The Heckler in the Room

A few nights ago I had a dream that stuck with me days later, most of my dreams don't...they flit on like so much mental floatsome. And I don't usually think much of dreams, since more often than not they fall into the category of incoherent theaterical productions the mind puts on to entertain itself while the body sleeps. But occasionally one of these stage plays will resonate long after its completion, and upon awakening, pester with its seemingly incoherent ramblings.

In my dream a man was heckling his son, niggling, criticizing him, to the point that I watched him shrink into himself. I remember standing up half way through it, furious. And I began to scream or shout the following into the crowd that had gathered witnessing this: "How dare you! He's your son! You are supposed to support him. To encourage him. To brace him up. Not tear him down. He's a part of you. How did you feel when your father did this to you? Did it help? Is it helping now?" And the man was silent, everyone was gaping at me...and then the alarm woke me up.

Prior to this dream I had a series of encounters offline and online with people who I felt were tearing me down. Heckling in the corner of the room, at least this is what actors, performers and entertainers call it. The "heckler" in the room. There's all sorts of books and rules written on how to handle the heckler. Because like or not, there will always be someone heckling. It's a given. Part of life as an entertainer. No matter what I or you or we do in life, someone out there will take exception to it or be offended. There's no avoiding it.

But the true heckler in the room I realized was in myself. Sitting there in a corner seat in my brain. "You can try that," the heckler would state, somewhat snidely, comfy in his arm-chair, "but it's not going to turn out well." Or, "go ahead and publish that story but no one will buy it", or "you aren't doing all that great in this job are you, haven't even gotten promoted yet?" The heckler sees all the nasty things and feels the need to point them out.

They'll read a post and somehow locate the one inaccuracy. Or watch the standup comedian, and heckle them for not being funny or delivering. They may turn on their cell-phone and start scanning messages during a play, or a movie that they find boring. Or they'll be that negative one star review on Amazon or Good Reads. And I think we've all been, if we're honest, hecklers in the room ourselves.

My father used to tell me that I needed to learn to produce or grow thicker skin. Not to let the turkey's get me down. Not to pay attention to the negative reviews. Be stoic, he'd say. You're too thin skinned. Too sensitive. And I've watched him, and my brother, and others...and I think aren't we all to some extent?

It's hard not to focus on the heckler. Harder still not to reinforce what they say. Particularly if it seems a mere echo of what I've said to myself. In a sea of faces all laughing at the joke or complimenting a story, there's that one voice that is discordant standing out. It's like reading through a series of posts on a social media site...among all the lovely ones, there's that one negative post that...you can't somehow ignore be it about a favorite television series, movie, character or politics.

I keep thinking about my dream, and how the heckler, for me at least, is always there, in my head. Echoing back at me all the negative criticism that I hear, rearranging it, re-coding it for maximum effect, often with surround sound to replay in my ears. I'm told we can't change our minds in the literal sense or get rid of the heckler...but we can perhaps change how we handle the heckler or at the very least lower the volume..or I can. I can, or so I've been told, change how I react and cope. Impossible as it sounds.

Yet the feeling somehow persists, hence this post,...just a phrase little more...and I see in my mind's eye, that foggy shadowy figure standing in the back of the room, often the corner, heckling.