When You’re Reached The End

0 CommentsWednesday • June 1, 2011 • by Imei

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Last year, I went through a period of time when eighteen people I knew were going through breakups and divorces. There is never a more painful or bitter moment when you realize that everything you worked for has come crashing down, and all you feel you’ve got to look forward to is the end. Endings can often say more about a person than beginnings. Endings can be confusing, ambiguous, abrupt, unfair, unsupported, surprising, clean, growth-producing, or overdone. But in many cases, we actually have a choice in how things end, even if that end is our response to death and dying. Endings are also interesting to look at in regards to art and business, when the curtain is about to drop, or an idea has been played out and there is nothing more to do or say.

I find that some of the most successful stories about art projects and business ventures (and art projects that are business ventures in themselves) involve the collaborators and investors sense of knowing when to end the thing. When does something need to die or go away? When does it need to be passed to someone else and given new life? Like vintage clothes, somethings get loved on elsewhere. Others just get misused…or not used at all, depending on the energy of the owner. But all of them have a sense of when it’s time to jump off the boat or turn the wheel over to someone else.

Skip over to 7:30 to catch the line that has been playing in my mind since I saw it. Sid says, “A ha ha, do you ever get the feeling that you’ve been cheated?” It comes at the end of the tour, described by one person I know as nothing short of train wreck. The audience gets a miserable song, and then the concert ends with Sid’s line. Well, it’s a great wake up call to knowing when to end! At concerts, the lights come up, the musicians walk of the stage, and the audience applauds. But in other artistic ventures, we’re often on our own to figure out when something has seen its life.

While futzing at the computer the other day, I had “America’s Got Talent” playing on the Google TV. I actually appreciate that the show plays the acts that got quickly canned, as well as the ones that surprise and delight with sheer talent. One of the acts involved a middle aged singer (who was not a professional) and two backup dancers (who were not professional dancers). They were canned by the judges within ten seconds of the opening of their act, but the lead member refused to quit. The audience booed. He kept on singing. The moderator requested the piece be started again: “He hasn’t really warmed up to show you what he can do.” The piece begins again, and it’s still lousy. The audience boos, the judges can him again, and he STILL WILL NOT QUIT. One of the judges makes a comment: this man is the most delusional man in regards to his actual level of talent that the judge has ever encountered.

While that statement is likely true, I think everyone gets robbed when someone doesn’t know when to quit. I got robbed of a minute of my life. The audience got cheated; the judges were set up. Even the performers weren’t handled well; perhaps they should never have been allowed on the stage unless they were coached to accept a humiliating end for the sake of entertaining the masses.

I found moment wickedly painful to watch. This is the perfect example of someone not knowing when to quit [two other "dancers" in other acts fell off the stage by accident, which provides natural "endings" and indications that they should stop]. Hopefully, it doesn’t take something like falling off a stage for you or I to consider terminating projects and ventures that need to end, or recreating something with the right pieces in place.

I’ve put more than my share of things in the ground (playing the flute, for example, which I loved, but didn’t really have the soul for it). Have you? Have you ever noticed what comes after the end or the “death” of the thing? Maybe you’ll be “a ha ha”ing too.

Posted in: Art, Business, mental heath

Tagged with: art, business, ending, ending projects, termination