Andrea Jones-Rooy/Photo by Ely Kay
**********
Q: A professor, a comedian and a circus performer walked into a bar. How many people walked into the bar?
A: Just one.
Who is this remarkable one person? She is Dr. Andrea Jones-Rooy. As a professor at New York University, as a comedian, trapeze artist and fire dancer, she is a revolutionary. As you’ll hear in her podcast Majoring In Everything, she believes we all have the right to “explore the many lives that you can live.” But, she warns, expect a battle. Societal expectations force us to narrow our focus, select one career, and claw our way up the ladder to prestige, status and ultimately a comfortable retirement. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Or is there?
If choosing one profession forces you to give up other dreams, there is something wrong, Andrea says. Life can become a constant rumble and roar of non-fulfillment. Maybe it’s time to let go of the concept of drilling down and exceling at one profession. Perhaps it’s time to question whether we’d be happier exploring several paths at once. But wait – even if splitting our focus means we’re never perfect at anything? Yes.
Andrea kindly spoke with me by phone about her high wire act as circus performer, professor, comedian, podcast host, writer, and data scientist. Can everyone live such an expansive life so spectacularly … and should we? Please read on.
—————————-
MAJORLY MAJORING
Teme: I love the name of your podcast. How did you come up with the title Majoring in Everything?
Andrea: It’s something I said my first day of college. We all had to go around and introduce ourselves and say what we wanted to major in. I said, “I’m Andrea and I want to major in everything.” Everyone laughed, but I stand by it.
THE FIRST GLIMMER
Teme: When were you first inspired to follow many paths?
Andrea: I was twenty-eight and in my last years of grad school. I was in a huge panic because I had been doing circus and comedy on the side to stay sane, but it was getting in the way of my ability to finish my dissertation.
I read a profile of an actor who was also a writer and artist while he was teaching at a university. I remember sitting on the floor in my living room and thinking, “Oh. I don’t have to choose. I could do it all.” Seeing this actor spoken about in a positive rather than a negative way lifted my view of what was possible. That was the first glimmer. I haven’t totally been able to internalize it yet because we are up against a society that wants you to specialize. But that was the first moment that I was like, “Oh shit, what if I did them both?”
I’m working on a book about people who follow multiple paths. I think I may be writing this book to finally give myself permission. It’s so ingrained that we’re supposed to pick one thing that I still doubt myself. I don’t know if that is disappointing to hear.
Teme: I can relate. I grew up thinking that you pick one thing and stick to it for life. It took me a long time to realize I was not that kind of person.
Andrea: I gravitate towards different worlds. When you’re around other standup comedians, it’s like your job as a comedian is to do only comedy. Then I’ll be in the world of academia surrounded by people who are only focused on academia. It feels like an arms race of dedication. You can feel like a failure all the time. It’s very easy to fall in the trap of “Why can’t I just focus?” The world rewards people who focus.
DON’T WAIT FOR PERMISSION
Teme: If society gave us permission, would more of us be multi-focused?
Andrea: Yes. That’s something that I’ve been trying to figure out – what stops us? One reason that humans are successful is that we’re very adaptable. We can learn all kinds of different things. One of the reasons AI hasn’t caught up to humans is that we’re capable of so many unrelated tasks. When we’re kids, we learn all fields. Then something happens. You start to narrow the field like, “Oh, I’m not a math person.” Or “I’m not skilled at team sports.”
Whether it’s higher education or jobs, our personal brands, or niches on social media, it’s like the world wants you to turn yourself over to that one thing, a “serious” thing, and be awesome at the thing. There’s no room for people who do more. There is a growing conversation around multipotentialites, but we’re seen as the exception rather than the norm. Most people have the ability to do more than one thing outside of their chosen field, but don’t see it as advantageous.
Parents in the workplace is a good example. When you work and have a family, it’s seen as zero sum. When you spend time with your kids, you’re not at work. You spend time at work and you’re not with your kids. But what if things learned at work make you a better parent? And things you learn as a parent make you better at work? As a society, we’re not thinking about the non-linear ways we get better at things and how doing things in different fields can actually help us.
Teme: Perhaps everyone would be happier if they explored their full potential.
Andrea: There are benefits to using different parts of your brain. Playing the piano probably makes you a better data scientist and vice versa. Most people are like Swiss army knives, but we put the cleavers and the machetes on the pedestal and ignore people who can do lots of different things.
CAN IT BE LEARNED?
Teme: Being multifaceted … nature or nurture?
Andrea: It can be inherent, but it can also be something that we can learn. I was recently diagnosed at forty with ADHD. There may be a nature that predisposes to being good at multiple things. I’ve considered my inability to commit to one thing a personal failing. But recently I’ve begun to think that maybe it’s a strength.
I always used to think of myself as one step away from choosing one world; comedy or science. Instead, I keep hovering at the threshold. I’ve decided that maybe the threshold is good. But I also think that all of us, even the greatest specialists, can benefit from tapping into their creativity or athleticism or whatever it is that they’re not really using.
JOINING THE CIRCUS
Teme: I’d love to hear about your circus art!
Andrea: I do dance trapeze and fire performance. Dance trapeze is a trapeze that spins rather than swings back and forth. I do fire fans where you set each spoke of the fan on fire and make these really awesome shapes. I also do fire eating, which is what it sounds like, and I’m training in contortion.
Teme: How did your interest in circus arts begin?
Andrea: I did dance growing up. I started too late to have a fighting chance at being a professional ballet dancer which was the field that I really liked. I tried modern, but I think I’m too uptight for modern dance. In grad school – to keep my wits about me because I was spiraling into solitude and loneliness and self-doubt and all that stuff that comes with being surrounded by people who you see as much smarter than you – I dabbled in a bunch of different movement stuff.
I tried yoga. I was on the University of Michigan Sink Dive swimming team until they were like, “You’re too old. This is for undergrads.” I tried figure skating, but I’m horrible at it. Eventually, I found a warehouse in Detroit that was teaching something called Surreal Arts. I showed up one day more out of desperation for something that wasn’t related to the dissertation. I saw a whole studio of people learning aerial silk, lyra aerial, and acrobalancing on one another, and trapeze. I thought, “This is amazing. I didn’t even know adults were allowed to do this kind of thing.”
I would go on Sundays to feel like a human again. No one ever asked about my dissertation, which was awesome. When I got my first job as a professor at Carnegie-Mellon in Pittsburgh, I used to drive back to Detroit to keep practicing. My boss got mad at me, “You need to focus on your career, blah, blah, blah.” I blocked him on social media and kept doing it.
Then NYU opened a campus in Shanghai. I studied Chinese censorship, so it made sense to go there. I also thought, “Perfect. I can go to Shanghai, literally cut myself off from all these silly hobbies and finally focus on academia.” So I did and it was devastating.
Within a month of getting there, I found out that there was a nightclub opening in Shanghai with a circus scene. They specifically wanted a mix of Chinese and international performers. I was like, “Fuck it, I have to audition.” I got the job. For two years, I was a professor during the day, circus performer at night.
It was easily the best two years of my life. I was able to be my two selves at once. They balanced each other out perfectly. Any time I tried doing one versus the other, it was not right. When I was only performing, I missed the structure, the whiteboards, and the spreadsheets. If I was only teaching, I felt like my soul died.
I got a lot of flack from colleagues like, “When are you going to focus?” The circus was always talked about like, “Oh, she’ll quit any time now.” No one was ever like, “When are you going to quit academia and go full time at the circus?”
I interviewed my publicists for my podcast. That interview stood out to me. They are also musicians. As their PR business was taking off, they felt they needed to put away the music and sell their guitars. But that decision made them depressed and not themselves. They now do both. I wouldn’t want to work with a PR person who’s making themselves miserable by dropping their music. When I found out that they do music, it actually helped me feel that I was in good hands.
SOARING ABOVE FEAR
Teme: What is your most daring circus art?
Andrea: I actually am rather afraid of heights. I used to do a dance trapeze show near Coney Island in Brooklyn. I normally do dance trapeze relatively close to the ground, but the people running the show insisted, “We’ve got to go higher!” They didn’t have a mat, which made me feel unsafe. But I would do it. My palms were sweating while I was spinning. That was the most daring. I actually was at risk of danger.
But the performances that are scariest are where I combine all three of my things. I recently did a “Data Science Spectacular.” It’s a science lecture, but I perform comedy at the beginning and end. I’m getting nervous just thinking about it. It’s easy to hide behind a flame. When I do comedy, I have a personality that’s not really me. When I’m teaching, I’m definitely taking on a persona of “professor.” When I get up the courage to combine them, I worry that everyone’s going to hate this so bad. What if it’s not funny? Or informative? All my insecurities! So there’s daring in terms of “could I die?” But the performances that are actually really scary are the ones where I take down the facade.
Teme: Please advise people who would like to take a daring new path but find it hard to get started.
Andrea: First, trust yourself. If you have something that you can’t stop thinking about, something you’ve always loved and wondered about trying, listen to that. Ask yourself, can you integrate it into your life, even the tiniest bit? Maybe carve a half hour out of the week to try it and see how that feels. Too often, we worry what people will think and listen to the “voice of reason” that says, “be serious.”
Second, remember that the system is designed against this. If you feel you should not be doing multiple things, it’s because society actively tells you that message all the time. If you feel resistance, it’s outside of you. It is not a sign that you’re doing something wrong.
BRAIDING LIFELINES
Teme: What are the common threads in all the things you do?
Andrea: I have been trying to figure that out for some time. Comedy and science are both exercises in trying to understand the world and make sense of the human condition. The comedians that I love the most are as precise and rigorous as the best official scientist out there.
The circus is similar. It is so physically precise. If one tiny angle is off, you’re going to set your mouth on fire or fall and really injure yourself. I enjoy the precision and delusion of control. Science is also the delusion of control of your body. And in both science and comedy, it feels cool to see if you can discover something new.
I also like leaving the world of precision and of “careful talking” to say whatever’s on my mind in comedy. I like being able to go to the circus and get out of my head, which is where I live in the other two worlds. It’s like this churning equilibrium that is my own self-medication to regulate all the parts. Actually, most people have that. Most people recognize the value of exercise if they’ve been stuck on a problem, but we don’t really let ourselves embrace that. We still relegate things like exercise to hobbies and New Year’s resolutions.
Teme: Do your worlds ever clash?
Andrea: Yes, it does happen. Sometimes I will be outside of comedy clubs and students walk by and I feel very embarrassed like, “I’m going to lose credibility. Oh my god.” Then I remember that if I want my students to be able to embrace doing lots of different things, it’s great that I’m leading by example.
I had some run-ins in Shanghai where students took me less seriously when they found out I did this other stuff.
I’m increasingly booked both in comedy and corporate speaking. Very few comedians can talk about issues with higher education. Anyone who wants that is excited to find me. I give corporate talks to data scientists. I’m a pretty good presenter compared to most data scientists! So all these areas can be complementary. On the other hand, I also never bomb harder than when I try to make jokes in my data science class.
WHEN IS IT OK TO SIT STILL?
Teme: Once you’re doing multiple things, how do you also guard against exhaustion and remember to take care of yourself?
Andrea: Even as you asked me that question, I’m like, oh, right, I should do that sometimes. This might be wildly unhealthy, but also what makes it sustainable, is that each of the three things that I cycle between, I consider to be a break from the other things.
Standup is work, but it is also rejuvenating and helps get my mind away from academia. Circus gets my mind out of my head and any worries like, “Oh, I don’t have enough new material.” They’re all a break from one another and mutually nourishing.
The other piece of it is that it’s okay to sit still and do something that isn’t related to one of those things. Literally yesterday I was sitting here, it was a Sunday afternoon, I just finished a contortion class and I was like, “What should I do?” I thought, “My options include booking new shows or working on the slides for Tuesday’s class.” Then I thought, “What if I just don’t do any of those things?” And I watched Stranger Things with my boyfriend.
Last, whether you do more than one thing or just one thing, the whole social media compare-and-despair thing is real. You must be okay with, “I’m never going to post as many standup clips as my fellow performers. I’m never going to be the tenure track ideal professor in the top publications.” Remember that you have value in a different way, which can give you space to sit and do nothing as well.
INSIGHTS TO GET YOU STARTED
Teme: What do you hope audiences take away from your podcast?
Andrea: First, that it’s okay, and even potentially great to do more than one thing. Celebrate it. Also, remember it’s very rare that you have a path ahead of you that you feel confident about. The people I speak with are heroic to me. It’s very helpful for me – and a huge relief – to hear that they do not always have a clear sense of what’s next.
Teme: What question would you like to be asked and how would you answer it?
Andrea: “What is your biggest regret?” My answer is, I’ve wasted a lot of time doubting myself, gas lighting myself, and convincing myself I was wrong and bad for being interested in lots of things. If I hadn’t done all that, I would’ve had a much more fun life and achieved more in those fields.
Teme: Absolutely anything else we should add?
Andrea: Anyone who is “majoring in everything”, please drop me a note to introduce yourself. Just talking about this has helped me, too. I was writing this morning and I was like, “Why am I even writing about this? Does anyone care?” Talking with you has reaffirmed, “Oh, there are more people out there like us.” So if this resonates, don’t hesitate to get in touch!
————————————————–
Keep up with Andrea at jonesrooy.com and Majoring in Everything on
Loved reading about a fellow multi- majorer!!!!
Pingback: Index to Online Interviews - Alphabetical by Last Name -