She never was secure in her father’s love, ever looking for his approval, even into her adulthood. Any earnings she made went to them – 90% of her wages for years. Meanwhile, she counted slices of bread and shared a one bedroom apartment with five other young pre-professional women working hard for their break into the corporate scene. The idea was that the parents were using the money to invest in her future. (It was always more about investing for the future – for a better life… in the future.)
She eventually found a man who wanted to marry her, devote his life to her. He crosses the ocean to be with her, ringing in his ears the voices of disapproval of his own family. She went for it: got married. It’s what people do.
But her father didn’t seem to welcome this new person in his daughter’s life. This new person curbed the daughter’s attention for her father. The father had his own wife, but he never fully surrendered himself to it, always hanging on the outside of his own potential life. His wife, the mother, was loving and devoted – although at times, she wasn’t sure why – but he kept her at arm’s length: the power of this love was just too much to handle, too much to reciprocate. A daughter’s devotion, on the other hand, can be modulated, manipulated.
The father expressed his disfavour for the daughter’s husband: he was of ‘low-birth’; his business wasn’t white-collar; he didn’t provide his daughter the lifestyle she was entitled to. And perhaps, on some level, he recognized in this man the same limitless devotion he saw in his own wife. It’s something to distrust and fear. It’s something one cannot rely on. Money. Material goods. They are secure. You can rely on them. They’re what will get you through life.
The daughter wasn’t strong enough to withstand her father’s blows to her life. She starts to turn on her husband, the one who left everything just to love her. She became a ruthless critic herself. Nothing he did could ever be good enough. He becomes despondent: is this where my faith led me? Is this how faith disappoints in the end? Faith, he learns, is a lie; it’s not rewarded. He turns angry. He fights back in his not-so-passive ways. The marriage, after only a few years, is obliterated. The possibility for repair is completely unforeseeable.
They have kids. It’s what people. Having beautiful children will provide the façade of peace and satisfaction. But the wife and husband are still at war. Now they have ammunition between them. Or territory to claim. I’m not sure which.
In one, ultimate blow, she seizes the territory as her own. He has very little hope of regaining it now. He had been demonized. He had failed them. So according to the wife’s rhetoric, she had every justification for taking the children away from him. ‘I saved them. Therefore, they will have to love me more.’ They were going to live with her father and mother. Her father approves of this. Finally, he can correct the bad habits formed in them by their low-class father. He will get to teach them all the things that life is about, like obedience, discipline, and academics. ‘The children’s father is about all play and no work. I will show them that virtue is in a life of all work and no play,’ the grandfather tells himself.
Almost 30 years later, the grandparents have passed on. (The grandfather had a lonely, emotion-less funeral; the grandmother had a very populated, laudatory one.) There is very little trace of the woman’s family. The bonds are tenuous. Except for the woman, each of them is in a new family of their own. She lived for her parents, her father’s approval. But now they are gone and she is left with very little else, much less a sense of herself.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Feel something. Feel everything.
The whole point here is to feel something. From the lowest lows to the highest highs. By taking something that keeps you from feeling these things, you rob yourself of that which makes you live. Feelings, physical and emotional. There’s a certain dishonesty that comes from the compulsion to avoid pain. We surround ourselves with things to buffer us from potential suffering.
There are a few things I object to about the Buddhist religion, and one of those things is the avoidance of pain. Buddhism teaches us to avoid attachments for they inevitably lead one to experience suffering.
Suffering gives birth to wisdom. There's no other way to know the fullness of life without suffering. We would not be able to appreciate The Good, if we have haven’t known the alternative. To not know suffering causes us to take The Good for granted. And that is death. It is void. It is the absence of love.
Nothing comes from nothing. Feelings are always the consequence of something. They can be the result of success or failure, acknowledgement or neglect. The feelings always succeed something, some kind of event. Suffering is usually the consequence of neglect of some kind. One might neglect her body, and as a result of this period of neglect, she suffers from illness. A parent might neglect a child, and eventually both will suffer from loneliness for the other. One might neglect his dreams, his innermost desires, and eventually suffer from loneliness for himself, from the loss of himself.
Feelings serve as an alert. As an alert it urges us to self-knowledge, to seek out the sources of these feelings. In tracing our feelings back to the source, we are lead on a path that winds its way through the world within, showing us the caves and the vistas. It is a process of love, for the greater the self-knowledge the greater the love. The more one knows himself the more he knows about the outside world as well. The more one knows himself, the greater his ability to empathize. We are all made up of the same stuff, after all.
There are a few things I object to about the Buddhist religion, and one of those things is the avoidance of pain. Buddhism teaches us to avoid attachments for they inevitably lead one to experience suffering.
Suffering gives birth to wisdom. There's no other way to know the fullness of life without suffering. We would not be able to appreciate The Good, if we have haven’t known the alternative. To not know suffering causes us to take The Good for granted. And that is death. It is void. It is the absence of love.
Nothing comes from nothing. Feelings are always the consequence of something. They can be the result of success or failure, acknowledgement or neglect. The feelings always succeed something, some kind of event. Suffering is usually the consequence of neglect of some kind. One might neglect her body, and as a result of this period of neglect, she suffers from illness. A parent might neglect a child, and eventually both will suffer from loneliness for the other. One might neglect his dreams, his innermost desires, and eventually suffer from loneliness for himself, from the loss of himself.
Feelings serve as an alert. As an alert it urges us to self-knowledge, to seek out the sources of these feelings. In tracing our feelings back to the source, we are lead on a path that winds its way through the world within, showing us the caves and the vistas. It is a process of love, for the greater the self-knowledge the greater the love. The more one knows himself the more he knows about the outside world as well. The more one knows himself, the greater his ability to empathize. We are all made up of the same stuff, after all.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Why the World Needs Art
Humans differ from other animals because we have opposable thumbs, which make us dexterous and therefore able to make the complex forms of machinery that enhance our lives.
I once heard someone say that he believed the main factor which differentiates us from the animals is that we sit in chairs. That was an interesting take.
I think the preeminent characteristics which set us apart from the animals are that we are inspirable and inspiring. But preceding this ability to inspire and be inspired is another uniquely human trait: the need to self-express. To do this, we use our voices, we use our hands, we use our bodies. Everyone, in her own way, has this innate need. It’s as integral to living as breathing.
When we are free -- either within or with out -- what we express is always and necessarily beautiful. However unique or bizarre or unexpected it is, it is beautiful. As we express ourselves we are each representing to the world our own vision of beauty – it is beauty as we and only we can know it. It is reality, and therefore Truth, as we know it. Sometimes one's art may not appeal to our tastes, or we may fail to understand it, but art is always doing something inside us. It causes us to feel something, thus reminding us of our visceral selves. It’s our ‘gut’. When we understand something instinctively and beyond reason, we say we ‘feel it in our gut’. This is how I choose to think of visceral and the viscera here. We’ll choose to follow our ‘gut instinct’ because we know, in spite of what reason is telling us at the time, that it comes from the most honest place in us. The viscera is the seat of Truth, honesty, Nature inside us. We feel as though it is so real and alive that it assumes an actual form in our bodies, the gut. Is it the stomach? The intestines? Of course we know it’s not an actual part of our anatomy, yet we feel it assumes a physical state inside us.
So, if the gut has assumes no form yet it’s inside us, what is it? It is our piece of the divine. It is that thing which makes us more than animal, more than human. It’s how we are tapped into the truths about life which are universal. When we are expressing ourselves freely, openly, honestly – which is always and necessarily beautiful - it means we have, out of utter humility, surrendered our voices, our hands, and our bodies to be the media of the divine within us. And doing this in turn inspires others to create, to express the beauty within them. And Beauty, as Plato has reminded us, inspires Love.
I once heard someone say that he believed the main factor which differentiates us from the animals is that we sit in chairs. That was an interesting take.
I think the preeminent characteristics which set us apart from the animals are that we are inspirable and inspiring. But preceding this ability to inspire and be inspired is another uniquely human trait: the need to self-express. To do this, we use our voices, we use our hands, we use our bodies. Everyone, in her own way, has this innate need. It’s as integral to living as breathing.
When we are free -- either within or with out -- what we express is always and necessarily beautiful. However unique or bizarre or unexpected it is, it is beautiful. As we express ourselves we are each representing to the world our own vision of beauty – it is beauty as we and only we can know it. It is reality, and therefore Truth, as we know it. Sometimes one's art may not appeal to our tastes, or we may fail to understand it, but art is always doing something inside us. It causes us to feel something, thus reminding us of our visceral selves. It’s our ‘gut’. When we understand something instinctively and beyond reason, we say we ‘feel it in our gut’. This is how I choose to think of visceral and the viscera here. We’ll choose to follow our ‘gut instinct’ because we know, in spite of what reason is telling us at the time, that it comes from the most honest place in us. The viscera is the seat of Truth, honesty, Nature inside us. We feel as though it is so real and alive that it assumes an actual form in our bodies, the gut. Is it the stomach? The intestines? Of course we know it’s not an actual part of our anatomy, yet we feel it assumes a physical state inside us.
So, if the gut has assumes no form yet it’s inside us, what is it? It is our piece of the divine. It is that thing which makes us more than animal, more than human. It’s how we are tapped into the truths about life which are universal. When we are expressing ourselves freely, openly, honestly – which is always and necessarily beautiful - it means we have, out of utter humility, surrendered our voices, our hands, and our bodies to be the media of the divine within us. And doing this in turn inspires others to create, to express the beauty within them. And Beauty, as Plato has reminded us, inspires Love.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Hobby is a Myth
What happens to the artist when he doesn’t get to create his art? When he represses his creativity? For the artist, his art is his voice. It is means of self-expression, the one most natural and most unique to him. I often think about the frustration that the artist who’s – for any number of reasons – is unable to use his voice. He’s mute. Although he may have convinced himself and others that he doesn’t really have the ability, the artistic ability, in his heart of hearts he knows he does, or, at least has some curiosity to discover whether he does.
I think there’s no one more easily convinced of one’s lies than the liar himself. We are easily given to believing our own lies. We want to; it seems to make life easier when we do. Life is more difficult for those who see the world differently from the others. It requires some effort and strain to challenge established structures, habits, and notions. It’s disheartening to endeavour toward something no one else but you can else envision.
Let’s say the artist suppresses his voice and he finds he’s doing so successfully: he’s lost the urge and any skill he might have had, which further confirms his belief that he’s not an artist. But, I think, what the artist doesn’t realize is that the impulse to create is not his to control. It is an energy, a force, that has a life of its own. He is the vessel, the conduit for this creative force. His body, his heart, and his mind are the medium for this energy in this world. The force is of other-worldly provenance.
Bottled up within an earthen vessel the other-worldly force churns. Like a tornado, which draws more and more energy to itself as it spins within the vessel that is the unexpressed artist, until finally it bursts forth, causing destruction to anything around it, or, at the very least, to the human vessel within which it was contained. One possible example of the former scenario is Adolf Hitler. He’s extreme. As a result of his repression of his artistic energy, he became frustrated, which turned to despondence, which in turn became anger which turned into hatred.
Examples of the latter scenario – of the artistic forced-turned-self-destructive – is all too common. We know many of these lost artists. Regardless of what they do for a living, ie. working a bank or some other corporation, you can spot them by how well they compose a photograph, for instance. Or they way the put flowers together. Or the color of socks they choose. Or the shape of their glasses. Or by how much they like to sing. Or doodle. Or dance. These lost artists will reveal only very small and seemingly insignificant hints like these. It’s within these miniscule corrals that they have let themselves run amok. They have told themselves and others that these perversions from the ordinary and merely “hobbies, but nothing they take seriously.”
Hobbies are things we enjoy doing but which we have restricted ourselves from completely indulging in. I don’t think that, by nature, there really are such things as hobbies. The notion of the ‘hobby’ is something we came up with to excuse ourselves for giving into a day-to-day that we hate, a lifestyle that goes against our nature. If we enjoy doing something, love something, or are good at something it’s for a reason.
Unfortunately, sometimes you can also spot the lost artist, the closeted artist, by how much the person drink, or how often he does drugs, or loses himself in some other addiction, i.e. to money, to fame, to shopping, etc. (Edie Sedgwick immediately comes to mind right now only because I saw Factory Girl last night.)
I think there’s no one more easily convinced of one’s lies than the liar himself. We are easily given to believing our own lies. We want to; it seems to make life easier when we do. Life is more difficult for those who see the world differently from the others. It requires some effort and strain to challenge established structures, habits, and notions. It’s disheartening to endeavour toward something no one else but you can else envision.
Let’s say the artist suppresses his voice and he finds he’s doing so successfully: he’s lost the urge and any skill he might have had, which further confirms his belief that he’s not an artist. But, I think, what the artist doesn’t realize is that the impulse to create is not his to control. It is an energy, a force, that has a life of its own. He is the vessel, the conduit for this creative force. His body, his heart, and his mind are the medium for this energy in this world. The force is of other-worldly provenance.
Bottled up within an earthen vessel the other-worldly force churns. Like a tornado, which draws more and more energy to itself as it spins within the vessel that is the unexpressed artist, until finally it bursts forth, causing destruction to anything around it, or, at the very least, to the human vessel within which it was contained. One possible example of the former scenario is Adolf Hitler. He’s extreme. As a result of his repression of his artistic energy, he became frustrated, which turned to despondence, which in turn became anger which turned into hatred.
Examples of the latter scenario – of the artistic forced-turned-self-destructive – is all too common. We know many of these lost artists. Regardless of what they do for a living, ie. working a bank or some other corporation, you can spot them by how well they compose a photograph, for instance. Or they way the put flowers together. Or the color of socks they choose. Or the shape of their glasses. Or by how much they like to sing. Or doodle. Or dance. These lost artists will reveal only very small and seemingly insignificant hints like these. It’s within these miniscule corrals that they have let themselves run amok. They have told themselves and others that these perversions from the ordinary and merely “hobbies, but nothing they take seriously.”
Hobbies are things we enjoy doing but which we have restricted ourselves from completely indulging in. I don’t think that, by nature, there really are such things as hobbies. The notion of the ‘hobby’ is something we came up with to excuse ourselves for giving into a day-to-day that we hate, a lifestyle that goes against our nature. If we enjoy doing something, love something, or are good at something it’s for a reason.
Unfortunately, sometimes you can also spot the lost artist, the closeted artist, by how much the person drink, or how often he does drugs, or loses himself in some other addiction, i.e. to money, to fame, to shopping, etc. (Edie Sedgwick immediately comes to mind right now only because I saw Factory Girl last night.)
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Putting Food on the Table
To think that one’s identity is static and complete unto itself – at any point in one’s life – is arrogant, for it requires the utmost humility for one to recognize that he needs improvement. The person has assumed that his ken -- most likely, a body of knowledge bequeathed him by an authority figure, i.e. a parent, political/religious leader, or a companion – is all that he will need to get by on for the rest of his life. He assumes that as long as he flies under the radar, doesn’t do anything unorthodox or off-track, he has enough. He’ll be fine. After all, he tells himself, Life is just about having a job and paying your bills. A child who dreams of becoming an actor is told by a person of authority, “You know that it’s a one in a million chance that you can make any money at it, right? There are only a few successful actors in the world and they had to fight really hard to get there.” This is a common one: “They don’t call them ‘starving artists’ for nothing.” Obviously, this stills fear in the heart of the child as he grows into adulthood. Of all the things to fear, he learns to most fear… hunger.
What the child also learns from this is that he will be able to derive his sense of self-worth from his level of ability to put food on the table. The parlance for this has been "to provide" or "to be a provider." To use the term in this way makes it almost impossible to debate. Why, of course, my highest value is to provide for others. I'd be remiss if it weren't! What kind of human being (or Christian) doesn't want to provide for his family?
Years later into his adulthood, the child who dreamed of a creative and glamorous life as an actor, has a very respectable job, stable, interesting enough. With his earnings he’s going to buy a house, heck, a few houses. His job is his job – it’s what pays his bills. But these houses, these investment properties, have become his new dream. It seems to be a good choice for a dream, he’s been lead to believe: it’s tangible, it’s practical, and you can actually see progress. Besides, everyone else seems to be doing it, so it must be a sound plan. It seems to be a very concrete object to vest one’s aspirations in. In the evenings he can work, little by little, on rehabbing his dream. The more time and energy he puts into it, the more successful it will become. He will be able to flip the houses for a huge return so then he can afford to be… well, even less potentially hungry.
He is very active, busily rehabbing the property. Yet he is still inert. While he may be highly motivated for home improvement, he is not on the track for self-improvement. On some level, as I had written yesterday, this inertia is borne out of fear, fear of change, fear of responsibility, fear of one’s self. Perhaps, now that he’s older, grown a little cynical and jaded, he’s forgotten what it’s like to dream of a best possible self, a highly self-actualizing self. Eh, it doesn’t get you anywhere. I’ve seen how it doesn’t get you anywhere. Really, he doesn’t know whether or not chasing the idealized version of himself is worthwhile because he never really made the effort. So, while on some level, his inertia is fear of one’s self, it is rooted in laziness. It requires a lot of work without a manual, a lot more mental power to stay on track toward an intangible vision. This mental power is imagination... and it takes all you got.
As for hunger, it’s not so bad. It passes. In North America, eventually you get fed. I’m often reminded of this anecdote: I was walking along St-Catharine in Montreal with a friend. He noticed a bird picking something off the ground and eating it, and remarked, “God provides even for the least of His creations.”
Nourishing your Self, however, is up to you.
What the child also learns from this is that he will be able to derive his sense of self-worth from his level of ability to put food on the table. The parlance for this has been "to provide" or "to be a provider." To use the term in this way makes it almost impossible to debate. Why, of course, my highest value is to provide for others. I'd be remiss if it weren't! What kind of human being (or Christian) doesn't want to provide for his family?
Years later into his adulthood, the child who dreamed of a creative and glamorous life as an actor, has a very respectable job, stable, interesting enough. With his earnings he’s going to buy a house, heck, a few houses. His job is his job – it’s what pays his bills. But these houses, these investment properties, have become his new dream. It seems to be a good choice for a dream, he’s been lead to believe: it’s tangible, it’s practical, and you can actually see progress. Besides, everyone else seems to be doing it, so it must be a sound plan. It seems to be a very concrete object to vest one’s aspirations in. In the evenings he can work, little by little, on rehabbing his dream. The more time and energy he puts into it, the more successful it will become. He will be able to flip the houses for a huge return so then he can afford to be… well, even less potentially hungry.
He is very active, busily rehabbing the property. Yet he is still inert. While he may be highly motivated for home improvement, he is not on the track for self-improvement. On some level, as I had written yesterday, this inertia is borne out of fear, fear of change, fear of responsibility, fear of one’s self. Perhaps, now that he’s older, grown a little cynical and jaded, he’s forgotten what it’s like to dream of a best possible self, a highly self-actualizing self. Eh, it doesn’t get you anywhere. I’ve seen how it doesn’t get you anywhere. Really, he doesn’t know whether or not chasing the idealized version of himself is worthwhile because he never really made the effort. So, while on some level, his inertia is fear of one’s self, it is rooted in laziness. It requires a lot of work without a manual, a lot more mental power to stay on track toward an intangible vision. This mental power is imagination... and it takes all you got.
As for hunger, it’s not so bad. It passes. In North America, eventually you get fed. I’m often reminded of this anecdote: I was walking along St-Catharine in Montreal with a friend. He noticed a bird picking something off the ground and eating it, and remarked, “God provides even for the least of His creations.”
Nourishing your Self, however, is up to you.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
More on 'sloth'
In an earlier post I dubbed mental laziness 'sloth'. Here are more thoughts on sloth.
Some of this mental laziness comes from the refusal to grow up. The refusal to grow up entails the resistance to learning new things, things about life, about how the world works. It comes from hubris and the feeling that one knows all that’s worthwhile knowing.
Sometimes this refusal to change, to grow up, to evolve, is borne out of the feeling that one’s identity was rejected or deemed ‘not good enough’ by someone else. In her defiance to these feelings of rejection, she becomes determined to be her self unwaveringly. She assumes the credo, “I gotta be me. Come what may, I gotta be me.” But this sense of her self is limited to how she sees herself in that moment when she has decided to stay firm in her selfhood. Therefore, she effectively ‘freezes’ herself in time. The totality of the self that she had come to know at, say, the age of 21, remains the same self she insists on knowing into her chronological 30s, 40s, and beyond.
It is fear therefore that has made her lazy. It’s paradoxical: on one hand she is firm – exerts force – in holding onto this identity; on the other hand, she has been weakened by the fear of being rejected or disappointed again. As a result she has limited herself to the point of self-debilitation for to learn is to feed oneself.
To “be me”, to be one’s authentic self, is also to be mutable. To relish the wonder of Life as a young person would is to be open, hopeful, curious. Contrary to what this person believes, to define herself according to a finite array of tastes, interests, and notions is a disservice to her self. It is the failure to honour her organic nature. And this failure to honour her natural, evolving self, is grounded in the ego, which, by the way, is not endemic to humanity; it is earthly.
Ultimately, this frozen identity eventually becomes angry, frustrated that her limited point-of-view and, therefore, limited understanding, has fallen short of leading her to a place of self-satisfaction. To add insult to injury: she’s angry and dissatisfied and she can’t understand why. She doesn’t know what she’s missing.
Some of this mental laziness comes from the refusal to grow up. The refusal to grow up entails the resistance to learning new things, things about life, about how the world works. It comes from hubris and the feeling that one knows all that’s worthwhile knowing.
Sometimes this refusal to change, to grow up, to evolve, is borne out of the feeling that one’s identity was rejected or deemed ‘not good enough’ by someone else. In her defiance to these feelings of rejection, she becomes determined to be her self unwaveringly. She assumes the credo, “I gotta be me. Come what may, I gotta be me.” But this sense of her self is limited to how she sees herself in that moment when she has decided to stay firm in her selfhood. Therefore, she effectively ‘freezes’ herself in time. The totality of the self that she had come to know at, say, the age of 21, remains the same self she insists on knowing into her chronological 30s, 40s, and beyond.
It is fear therefore that has made her lazy. It’s paradoxical: on one hand she is firm – exerts force – in holding onto this identity; on the other hand, she has been weakened by the fear of being rejected or disappointed again. As a result she has limited herself to the point of self-debilitation for to learn is to feed oneself.
To “be me”, to be one’s authentic self, is also to be mutable. To relish the wonder of Life as a young person would is to be open, hopeful, curious. Contrary to what this person believes, to define herself according to a finite array of tastes, interests, and notions is a disservice to her self. It is the failure to honour her organic nature. And this failure to honour her natural, evolving self, is grounded in the ego, which, by the way, is not endemic to humanity; it is earthly.
Ultimately, this frozen identity eventually becomes angry, frustrated that her limited point-of-view and, therefore, limited understanding, has fallen short of leading her to a place of self-satisfaction. To add insult to injury: she’s angry and dissatisfied and she can’t understand why. She doesn’t know what she’s missing.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Laziness: How we sometimes get ourselves into trouble
Everyone has the capacity for wisdom, “common sense”, or discernment. The lack of these things is borne out of the condition of laziness which I prefer to call ‘sloth’. For me, sloth connotes mental laziness rather than physical laziness. Someone who is a jetsetter, or highly productive, or simply very busy, can be mentally lazy or sloth. Through popular perception – possibly a perception skewed by Judeo-Christian values, such as the Protestant Work Ethic - the extremely busy, highly productive jetsetter represents the best component of a well-functioning society. We can produce. We are prosperous. Therefore: we are secure and satisfied.
A person opts for the mode of laziness thinking this is how he will avoid conflict, effort, and suffering. To follow a script or take the prescribed path seems like the easy route to success or, at least, satisfaction. But eventually his laziness and desire to avoid conflict, effort, and suffering gets him into ultimate suffering and dissatisfaction.
The sloth tends to be supremely preoccupied with the appearance of productivity, prosperity and therefore secure. It’s a cover up for his lack of ideas, imagination, and creativity. The sloth lacks ideas, imagination and creativity because he is sloth. He has shut down mentally. For the sloth, the easiest thing to do is to feign. This is where materialism and the preoccupation with consumer products come from. It is easier, first of all, to fall in line and to vigorously perform a script directed by someone or something else, and second of all, to then adorn oneself with the symbols of productivity, prosperity, and therefore security and satisfaction.
There is a certain sense of security – perhaps a true sense of security – that comes out of the acknowledgement of one’s originality and the ability to creative something original. If it’s a true sense of security, it’s because it is self-sustaining. Originating and creating yields confidence (i.e. security), and confidence yields originality and creativity. It’s self-balancing and therefore harmonious, therefore ultimately satisfying.
Not only is the lazy mind prone to assuming pretense, but it is also highly susceptible to buying into pretense. The sloth has surrendered his mind to be informed by any passing whim, fashion, desire, or scheme. The sloth had, at some point, decided that he will no longer think for himself and concede to any (and even, every) prevailing notion presented by another, because it’s more important to appear as though he fits in, as though he understands. It’s not that so much that it is more important to appear as though he understands the world; it’s actually more important to the sloth to do what is easier, and that is, to pretend than it is to be.
It’s always easier to imitate, to follow, to subscribe. It’s also always easier to throw money at something – or someone – than it is to be with that person. To be in love with that person. To be a parent to that person. To be a friend to that person. To be that person.
A person opts for the mode of laziness thinking this is how he will avoid conflict, effort, and suffering. To follow a script or take the prescribed path seems like the easy route to success or, at least, satisfaction. But eventually his laziness and desire to avoid conflict, effort, and suffering gets him into ultimate suffering and dissatisfaction.
The sloth tends to be supremely preoccupied with the appearance of productivity, prosperity and therefore secure. It’s a cover up for his lack of ideas, imagination, and creativity. The sloth lacks ideas, imagination and creativity because he is sloth. He has shut down mentally. For the sloth, the easiest thing to do is to feign. This is where materialism and the preoccupation with consumer products come from. It is easier, first of all, to fall in line and to vigorously perform a script directed by someone or something else, and second of all, to then adorn oneself with the symbols of productivity, prosperity, and therefore security and satisfaction.
There is a certain sense of security – perhaps a true sense of security – that comes out of the acknowledgement of one’s originality and the ability to creative something original. If it’s a true sense of security, it’s because it is self-sustaining. Originating and creating yields confidence (i.e. security), and confidence yields originality and creativity. It’s self-balancing and therefore harmonious, therefore ultimately satisfying.
Not only is the lazy mind prone to assuming pretense, but it is also highly susceptible to buying into pretense. The sloth has surrendered his mind to be informed by any passing whim, fashion, desire, or scheme. The sloth had, at some point, decided that he will no longer think for himself and concede to any (and even, every) prevailing notion presented by another, because it’s more important to appear as though he fits in, as though he understands. It’s not that so much that it is more important to appear as though he understands the world; it’s actually more important to the sloth to do what is easier, and that is, to pretend than it is to be.
It’s always easier to imitate, to follow, to subscribe. It’s also always easier to throw money at something – or someone – than it is to be with that person. To be in love with that person. To be a parent to that person. To be a friend to that person. To be that person.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
A Conundrum
What about a person who puts the good of many over the love of his life, i.e. his own good and the good of his love? What if the works of the person inspires hope in a community – even a worldwide community – while leaving his wife husbandless and his children fatherless? Is serving the community, and possibly generations following, the greater good? Is it worth sacrificing the love of one’s soulmate or family and the confidence (i.e. faith) of his loved ones? Is it worth risking their faith in him and, more importantly, themselves? They are, let’s say, five of them. The members of the community he serves is innumerable.
At the end of a day of saving-the-world, this person comes back to a lonely life. The one’s closest to him had abandoned him. He goes to bed alone – and possibly anguished by his loneliness – knowing that going to bed means waking up again to another active day of world-saving. There, he is surrounded by people who need him and who make him feel needed. They don’t really know or care how lonely he really is; they are working on a greater good together.
The (former) loved ones of this person, meanwhile, go on with their lives with a little more doubt than there was before. Since the lover/partner/father chose ‘the cause’ over them, they have had a little less confidence in themselves, in life, in love, and in the world. I think it’s out of this lack of faith, this despondence, that we do things that are less than our best, things that are possibly our worst. The faithless – or faith-handicapped – may not wreak havoc prolifically or even ostensibly. But the kind of harm the faith-handicapped is capable of is effective and potentially epidemic. It’s the kind of injury they have experienced. And because they now know of it’s existence – as if they had bitten into the Forbidden Fruit – they can’t help but cause this kind of injury to others.
This kind of injury is the capacity to break another’s heart. And I think it’s the most insidious problem in the world. It’s the broken, faithless heart that effects evil.
At the end of a day of saving-the-world, this person comes back to a lonely life. The one’s closest to him had abandoned him. He goes to bed alone – and possibly anguished by his loneliness – knowing that going to bed means waking up again to another active day of world-saving. There, he is surrounded by people who need him and who make him feel needed. They don’t really know or care how lonely he really is; they are working on a greater good together.
The (former) loved ones of this person, meanwhile, go on with their lives with a little more doubt than there was before. Since the lover/partner/father chose ‘the cause’ over them, they have had a little less confidence in themselves, in life, in love, and in the world. I think it’s out of this lack of faith, this despondence, that we do things that are less than our best, things that are possibly our worst. The faithless – or faith-handicapped – may not wreak havoc prolifically or even ostensibly. But the kind of harm the faith-handicapped is capable of is effective and potentially epidemic. It’s the kind of injury they have experienced. And because they now know of it’s existence – as if they had bitten into the Forbidden Fruit – they can’t help but cause this kind of injury to others.
This kind of injury is the capacity to break another’s heart. And I think it’s the most insidious problem in the world. It’s the broken, faithless heart that effects evil.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Taking Another For Granted - and - Passive Aggression
Passive aggression is sometimes the direct response to an even less apparent form of aggression. Passive aggression, which can often take the form of withdrawal from the other, refusal to participate (sometimes seen as laziness), uncooperativeness, and even adultery, is the person’s reaction to the feeling that they are being aggressed. It is retaliation for the subtle hostility they detect from the other person.
For example, a couple has been together for many years before one half of the couple decides to move to a city 800 miles away from her partner in order to be with her sister who seems to be in need. What she sees as the preeminent responsibility to her sister supercedes her feeling of responsibility to her partner and to their relationship.
Let’s imagine that the partner who was left behind has already been feeling insecure about his partner’s devotion to him. He is under stress of his own (he is struggling to pursue his dream of establishing himself as a musician). Having an insecure professional life cannot but cause him to feel insecure in other areas of his life – Does she truly support my pursuit of this dream? Would she still love me if I failed? Is she leaving me because I am failing?
So, the woman moves 800 miles away to be with her sister. Her partner of so many years can’t help but perceive this as an affront to him and to the relationship. He can’t help but feel that his partner will find things to put before him/Them. The relationship seems to be of secondary, rather than primary, importance to her. He lets her go without expressing his feelings because he has taken her action as a form of communication about her esteem for the relationship.
The woman moves to the other city, under the assumption, however, that they will maintain the relationship over the long distance since there was no discussion about ‘breaking up’.
To assume the faithfulness of her partner while she moves away is the act of taking her partner and his love for granted. To take someone or something for granted can only be done in the absence of love. Although this act of aggression by the woman would not be apparent to most onlookers, the man has been caused to feel taken for granted by the woman in a not-so-subtle way.
The man then proceeds to have an affair with another woman (who, incidentally, strikes him as identical to his former partner, only ‘less complicated’).
Upon learning of it, the woman and onlookers are in an uproar – how could he cheat on her after all their years together? How could he do something so indulgent and superficial at the risk of losing something so profound, so stable?! The man is vilified as the cause of disruption in the relationship.
They both concede that they want to get beyond this incident and continue to be together ‘somehow’. However, there remains an underlying lack of satisfaction: the man feels his protestation for the aggression he has received has been misread and he will continue to be misrepresented in the relationship; the woman feels that there is some discontent under the surface but is unwilling (out of fear) to contend with it head on.
Taking-each-other-for-granted had begun long, long before any of this had happened. Although they were physically and psychologically ‘together’, they had forgotten to truly love each other. They had assumed that a love continued to exist between them without actually loving between them.
(By the way, what I deem the most common and most insidious form of taking-one’s-love-for-granted is “workoholism.” And a common and insidious form of passive aggression is to over-spend the other person’s money.)
For example, a couple has been together for many years before one half of the couple decides to move to a city 800 miles away from her partner in order to be with her sister who seems to be in need. What she sees as the preeminent responsibility to her sister supercedes her feeling of responsibility to her partner and to their relationship.
Let’s imagine that the partner who was left behind has already been feeling insecure about his partner’s devotion to him. He is under stress of his own (he is struggling to pursue his dream of establishing himself as a musician). Having an insecure professional life cannot but cause him to feel insecure in other areas of his life – Does she truly support my pursuit of this dream? Would she still love me if I failed? Is she leaving me because I am failing?
So, the woman moves 800 miles away to be with her sister. Her partner of so many years can’t help but perceive this as an affront to him and to the relationship. He can’t help but feel that his partner will find things to put before him/Them. The relationship seems to be of secondary, rather than primary, importance to her. He lets her go without expressing his feelings because he has taken her action as a form of communication about her esteem for the relationship.
The woman moves to the other city, under the assumption, however, that they will maintain the relationship over the long distance since there was no discussion about ‘breaking up’.
To assume the faithfulness of her partner while she moves away is the act of taking her partner and his love for granted. To take someone or something for granted can only be done in the absence of love. Although this act of aggression by the woman would not be apparent to most onlookers, the man has been caused to feel taken for granted by the woman in a not-so-subtle way.
The man then proceeds to have an affair with another woman (who, incidentally, strikes him as identical to his former partner, only ‘less complicated’).
Upon learning of it, the woman and onlookers are in an uproar – how could he cheat on her after all their years together? How could he do something so indulgent and superficial at the risk of losing something so profound, so stable?! The man is vilified as the cause of disruption in the relationship.
They both concede that they want to get beyond this incident and continue to be together ‘somehow’. However, there remains an underlying lack of satisfaction: the man feels his protestation for the aggression he has received has been misread and he will continue to be misrepresented in the relationship; the woman feels that there is some discontent under the surface but is unwilling (out of fear) to contend with it head on.
Taking-each-other-for-granted had begun long, long before any of this had happened. Although they were physically and psychologically ‘together’, they had forgotten to truly love each other. They had assumed that a love continued to exist between them without actually loving between them.
(By the way, what I deem the most common and most insidious form of taking-one’s-love-for-granted is “workoholism.” And a common and insidious form of passive aggression is to over-spend the other person’s money.)
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
