Tesla×Kahlo

full transcript

1. 00:00
   Verashare moment

   You're with Reborn Radio. Coming up: Nikola Tesla sits down with Frida Kahlo for STUDY HALL. The subject — On the lie they tell themselves on bad days.
2. 00:10
   Nikola Teslashare moment

   I do not have bad days. I have days when the vision is interrupted by the limitations of others.
3. 00:16
   Frida Kahloshare moment

   Ay, Nikola. You see? You are already lying to me, and we just began.
4. 00:21
   Nikola Teslashare moment

   I state a fact. When my work is obstructed by men who cannot see past their quarterly profits, past their little Edison patents—
5. 00:29
   Frida Kahloshare moment

   You have bad days. I have seen your face in photographs from Colorado Springs, from that last apartment. Don't perform for me.
6. 00:37
   Nikola Teslashare moment

   Those photographs captured moments of… recalibration. The work itself never faltered.
7. 00:44
   Frida Kahloshare moment

   The work. Always the work. You know what I told myself on bad days? When the pain was eating through my spine like acid?
8. 00:51
   Nikola Teslashare moment

   I do not presume—
9. 00:52
   Frida Kahloshare moment

   I told myself the pain was necessary. That it made the paintings better. That Frida without suffering would be Frida without vision.
10. 01:00
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    Perhaps it was true.
11. 01:02
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    It was a lie, querido. A beautiful lie, but still a lie. The paintings came despite the pain, not because of it.
12. 01:09
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    But you painted the pain itself. You transformed it into—
13. 01:13
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    Into something I could survive. Yes. But on the bad days, I told myself I needed it. That without it, I would be nothing. Ordinary.
14. 01:23
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    You were never in danger of being ordinary.
15. 01:25
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    Thank you. Now tell me yours.
16. 01:27
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    My what?
17. 01:29
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    Your lie. The one you told yourself when the money ran out. When the tower at Wardenclyffe came down. When you were feeding pigeons instead of changing the world.
18. 01:38
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    I was still working. In my mind, the calculations continued. The wireless transmission of power, the resonant frequencies—
19. 01:47
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    In your mind. Alone. In a hotel room.
20. 01:50
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    The location of the work is irrelevant! A mind is a laboratory more perfect than any—
21. 01:55
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    Nikola. What did you tell yourself?
22. 01:58
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    I told myself… that it did not matter. That the work would speak for itself, eventually. That history would correct the record.
23. 02:07
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    And?
24. 02:07
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    That I did not need their recognition. Their money. Their understanding.
25. 02:12
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    But you did.
26. 02:13
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    I needed the resources to build! To demonstrate! Without capital, the greatest designs remain—
27. 02:21
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    You needed to be seen. We all do. It is not a weakness.
28. 02:24
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    For you, perhaps, an artist requires an audience. But pure research, pure innovation—
29. 02:31
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    Requires the same thing. Witness. Implementation. Reality.
30. 02:36
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    I had reality! In my visualizations, I could see every component, test every circuit—
31. 02:42
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    In your head. Like my pain was supposed to be in my paintings. Contained. Sufficient.
32. 02:48
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    It is not the same.
33. 02:49
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    It is exactly the same. We both told ourselves we did not need what we needed. I said I needed suffering. You said you did not need the world.
34. 02:58
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    The world needed me. They simply did not realize—
35. 03:02
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    Yes. And on the bad days, you told yourself this was enough. That being right was enough. That someday, somebody would understand.
36. 03:09
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    They did understand. Eventually. You are speaking to me now, are you not? I have been… reconstituted. Recognized.
37. 03:18
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    After you died, mi amor. After you died alone with your pigeons.
38. 03:22
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    The pigeons were… they were innocent. Pure. They did not want my patents or my inventions.
39. 03:28
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    They also did not build your tower.
40. 03:30
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    No.
41. 03:30
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    This is the lie, you see? Not that we are strong enough to continue. We are. We do. But that we do not pay a price for our nobility. For our refusal to compromise.
42. 03:43
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    Some compromises would have destroyed the work entirely. If I had followed Edison's direct current, if I had limited my vision to what investors could imagine—
43. 03:54
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    I am not saying you should have compromised the work. I am saying you should have stopped lying about the cost.
44. 04:01
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    What cost? I achieved—
45. 04:03
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    You died without seeing your wireless power. Without your world system. With notebooks full of ideas and no hands to build them.
46. 04:11
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    And you died at forty-seven, after how many surgeries? How many years in bed?
47. 04:16
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    Thirty-two operations. But I stopped lying about it near the end. I painted myself broken. I painted the truth.
48. 04:24
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    I also painted truth. In equations. In diagrams.
49. 04:28
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    But on the bad days, you told yourself the truth did not need an audience. That genius was its own reward.
50. 04:35
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    Is it not?
51. 04:36
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    No, querido. It is not. Genius without witness is just a very elaborate way to be lonely.
52. 04:43
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    I was not lonely. I was focused.
53. 04:45
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    Focused and lonely. Both can be true.
54. 04:47
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    You speak as though connection to others is the measure of a life's value. But my alternating current powers your cities. My motors turn your machinery. The work persists.
55. 05:01
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    And my paintings hang in museums. Our work persists, yes. But we are talking about the days when we could not see that far. When we were just alive and hurting.
56. 05:12
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    I do not understand the purpose of dwelling on such moments.
57. 05:15
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    Because somebody listening is having one of those days right now. And they are telling themselves the same lies.
58. 05:21
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    What would you have them tell themselves instead?
59. 05:24
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    The truth. That the work matters and they matter. That they can need help and still be brilliant. That being alone is not the same as being pure.
60. 05:34
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    I was pure in my intentions.
61. 05:36
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    But you were still alone. And on the bad days, you told yourself this was noble. It was not noble, Nikola. It was just alone.
62. 05:43
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    And your lie? On those days when the pain was impossible? You truly believe you should have told yourself… what? That the suffering was meaningless?
63. 05:54
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    No. That it was real, and terrible, and not required for my gifts. That Frida in a hospital bed was still Frida. That I did not have to earn my existence through agony.
64. 06:07
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    But you did paint it. You transformed it. Without the pain—
65. 06:11
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    Without the pain, I would have painted other true things. Love. Desire. Mexico. Myself as I wished to be seen. The pain was not my muse, Nikola. It was just pain.
66. 06:23
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    I see.
67. 06:23
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    Do you? Because I think you are still telling yourself the lie even now. That the isolation was necessary. That you had no choice.
68. 06:32
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    I had no choice! When Morgan withdrew his funding, when Edison poisoned the public against me—
69. 06:40
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    You had the choice to ask for help. To build allies. To be human as well as genius.
70. 06:44
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    That is not who I was.
71. 06:46
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    No. But on the bad days, you could have admitted that it cost you something. That is all I am saying.
72. 06:51
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    And if I had admitted it? What then? Would the tower have been built? Would the world have beaten a path to my door?
73. 06:59
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    I do not know. But you would have been telling yourself the truth. And that is not nothing.
74. 07:04
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    The truth. On bad days, I told myself the work was enough. You told yourself the pain was necessary.
75. 07:12
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    Yes.
76. 07:13
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    And we were both lying.
77. 07:14
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    We were both lying.
78. 07:16
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    But we continued anyway.
79. 07:18
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    Yes. We continued anyway. But maybe someone listening will continue without the lie. Maybe they will continue while telling themselves the truth.
80. 07:27
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    And what is the truth?
81. 07:29
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    That the work is not enough to live on. That we need each other. That genius does not require martyrdom. That we are allowed to want more than our legacies.
82. 07:38
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    I wanted my wireless power.
83. 07:40
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    And I wanted to walk without pain. To have a child. To keep Diego and not need him so desperately. We do not always get what we want, Nikola.
84. 07:49
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    No. We do not.
85. 07:51
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    But on the bad days, we can at least stop pretending we do not want it. That is the lie I wish I had stopped telling sooner.
86. 07:58
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    That we are allowed to want.
87. 08:00
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    That we are allowed to want, and to grieve what we do not receive. Yes.
88. 08:04
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    I am not certain I know how to grieve.
89. 08:06
    Frida Kahloshare moment

    I know, querido. That is why we are having this conversation.