The fourth Fifty-Over-50 selection is award-winning book author Mark Matousek. Those books include SEX DEATH ENLIGHTENMENT: A TRUE STORY, THE BOY HE LEFT BEHIND: A MAN'S SEARCH FOR HIS LOST FATHER, and WHEN YOU'RE FALLING, DIVE.
Matousek's next book is ETHICAL WISDOM: WHAT MAKES US GOOD. His articles have been published in O: THE OPRAH MAGAZINE, THE NEW YORKER, NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, HARPER'S BAZAAR, DETAILS, and TRICYCLE. He started out his career in Andy Warhol's alternative world The Factory as senior editor of INTERVIEW.
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"In writing, Jane, I believe we get better as we age." Cool customer that Mark Matousek is about aging, this is how he handled my first interview question. That question was, of course, about how he is managing being a professional over-50.
In addition, being an award-winning writer, Matousek then went on to flesh out this portrait of acceptance with appropriate details. He recounted the satisfaction he has been deriving, now that he's older, from mentoring those just starting out to find their voice. He teaches part-time.
He's also in demand for lectures and workshops around the world since his book WHEN YOU'RE FALLING, DIVE came to resonate with the pain The Great Recession had been inflicting. Published in 2008, it was perfectly timed to provide hope that what we were going through could have a "payoff." The book recounts the transformational power of suffering. On page 7 of the book is the paragraph I photocopied, put on my bathroom mirror, and snail-mailed to more than 200 of those on my personal network.
That paragraph reads:
"Crisis pushes you to travel wide, fast, and deep, expands the heart and calls forth reserves of courage you didn't know you had, like adrenaline in the muscles of a mother saving her only child. Only you are the child, and it's your life - the life of your own soul - that you are saving."
Although the economic downturn seems to be easing, Matousek still is constantly contacted by readers. So much so that he has posted a FAQ section on his website. One theme he hammers throughout the book is that we'll never be the same people we were pre-falling. What we emerge as, he says, is as "a post-catastrophe person."
But the seasoned interviewer I am, I do get Matousek to be a bit more transparent about the challenges of aging.
He goes on to say, "I am no longer willing to jump through the hoops of some games in my profession such as magazine writing. That's a young man's game. And to play it, with all its competition, you have to care enough. At this age I don't care enough about seeing my byline in a magazine. Also, I am becoming aware of money. Maybe that's a sign of maturity. I am moving assets around. My real estate isn't appreciating so I figure: Sell it and make money on that money. It feels good to be 'grown up.'"
Matousek is from a print background so I ask him if he is embracing the digital age. After all, he really doesn't have to since he derives an excellent living from being the author of print books.
"Well, my 15-year-old nephew knows a lot more about digital than I do. But, as I tell others my age, don't let any technology or any young person, or any nasty older person make you feel like a dinosaur. These are things we can learn. And I'm learning them."
He also encourages those who are older who have a dream of writing to give it a try and keep at it. "When you're in the middle of things, nothing seems to be happening, but something usually is. And don't be afraid of rejection. There's plenty of it in writing."
Then I go where I have been dying to: Matousek's experience working with Andy Warhol at The Factory. He started out his publishing career in that dream job, which didn't pay very much, working on the magazine INTERVIEW. That got him a front row seat at the pop culture zeitgeist which was breaking open. He also had access to the arts community, plus Warhol.
But Matousek does not gush about that. "Jane, Andy creeped me out. When I first met him and shook his hand, it was like touching boiled chicken with the skin about to come off. Yes the guy was a genius. But he was in a whole other world. He couldn't relate to people." People are important to Maousek. That's somewhat surprising, given his hard upbringing. His family was on welfare and he witnessed the females of his household suffering because of violent men.
Those flashbacks have helped bring him to his current global project V-Men, which will be the male version of "The Vagina Monologue" by Eve Ensler. He is traveling, interviewing men about what it means to be a man. From all those conversations, he will write a script for a dramatic monologue. Here Matousek tells us about that project in his own words:
"Last summer, when Eve Ensler asked me to write something about violence against women - from a male perspective - I went to my desk feeling skeptical, and not at all sure that I had anything significant to say on the subject. Although I had grown up in a house where female molestations of various kinds happened on a regular basis, and had spent a good deal of my adult life (and therapist's time) sorting through the emotional rubble left behind after witnessing so much misogynist violence, I felt doubtful that my experience mattered - for the simple reason that I was a man ..."
"That monologue will be controversial - big time." That's what I "warn" Matousek, as if he were one of my public relations or ghostwriting clients.
"It better be." That's what he shot back. This man knows the power of controversy to sell - especially messages.
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Readers can learn more about Mark Matousek and his work at his website. He can be contacted at mark.matousek@gmail.com.
And to learn more about transforming the work years post-50 into professional, emotional, and spiritual homeruns, you might read the new book by Jane Genova OVER-50: HOW WE KEEP WORKING. It makes the most useful Mother's Day gift for 2010.
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