Lila Karp

©Bill Watterson

The fun thing about a really great undergraduate program is that you have a choice of truly amazing electives to take advantage of--electives that stimulate new ways of thinking and being. I completed both my undergraduate and my graduate studies at Antioch University Los Angeles, which is a university with a tradition of social justice and inclusion. It is also unique in that it uses a pass/fail system rather than a grading system, allowing for more concentration on the absorption of material than the regurgitation of the same. During my undergraduate phase, I was obsessed with learning about philosophy, especially since my "value system" had been constructed from religious and self-help models of morality. I longed for a premise that allowed room for critical thinking--in other words, I didn't want an outside source to make decisions for me about what was right or wrong concerning personal morals and values. A bold undertaking, to be sure, but before you award me with a merit badge for bravery, please understand that when you grow up gay, you are often "forced" out of traditional mindsets. It is similar to telling someone with cancer how brave they are--do they have a choice? The answer, of course, is that yes they do, but you would be surprised how brave we all are when presented with adversity. I am no hero.

There were, however, heroes at Antioch, and they mostly occupied the position of instructor. One in particular made an imprint on me that was so vivid it changed the course of my life--I kid you not. This instructor introduced me to a way of thinking that proved to be so powerful in its simple challenge that it drove the final nail into the coffin of my "spirituality". The way of thinking was Existentialism, and the instructor was Lila Karp.

Lila was a mess. She was brash and impatient. She wore a lot of purple. She nearly always showed up in class wearing some sort of floppy hat that didn't so much work with her scruffy blond hair as much as it argued with it. She wore a mix of boldly colored drapey outfits that gave no indication whatsoever of whether her body was being hidden or accentuated. She made no effort to hide her distaste for certain students (they usually deserved it), or broadcast her admiration for her favorites. Fortunately, I found myself in the latter grouping.

Following her death in 2008, I attended a memorial for her at Antioch, and I shared that I had only once engaged in a disagreement with Lila. It was on an occasion where I disagreed with her about the relevance of Madonna, the pop star, in modern culture; I took the side of Madonna's relevance, naturally. Lila countered that Madonna was a charlatan, a fake feminist who used images of power and sexuality for her benefit only, and to the detriment of other women. I asserted that Madonna's sexual provocations served to allow women to "own" their sexiness as a celebration, not an objectification. I argued that in a similar way, gay men have appropriated the term "queer" from straight homophobes in order to dis-empower the term of its vulgarity. Now it is important for you to understand that Lila Karp did not suffer fools, in other words, anyone who disagreed with her, but in this case she tolerated my dissent. At the memorial, I shared that this was the first time in my life that my homosexuality had actually protected me from brutality!

Lila was an existentialist, and if I remember correctly, I had her for a course on Existential Philosophy. For those of you who are unfamiliar, the nuts and bolts of this philosophy is that life is meaningless until meaning is assigned (Existence precedes Essence). There are four "ontological concerns", or basic tenets, and they are Solitude, Death, Freedom, and Meaninglessness. The philosophy proposes that there is no escaping these four concerns, so why try! Accept that they are going to create a certain level of appropriate anxiety in one's life, and this can be viewed as proof that you are alive! (So much of the art of psychotherapy is seen as the practice of trying to eliminate the fear of these four concerns--rubbish I say!) I won't go into a detailed explanation of the four concerns in this post, other than to say that they encompass fears that we all have until the day we die, and since you can't avoid them, the goal is to decide what our response to our fear is going to be. Nietzsche suggested, rather brilliantly, that we merely live life, fully, which is, in my opinion, the most perfectly simple piece of advice I have ever heard. An example of this can be found in this wonderful clip from Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters:

In this clip, Woody's character confronts all four of the ontological concerns, and comes out of it deciding that, since you can't get away from them, it would be best to "live life, fully"! His embrace of that idea begins once he starts to enjoy the Marx Brothers film he is watching in the theater.

This was the tenet that Lila lived her life by, and the tenet that she passed along to me. This was around the time I was in my mid-forties; I had left not only a twenty year performing career to go back to school, but also a four year relationship. I was renegotiating my life and heading into middle age, so meaning was being reevaluated right and left. It was also during this time that I began to completely let go of my belief in god, as I began to understand the oppressive building blocks of world religions and their ties to the governing bodies of the time. Needless to say, my world was being rocked. Lila introduced me to a way of thinking that embraced, rather than avoided, the uncertainties, fears, and randomness that emerged from the dying gasps of my fear-based belief systems, and she presented it in a way that emphasized the joy and engagement available once you stop hiding from the reality of life. In a word, I was alive in a way that I had never been before.

Lila died in 2008, as mentioned above. But what she left behind was a legacy of courage and wisdom. Her own journey out of the binds of feminine roles was ignited by the emergent Women's Movement in the 60's, in which she was in the front lines. Her only book, "The Queen is in the Garbage", was a novel exploration of the politics of the body as told through a pregnant protagonist. She taught at many American universities and challenged the male-dominated status quo up to her death. She did this in floppy hats and with a searing disdain for laziness or arrogance. What many students had difficulty seeing was that she was an undeniably passionate woman who LOVED life and literature, and perhaps loved even more the act of sharing that with students. She just did not love Madonna!

I will never forget her or diminish the impact she had on my life. I miss her.

***

If, in life, you are offered an opportunity for freedom from an eccentric person wearing completely inappropriate primary colors and hats that threaten to completely overtake hairstyles, my suggestion is that you jump head first into the experience. They are the seers, the faeries, the true philosophers; the true lovers, the re-storytellers who bravely step outside the dominant discourse in order to propose a more inclusive one. Lila gave of her time and her life so that others could step into an experience of themselves that was not dictated by straight men in positions of power. I pity those who crossed her, but to be honest, they got what they had coming to them. I am happy to carry on the work, and I am overdue in giving honor to a life well lived, fully.  

Lila Karp:  1933-2008