The astonishingly true story in the documentary, Searching for Sugar Man, has a lesson for each of us. The film is about Rodriguez, a pleasant Detroit home remodeler and sometime musician who cut a couple of albums decades ago. The albums never sold, but that was okay, because he wasn’t all about success anyway. Without his knowing, bootlegged versions of his music made him a huge star in South Africa, where it was rumored he was dead. In South Africa, he was bigger than the Stones. Only recently did South African music buffs track him down to Detroit, where he still lives and works, and tell him that on the other side of the world, he is a celebrated star of the first order. Since then, he has gone on tour and become wildly successful wherever he goes. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
Each of us deserves some unexpected, special country where we are celebrated, where they wait at the airport for our plane to land, where they line the streets to hail our motorcade, where they scream with passionate appreciation for what we do. And every country deserves its own special musician, appreciated there more than anywhere else.
You can become someone else’s special country only if you are capable of adoration and gratitude. Maslow memorably acknowledged that you see your lover differently from the way other people do, but his delicious spin was that we see our lovers as they really are. You can become someone else’s Rodriguez only if you are capable of revealing yourself (the analogy to recording his albums in the first place); otherwise, other people’s appreciation is unlikely to be activated and, if it is, it will never soak through your social masks to soothe you where it hurts.
Psychotherapy can be one path to celebration. The patient discovers he can adore without being exploited and that he can reveal himself and still be embraced. In my view of psychotherapy, it’s just as important for the patient to get an opportunity to love safely as it is for the patient to feel safely loved. Another path is to grow up in a family that gets you and cherishes you. Another is to fall in love with someone who falls in love with you. But if you want to be Rodriguez without also being someone’s special country, their adoration of you will be hollow, and you will eventually look at them with contempt. And if you want to be someone’s special country without taking the risks of also being their Rodriguez, your love will turn to resentment and drain you dry.
Janna Goodwin is my South Africa (though without that country’s inequity, racism, and crime). She is also my Rodriguez.
Michael Karson, Ph.D. 
Wow! You really capture the power of authentic, mutual admiration. I also like the reference to psychotherapy, with the way it can set the stage for us to be our best selves with others. Once again, you have given me something worthwhile to ponder.
I don’t feel I should too frequently comment on your blogs, since a) I’m your wife; b) I am wildly appreciative of them all, and c) because I often end up writing, in response, some version of what you already beautifully articulated.
I just did that inadvertently: as always, I opened my computer to respond to e-mails, winding up (by some process I can never quite remember, in retrospect) on my Facebook page. On my wall I saw, among the usual memes, photos of people I don’t know at barbecues and notes from friends, the excerpt of your new blog post: the headline, “Finding Sugar Man,” and the tantalizing teaser, “Each of us deserves some unexpected, special country where we are celebrated.” Without reading further– feeling uncharacteristically publicly intimate–I posted, “You’re my country.” Becoming, of course, redundant and making it obvious that I either hadn’t read the blog post yet or that I’m kind of thick.
Anyway, I do have couple of afterthoughts on celebration and our relationships. They’re not particularly eloquent, and I have no conclusion, but here goes.
The artistic gifts, energy, commitments, years of dedication, and investment that went into Rodriguez’ musical expression and development; his minor, early-career success; his quiet, centered temperament, his own creation of a loving family surrounding him; the persistence of his unknown fans and of the filmmakers– so much of the story of his relationship with South Africa (and theirs with him) involves commitment, trust, playfulness, curiosity, joy, and a sense (on the part of all parties: the guy who finally tracks Rodriguez down–after years of looking; the producers; the fans who come to see him perform, and Rodriguez himself) of adventure and possibility.
We can share these reciprocal behaviors and the appreciative sentiments they engender with our mates, with our friends and families or with work colleagues, in a conscious, conscientious, vital and ongoing exchange. The mystery is why we don’t celebrate one another more, or at least more effectively. Superficiality, rituals, presents, symbols– all sometimes take the place of authentic or meaningful celebration and we don’t even notice the substitution. We think we’re celebrating when, in fact, we’re going through the motions to make ourselves feel like a good person– even to fuel a self-righteousness that covers aggression: “I brought you flowers! What the hell else do you expect?” or “Here’s a surprise party, whether you really wanted one or not. Why are you mad, after all the work I put into celebrating you?”
I know a handful of folks who think that they deserve to be admired (celebration, in this view, being a natural response to their superiority)– but it never occurs to them that the feeling might beneficially be expanded to mutuality and expressed in everyday behavior. I know others who feel they don’t deserve to be celebrated, and still others who like being celebrated but experience displays of appreciation as excruciating: the celebration is in the way they are looked at (with warmth), spoken and listened to (with curiosity and interest) and dealt with when in a position of less power and lower status (with respect and love).
The rest is mushy, and I’ll tell you later.
@ rdlenix Personal therapy (with the right therapist) might be the best clinical experience. Good luck in your journey.
@ Shelly This happens at work sometimes, too, of course.
@ Face Mushy mushy mush.
Then, I guess she knows.
On Tue, Jun 4, 2013 at 9:10 AM, Michael Kars
@ jwm LOL. Yeah, NOW she does.
Will the Romantic who has hijacked this blog please release Michael Karson at once!
You note the relevance that Rodriguez became celebrated, loved for songs for which he did not seek public celebration, love. What would you call mass celebration for songs he hoped would sell? What kind of love(s) is celebration for songs written to succeed, and can it be true love?
Oh, he might have been seeing love and fame when he recorded his music, but he didn’t get too upset about his sales figures. Celebration can be true love if the artist gives something back. When the artist feels contempt for fans, the adulation feels real, but … it’s like being married to someone who isn’t I love with you. Eventually the price of hollowness comes due.