A Friday night: a thirty-something spinster at home with a DVD, and no desire or energy to move beyond the couch. A tough week gone by, dealing with her ‘past-halfway-to-seventy’ birthday a few days away. Neither contemplation, nor prayer, nor journaling, nor goal-setting or mind-messing (a.k.a. positive thinking) seem to be offering any answers. The seeking process, the being stuck space, the constant feeling of this ‘separation-from-half-of-herself’, the knowing that unconditional love is ‘out there’, is there, but isn’t tangible, only spiritual, is exhausting whilst trying to survive in the tangible, ‘real’, ‘now’ world; this is far from ideal world. Feeling completely exhausted by it all. Who would have thought that the desire to know and figure out and live through the process of transcendence would be so tiring? A constant battle between ‘soul-less’, money-orientated, appearance concerned, insecure individuals and my inner soul’s antithesis thereof. It would seem that the inner battle of conscience and truth versus immorality and zero ethics is as intense as the battles fought on famous battlefields… it’s just that the battle with self to survive in a broken world is not one that is going to end whilst I’m still on this planet… in this life.
I see around me that the ‘physical’ appears so much easier to ‘deal with’ than the ‘spiritual’. Go on a diet, get some exercise, go bed with anyone… from where I’m sitting anyway. So that’s what people focus on, their bodies, maybe their minds too, but seldom their souls. I was introduced to 2 ladies this week and they are convinced that it is all “easy” and all one has to do is wake up in the morning, get out of bed and say: “make it easy”, and poof, magic wand has been waved, and it is easy. Indeed, it must work, because what one tells one’s earthly brain is what one is programming it for, and if I lived in the realm of following my earthly brain, then I too would be able to wake up and make it all about the ‘now’ and ‘easy’ and that would be that. No concerns, no difficulties, just deep breathing and ‘flowing’ through the ‘now’ with ease and grace and no concern for the future as it will be ‘easy’; it has been self-prophesied and created and must be so.
Yet, I have this annoying thing called a ‘soul’, a ‘spirit’, that has a solid concern and dislike for what is going on in the world; which is combined with my chosen belief that friction and challenge mold and grow and mature human beings. The Refiner’s Fire must be lived through. The challenging lessons must be entered into. The truth, the history, the life, must be ‘re-membered’ and efforts must be made to endure, press on, persevere, and find peace at the top of the mountain that should be climbed. Someone, in my opinion, at least one person, needs to be observing, taking themselves into account, watching the growth, seeing the changes, pointing out how it happened, why it happened, what the worth is, with regards to meeting one’s self in the place of wisdom through experience and empathy… Still, my opinion is biased, because I am an observer, I am an ‘out-the-box’ thinker, I am a blogger, I am a writer, a performing artist, a teacher. I need material. I can’t say it’s ‘easy’ and just be in the ‘now’, because then I will have no substance to what I am doing and who I am being. I will be a zombie, going from one moment to the next, without purpose, without observing the whole story or sharing actualities.
Of course, I am my own worst enemy, because of my choice of faith, because of my over-thinking, because of my inability to trust, all thanks to my context and life experiences. I could turn any thought in my mind around to make it do what I like, make it serve me as I like, make the factors support whatever I like and whatever I please. I could place circumstances and factors in a light that ‘works’ for me… but, and here is the rub, what makes me ‘right’? What would make that choice and manipulation of facts to suit myself ‘helpful’? The current reading material in this world that now hosts more dis-ease, hurt, pain, abuse, hate, war, nastiness and the like, than ever before (which I could manipulate in my mind to say – that’s fine, that’s ‘right’, as the population is bigger, so this must be the case, proportionate growth) is all about “ME”, all about the “Selfie”, all about “controlling my thoughts, because I can make the best results, I will sort it out my way”… Really? Fallen, hurt, broken, insecure, vengeful, hating, bitter etc, and ‘I have the answer’, ‘I am right’… How? How can that, in any universe, be a rational and acceptable combination, never mind a direction for an entire society to take? “My way”, “my knowing”, “my truth”, because my mommy loves me… Seriously?
I reckon that I can see one HUGE downfall in this thinking pattern of the 21st century, how can there be 8 billion truths in one space called earth and no conflict? How can there be 8 billion individuals wondering around saying “I am in my now” (“I am taking it easy”, “I am in my space, don’t disturb me”, “I am ok”) and none of those 8 billion bump into each other and create major turmoil? Unless every one of the 8 billion takes their selfish space and sits in their own home, on their own and never encounters another…
Marriage scenario:
“My mother has invited us to dinner; I would really like us to go.”
“No, I’m not going, I don’t like your mother, she doesn’t make my life easy.”
How does that not end up in hating, clashing and a fight? A perpetual turmoil that overflows into everything?
Work scenario:
“Please would you assist with this?”
“No, it is not in my job description. I don’t want to, nor do I want to learn to.”
How does that not create frustration, annoyance and bad relations? Never mind limited skills and shortsightedness?
Friends scenario:
“My pet passed away, I’m really bleak, please come and help me bury him.”
“No, I don’t do death; it’s not something I want in my space.”
How is that going to build a relationship? How is that going to develop courage and strength of character?
Obviously the scenarios may be real, one may not need an in-law’s negativity, or someone else’s ‘problems’, or to face a fear at a particular time… but to use ‘flow’, and ‘ease’, and ‘me’, as reasons to avoid facing fears, maturing, growing and becoming a better person? It has to result in leaving the earth overloaded with people who have never left childhood being, never left the maturity of a five year old.
‘Adults’ by age; but ‘children’ by brain, will-power, self-control, self-discipline and immaturity. I see this society of selfishness, of arrogance and more brokenness as “me” takes over as one’s ‘god’. My way, my things, my achievements, it was all me… and, through my glasses: ‘it is/was all me’ is completely delusional.
I can write and type because someone taught me, because someone invented writing and technology, because someone else made mistakes before me, because someone else shared their ideas, wrote them down, gave them away, other people worked really really hard to invent things, to build things, to create the infrastructures that I take for granted every day. Other people have to help me with my health, my car, my laptop, growing my groceries, delivering my snail-mail; it is not all about me. It can’t be… yet, I have learners demanding their marks ‘now’, I have ‘adults’ demanding that things be done ‘their way’, I have had major companies completely unconcerned that their products have caused damage to my health, it’s not their problem… they don’t have to sort it out… there are 7999999999 other people in the world, so no ‘one’ person really is that important…
So why are we living in such a contradiction? Selfie – you are important; build your self-esteem – you are loved; have everything ‘easy’ and ‘now’ – you are worth it, you can have it… yet all I have encountered recently as a thirty-something-spinster sitting on her couch watching her DVD, is that I’m not that important in this world. There is no purpose in living for Self. There is no joy in having everything at your fingertips now when there is no-one to share it with… The world is preaching “Self” and creating a very, very lonely world.
I lift up my prayer this morning, that the world, the people who are sucked into ‘self’ will realise that turning to ‘self’ is not the end of the journey. It is the pathway that is supposed to show them how unfulfilling and meaningless ‘self’ is. It is supposed to show the loneliness and isolation of the ‘self’ as ‘god’ in order to get one to step up, out and above that way of thinking and being. Once one realises that ‘self’ is not what should be served; that ‘me, me, me’ is an incredibly lonely place; that fear gets worse when stuck on its own, feeding itself; that the only way to be saved from the isolation of ‘self’ is to be selfless, to serve, to give, to build, to persevere, to take the ‘road less travelled’, sacrifice, compromise, put others above yourself, be kind, be real, be open, be honest, step out of ‘easy’ and into meaningful, step out of ‘comfortable’ and into creating empathy. Leave ‘now’ and see the whole picture. Learn that love of ALL others in ALL circumstances will lead one to be able to peacefully move to maturity, wisdom, emotional intelligence and an intuition that is trained and listened to in order to make living in a broken world an enlightening experience and not just a journey in front of a hand mirror, serving and achieving nothing.
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