My sensitivity chip tells me that it is unhealthy to fawn over famous people. My rational chip tells me that famous people are just people doing something well (usually) – a talent that they are focused on, and my spiritual chip tells me that we are all one and it is unhealthy to make idols out of anyone – even Gods!! So coming full circle, I know that famous people are not to be idolized. Why, then, do I become obsessed with some of them, some times? Saturday night I am casually wandering towards the main stage at the Clockenflap music festival in Hong Kong where The Libertines are playing. I know that one of these chaps used to date Kate Moss and that he’s the tabloid press’s favourite junkie to punch and poke fun at. His name is Pete Doherty. I don’t know his music and that is as much as I know about him. Then I see him. There are two guys on stage: one is wearing a cowboy hat and jeans/boots combo giving him the look of a cowboy, and Pete is wearing a top hat and tails! I’ve never seen an 18th Century City Gent on stage with a 19th Century Cowboy before, least of all one playing electric guitar. The whole thing was a wonderful anachronism and I was held captive. I became more and more mesmerized by this man: this Pete fella. He looked like a Chimney Sweep all trussed up in tails, and every time he and the Cowboy sung into the mic together they looked as if they were about to kiss. A spectacle indeed. But I was going deeper. I was looking into this man’s eyes and writing his story: a little lost boy, adrift in a sea of drugs and alcohol, bereft of the loss of Kate Moss, twisted into the successful and infamous pop star – the man with the natty style and the love of a cowboy. I can be natty too, alongside him, we can have natty children and a natty castle home. But will he look at me? Will he notice me? He needs to see me, I mean really SEE me. Then he will know that we are perfectly nattily matched. Sorry, I left the door open – just ajar you understand – but it doesn’t take long for the madness to creep in. I kicked it shut and did a reality check: Pete Doherty is into drugs and booze – he’s drinking on stage for heaven’s sake! I, on the other hand, do not drink and I do not want a druggy rock and roll lifestyle anymore… that’s soooo passé! (ok so that last bit is to make me feel better!!) No, my journey is all about driving towards spiritual connectivity, being ecstatically high on life, full on, feel everything, totally experiential, plugged in, super-powered, charged up, amped to eleven and all on the freely available energies of life Baby! The PD lifestyle is in direct opposition to this destination. Still mesmerized, I take lots of pics so I can further analyze the madness later.

Cut to later. The following afternoon, I am shopping in Wanchai when I realize that I’m not just idly perusing the lanes of cheap stores, I am also idolizingly writing a song in my head: a song for Pete. I’ve constructed a whole story for him: his parents – ordinary Irish folk living in London, Pete from the council estate and the comprehensive school, strumming his woes into an empty guitar. His honest, pure, self-expression is recognized and celebrated by society and suddenly this lifts Pete out of working class woes into infamous success – the glittering world of the célèbre. Except that his troubles are still securely tethered to him like a tacky Just Married sign and a clutch of rusty tin cans tethered to a posh roller. Even if you don’t see the gaudy hitchhikers, the din soon steals the show. Now Pete gets to perform his honest pain in front of thousands of people and the national press gets to humiliate him and his tin cans publically. Yes Pete, I know. I know your pain. I understand you. 95% of that is all made up bollocks of course. I have no idea if his parents are expat Irish, or if he went to a comprehensive school. It’s my own little Cinderella story on behalf of someone I don’t know and shouldn’t care about! Still I may as well write him a song… you never know… “The little lost boy and the little lost girl.” Maybe I can send it to him for him to sing…. And then he will know me and meet me and I can say NO! I do not pick up little lost boys anymore, sorry Pete. And that will make me feel good and I can tell everyone that I turned him

Shut. The. Door. My phone vibes and it’s an email – he’s playing tonight at a private gig, my friends and I are on the guest list. Well… a chance for further analysis then – examine this bonkers side of me further! Maybe this is fate – Pete is fated to meet me. At the gig, I get close to the front so I can see his eyes – I still want him to see me. The madness is stretching through the length of my body; making me stand tall, taller, head and shoulders taller, visible like a beacon, a blazing beacon of hope and of rescue…. Actually I probably looked more like a lighthouse screaming SAIL CLEAR OF THIS CRAZY ROCK! The rational part of me quietly joins the gathering and gently stands by the open door. Is this really what you want in your life? Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. This kind of behaviour didn’t work so well for us in the past did it? Let’s try something different. What’s the right thing to do now? Maybe we can walk away from the stage? Maybe we can find our friends and just enjoy the private concert experience for what it is: a wonderful intimate musical

performance? We can think further on this tomorrow, but for now, let’s enjoy our friends. And let’s also close the door, and become an “I” again. I did and I had a lovely evening. Writing this now, I can see that this obsession with ‘famous’ people that I have every so often is actually connected to my desire to be truly authentic. When I was drinking I would take this ‘obsession’ one stage further and believe that by mimicking the drinking and the drugging and the spotlight antics that I might suddenly be living my creativity and self-expression. That this would be the short cut to authenticity. But of course it isn’t. There are no short cuts in life. But there are really long cuts if you insist on going round and round in circles drinking, drugging, hoorahing, yeehawing and expecting to get somewhere other than round and round. When I look at this man on stage I see someone who authentically expresses himself through writing and music and then has the courage to stand up and present this self to the world. (His drinking and drugging are his own distractions and not actually relevant to my obsession.) In my new sober life, I can now see that this ‘obsession’ is a manifestation of that part of me that wants to be authentically me; and then authentically recognized, seen and applauded. This is my authentic self demanding that I just have the courage to do what I really want to do in life: DO WHAT YOU LOVE, NOT WHAT LOVES YOU. No one else can be me for me, not Pete Doherty, not Robbie Williams nor that bloke from Friends and Crocodiles. This is something that I have to do for myself. In sobriety I am finally giving myself the opportunity to face this, not shy away from it, or be part, three quarters, or even almost me. I’m going for the full monty version. Naked free me. Me will change from day to day I expect, and that will be ok too. Me is not a destination – as they say – but a continually evolving journey. With the support of the Fellowship I think I may just have enough courage – one day at a time – to strap on my Me boots and begin that journey. Let’s see shall we? Anonymouse.