Life Lesson @ MindSay

    You couldn't conceivably imagine. I still can't -- it's verging on ritualistic, foreign, and disgusting. It's repulsive to think that this hedonistic state of mind is keeping me physically alive but mentally decayed. You'd think it was the best lesson I've learned -- that by gloating with experience, I'd somehow become more bold. More of a pariah, less like a robot. Maybe there's nothing to blame. Maybe it's me -- I initiated all of it, didn't I? There were so many chances to settle down. Get a place with someone and live with contentment.


"Have you ever felt scared for yourself? I care for you, Collin."
"God, you're the most beautiful boy I've ever seen."
"I love you."

    I chose a life of straight and dark freedom instead. I'm just uncomfortably happier this way.

"You've never had a threesome?"

Everything is a lesson in life. We pick and choose the events, experiences and teachings that we find significant enough to become part of our individual mortar. Often, those lessons come after we really need them. Perhaps in retrospect is when they stick the hardest because it seems that is when we make a mental note and store it away for safe keeping. Sometimes we get to apply it to another situation in our life, and other times that lesson becomes a gift we can give to someone else.

 

Last night, I was listening to the Last Lecture by Professor Randy Pausch (entire and abridged versions posted in my previous entry)  and there were several valuable life lessons contained within that one lecture. These are lessons that I wish I had come about on my own, but like so many people, I have a tendency to get blinded by present circumstance. We would be doing ourselves an enormous favor if we could learn one small skill and diligently apply it. That skill is the ability to look at the bigger picture.

 

There is always something greater at work than what we are able to wrap our minds around, until we are looking at it in hindsight. We don't need to, at the time something is happening, be able to know what that 'something bigger' is -- we only need to know that there is something bigger.  Accept it, and forget about getting wrapped up in (and worked up over) what we can actually see, hear and feel in the given moment.   Buy your time and focus more on, "What can I learn in this situation," and less on, "How can I push myself past this situation?"

 

Here is an example. I know that at some point in time, everyone reading this entry has felt that someone else is "riding them". You may phrase it differently - you've been given a hard time, you feel like your best isn't good enough, you feel like someone doesn't like you/wants to fail you/wants to catch you in a mistake, or that they are trying to cost you your job, etc. You get the idea. Here's a light bulb for you:  As long as they are making noise, they feel like there is hope for you.  When people stop "riding" you, it is a very clear indicator that you are no longer worthy of their time or attention. It's when they just let you go and pay no attention to what you are/are not doing that you should really worry. None of us want to feel that someone has given up on us. Yet, we bitch and moan, complain and stress out when someone  hates us (cares) enough to "ride us". This is a lesson I wish I had learned earlier.

 

Hopefully, this lesson didn’t come too late in life for me. However, if it is, consider it  my gift to you.

Important life lesson just imparted to me from my kid via the baby monitor:

"Don't let things beyond your control upset you!"

On another blog, I received a response to my entry about the wounded warrior that didn't sit very well with me. Here is my wounded warrior entry:

The wounded warrior doesn't lose his edge, he gains another. The new edge is the edge of reconciliation, of empathy, of understanding, and of valuing life. Do not let anyone minimalize the wounds you have earned, that you have gained understanding from, and from which you have grown to love more humankind. Neither let yourself suffer from arrogance, or any form of grandiose thinking of any kind; remain the humble servant who understands more than they let on.

The response caused a moment of pause as I reflected yet again upon the judgment they placed with their opinion. Through such a comment and how it may or may not apply; our broad brush-strokes are so quick to color every encounter, every person, and every lesson to be the same. What was said is not far different from what many people believe. What was said also can be completely true for many people. However, it is not applicable to all who suffer. Here is the commonly held belief posted in their response:

Ideally, those are the lessons one would learn. But everyone has their own journey and some make it harder than it should be. They must learn their lessons the hard way and it takes much longer. It depends on what level of understanding one has reached.

Everyone does have their own journey and some individuals do make it harder than it has to be. Some wish to make it easier and do not seem able to lessen the severity. Some people are fast learners, others are slow learners. Some learn best by reading, others learn best by doing, and yet more need to hear the words that will help them learn. The poor individual who is going through hell and back who would read that they're a complete loser for "not getting it" sooner. And yet, my immediate heartfelt thoughts upon reading the reply highlights an even more profound statement for the wounded warrior. What about the greats in our history who have suffered greatly?

 

My first hero, Gandhi, was the first to come to mind when I read that some make it harder, and that a lesson must be learned. I've had a similar discussion around the homeless issues as well. All things serve a greater purpose and it is so easy for us to judge from the perspective that others "just aren't getting it" and we can wash our hands of all responsibility to see change occur in our society. Gandhi put himself into harms way repeatedly. Gandhi, through all the situations that deepened his wounds saw his heart for God, his heart for his people, and his heart for the world grow. Gandhi did not shrink from the cup chosen for him, neither did many other great leaders no longer with us today. You know who some of them are. So who needs to learn the lesson?

 

A wounded warrior did not come to fight with violence, fists, and bloodshed - unless it is his own and even then it is not a prefered avenue. The wounded warrior values life and typically in higher regard than the common everyday man. Gandhi, my friend, my example: What lesson did you make harder to learn? To walk away from conflict? To walk away from injustice? That one man cannot change the world? No, no, I didn't think so. I see it myself and it is what I want all to see.

 

If I choose to make my life harder, if I choose to be the change I want to see, if drastic action is called for to have society witness its' failings, then so be it. How can I possibly communicate clearly to others that which I cannot understand? I have understood much about the human condition, society, our frailties, hopes, fears, and dreams; our relationship to each other, how it has shifted over time and continues to shift; how the media clouds our vision, politicians and religious leaders influence our beliefs, interpreting the signs of the times and literally telling us the cause and effect relationship that requires change. We've become such amazingly obedient sheep for our shepherds.

 

We follow along, we point fingers, we lay blame, we act the victim, and almost literally only take care of our own personal agenda and insular sphere of influence. The rest of the world, the rest of the country, the rest of the government, the rest of the community, the rest of the street... and so on... can go to hell, I've got enough to deal with on my own! Sound familiar? I've heard these standard statements often throughout my life. Even so, the influences that sing in my heart are laid by the examples of such as Jesus, Gandhi, JFK, Martin Luther King, just to name a small few. Check carefully before concluding that someone isn't learning a lesson. Maybe they're trying to show the rest of the world something that society has created, or that people are ignoring, etc.

 

This brings me back to one of my favorite issues related to society washing their hands - the homeless. I have even heard it said by spiritual and/or religious people that the homeless chose their lot, made their bed, and therefore must suffer the consequences. In the same way, some would say they're on the street learning a lesson. What I know is that there are many on the street who have chosen to leave the monstrosity of the rat-race - that truth and love is virtually non-existent in the corporate setting, or the business machinations of what is our society today. I know that some of these people are there, and the problem is growing, because the rest of society has failed to act! The issue isn't about providing shelters, food, and treatment programs. The issue is about a systemic problem with the way we get along, the way we work together, the way we compete, and the way we judge, hate, segregate, and so on. It's strictly about the heart.

 

Yesterday, a very new and dear friend of mine got on his own high horse ranting about the problem with the street people in a very bad area of our city. "Give them what they want and what they need," he lamented! Very curious I continued to press him for more explanation. I don't remember all that he said but let me sum it up as best I can.

Giving these people a city-block facility with housing, treatment, counselling, injection sites, dispensed substances, etc., would free up a great deal of resources chasing them all over town trying to police, intervene, and treat the problem. You give them a place to go, provide them with clean and safe substances and the opportunity to make a different choice. Those that make the different choice have access to treatment, counselling, and shelter. If they fall, they fall, and they're given the opportunity to try again. At least then there is a chance, there is no judgment, and we would no longer be de-humanizing ourselves in the process!

That is not a perspective I could have vocalized in such a powerful way before. I concur completely with our responsibility and failings as a society to resolve what seem to be such fundamentally simple issues - at the heart level. Why so many walk past the problems and are so completely unaffected has bothered and puzzled me for years. Until he finished his statement recognizing the de-humanization of the general public any reasoning I heard or tried left a sour taste.  Of course! We have systematically seen the dehumnization of our culture consistently through news, media, television, movies, video games, and our own streets. Is it all bad? Likely not, it is a contributor though, along with our ability to make a judgment that places full responsibility somewhere else.

 

With so much said I'll wrap it up with a few statements of encouragement. Accept the journey others are on, be curious, ask questions, and park your judgment. As Martin Luther said, I have a dream. As JFK said, ask what you can do for your country. As Gandhi said, be the change you want to be. As Jesus said, love covers a multitude of sins. Be love, love is. If this was the guiding principle behind government, business, and our community, how many different outcomes would have seen a world shaping into something far more beautiful than we thought possible?

 

This is a first draft.... it may need some tweaking.

 

Also, do leave a note: Say HI, say good article, say hard to swallow... some interaction would be nice. :)

It's funny, isn't it, how our perception of the world--and of the people in it--is so fragile, and unfounded?  We lay it out much like a house of cards, painstakingly using two different "facts" to support one another as the subunits upon each tier.  In order to believe in any one truth we have to accept another unconditionally.  Have you ever through about things that way?  Everything one believes is based upon something else.  And if one supporting duo of cards upon the bottom tier is flawed, with the slightest breeze the entire house can collapse in a cloud of fifty two fluttering pieces of oversized confetti.

 

Funny how it is, too, with opinions of people.  The bringing to life of one new fact, or the disproving of another, can completely collapse the card house of your opinion.  I have learned that lesson many times, and yet I periodically forget this and begin to make assumptions of others again.  Each time I am reminded with a not-so-gentle nudge in the right direction.

 

Perhaps this little piggy should start to make a house of bricks.