (case closed).
Jericho's self-belief was all he had in WCW. He used it as a springboard to launch himself up and out of the world of "Vanilla Midgets," over Kevin Nash, Hulk Hogan, and Ted Turner's money and into the world of entertainment.
Egotist
A glaring problem with WCW was their failure to pick up on what was happening in their own arenas. Consider the built-in panel of a live audience. Even Scott Hall knew to take a survey every week, and still WCW could not translate that into understanding that Chris Jericho was connecting like nobody outside of an nWo t-shirt. Remember the phrase "missing what is right under your nose?" Well, 20,000 fans weekly is a gigantic nose, and Chris Jericho was scratching and picking it each week and WCW didn't even notice the blood trickle!
The Egoist had tapped into the Egotist. Being an egotist has everything to do with the extra "t", it is how you talk. Jericho had created a way of life and saw it reflected in the signs in the arena and the weekly reactions. He points out, correctly, that two of his hottest feuds (two of WCW's hottest feuds, as well) came against Dean Malenko and Bill Goldberg. What is so intriguing about these angles is both were at their hottest when Dean Malenko and Bill Goldberg were not involved! Jericho didn't need a partner in order to dance; he wondered if there existed a partner verbally who would not slow him down.
Still, it would have been reaching to translate this ability to talk into being more than a US champion, if that. WCW had rejected his request to join Raven's flock and only requested he join the nWo when it became mandatory that every heel do so. Fed up, Jericho rejected the offer to join the nWo. Jericho rejected his contract extension. Finally, Jericho rejected a pay raise to stay with WCW.
See, the vision of the egoist aligned with the abilities of the egotist had allowed him to both dream and expect something entirely out of his league. Chris Jericho believed he belonged on the same platform as the Rock! In keeping with the illustration of Jesus and the Disciples, understand that for WCW's Chris Jericho to even view himself on the same stage as the Rock in the privacy of his imagination was more blasphemous than if a Disciple claimed to be capable of greater things than Christ! First off, unlike the Disciples, Jericho had still not been invited to the big boy's table. Moreover, Jesus himself said, "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me, will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these..." Nobody in the wrestling world was saying anyone would do greater things than the Rock. Keep in mind "The Great One" was in the process of transcending the wrestling world with his single-tier-verbiage. Therefore, Chris Jericho, who had to create his own design for a t-shirt and whore himself until WCW would "waste" the marketing effort on him; Chris Jericho, who couldn't get a major push; Chris Jericho, who WCW thought it blasphemy to even be squashed by Goldberg on pay-per-view; this same Chris Jericho saw himself on the level with the one man who was not only at the top of the sport but beyond it.
Chris Jericho saw himself as able to transcend wrestling. This will be very important later. For now, can you see it?
The Countdown Clock.
As you visualize the clock, you are seeing what Jericho saw in thought before anyone spoke it out loud. You are seeing how belief in self promotes a vision which promotes hard work which eventually translates from dream to reality. But what is the distance between a dream and reality? 10 seconds? 5?
4
3
2
1
Welcome to the new reality. Chris Jericho has arrived as Y2J, and he is standing on stage with The Rock.
Let the Ego Trip continue.