Posts Tagged: selfishness

general / life — 1 Comment
12
Oct 10

vulnerable

“I want to expose the wound to as many people as possible because there may be someone who could help the healing” :: Jeremy Current, Watershed Charlotte

There are moments of artistic openness that as a listener you absolutely have to seize, to grab ahold of knowing that you’re likely to learn something incredible. This was made true for me this past Sunday at Watershed when Jeremy Current, a guest vocal artist, began telling some of his story. While exposing some of the wounds that birthed one of his tunes he shared the quote above.

I was absolutely captivated, evidenced by my leaning forward in my chair and widening eyes. What I felt was a combination of a deep connection with this truth and yet an amazement at the succinctness with which he was able to verbalize truths that have taken me 30 years to even acknowledge. There are still chasms to cross before I begin to understand it.

It is not that I was unwilling to be vulnerable for fear of showing weakness. There are not enough über-masculine bones in my body to justify this. Essentially vulnerability required me to be satisfied with being embarrassed about the nature of my wound and required others to be at all interested in my being wounded and needing healing. Neither were realities that I could comprehend.

What I’m learning about vulnerability, though, is that it is provides the fuel for inspiration, transformation, and even revolution. Consider the concept of famous last words. When faced with challenge, defeat, looming destruction it depths of your soul, your heart, your core desires are the things that come out. The most well-known response when staring down the barrel of a gun is: “Please … I have a wife and family.”

These things come from down deep. It’s unfiltered soul-speak without any pretense or filter.

These are the important things.

The “I don’t want to be here anymore” things.

The “I don’t know what to believe” things.

The “I’m sure we can make it if we just have one more chance” things.

And, it is often in the vulnerable moments when we hear ourselves audibly speak the confessions and fears and troubles and questions that have been floating around in our heads that change can take took.  It’s fertile ground.  It’s shaken.  It’s soft and prepared for new things.

Seize those moments when you or someone close to you is being vulnerable.  Drink in the confession.  Let it stimulate your mind and heart. Let it stir your soul.  Let it connect you to another being.

And while you and I may never stare down the barrel of a literal gun, our hearts will break and our souls will be wrenched. We’ll be disappointed in our self.

Our failure.

Failure, though, and disappointment are the critical components for relationship.  Transparency breeds trust.  It is in the togetherness of life that my vulnerabilities and your concerns become our collective strength.

general / goals — Comments Off
26
Apr 10

hump

Often, my days feel like hump days.  This is not to say that I feel like each day is Wednesday and I’m as far away from the weekend as I have ever been.

Rather, I feel like there is a large hump directly in front of me.

While the terms thinking and acting are not mutually exclusive, given that these terms represent somewhat opposing points on a philosophical scale I would be severely lop-sided.  In fact, I’ve just attempted to write that last sentence no less than seven separate times and I’m still not completely satisfied.

It is very much the case that I have a love-hate relationship with my pensive persona.  Thinking is an activity I highly recommend and I feel that if more of us did so (particularly before opening our mouths) more of us would be better off.  However, I also recognize that there is a great barrier that a thoughtful person has to overcome: inaction.  The inaction barrier keeps pens glued to the thoughtful person’s hand and buttocks glued to the thoughtful person’s chair.  ”Brilliance cannot be rushed!” is the justification that we thoughtful people like to invoke but, for me at least, this I feel like this inaction simply became me.  I didn’t choose to sit on the philosopher’s stone – rather circumstances plopped me down there and I haven’t been bothered to move since.

If you have been around here long enough, you may remember my thoughts on “active vs passive” – great lessons taught to me be a therapist somewhere along the way. Essentially, the discussion is summed up by saying that an active life is one in when you try to alter the circumstances to suit your spirit, and the passive life is when the circumstances alter you to suit them.

I am a thinker no because my spirit declared it so, but because I succumbed to a set of circumstances.  These “circumstances” have firmly fixed an inaction barrier in front of me made up of a combination of fear, a lack of confidence, laziness, and confusion.  I’m generally fearful of the unknown.  Only recently have I been able to develop any kind of baseline level of confidence that you would expect a 30 year-old man to have.  I’m not lazy, I just enjoy lingering moments of relaxation.  And, I’m not even sure where to start.

Take for example my “thoughts” about wanting to work to eradicate poverty (I’m starting small).  Of course this is no trivial matter, but let’s start this discussion assuming that I am approaching this from a neighborhood perspective – “What can I do just outside my front door?”  I have tons of thoughts on this – I’ve read about it, talked about it with other people, and wrote down some of these things.  But when it comes time to act, I almost couldn’t be bothered.  It’s not that I don’t care: I care deeply about this.  But my actions simply aren’t there – they’re practically non-existent.

Perhaps I’m thinking too practically about this.  I’m not saying that I don’t act when I see opportunities to or that I don’t seek out chances to do something.  Simply, I’m saying that more often than not, when I come home from work I’m happy to not be committed to doing something.

I have great “thoughts” that I want my life to mean something.  I want to have made an impact.  But my actions simply don’t seem to line up with this thought process.

Frankly, I don’t know where to start.  The socially-aware premise to state that it’s all about connections.  I don’t have (or don’t feel like I have) the connections to move from discussion to practical action and I don’t have the confidence to seek them out.  Right now, my fear wins out over my desire.  This is a tension-filled existence.

Granted, it could also be that I’m wired to be a thinker – I’m not arguing this.  At the end of the day, though, I want to know that the things that I did not do weren’t the result of my own justifying excuses.  If I’m not to do something great, I want it to be because otherwise I would be fighting all of the powers of creation that knit me together.

I don’t want to be beaten by the hump.

general / life — Comments Off
17
Mar 10

selfish idiots

We live in this world surrounded by selfish idiots, in a less disparaging, more literal sense than you may be assuming I mean.

Firstly, I believe that it is perfectly justified to say that we are a selfish people. We have learned to be possessive of our belongings, or family, our freedoms, our guns, our time, our food, our privacy, and anything else that can be construed as being ours.

We are irrationally self-indulgent – “I absolutely need a pedicure today” or “What a long day at work… I need a beer”

We are unnecessarily self-reliant to the detriment of community. Our deepest friendships are often tainted with worries about boundary issues and limitations on what can be expected of one another.

We hoard our effectively limitless material wealth in gargantuan homes.

Secondly, you must understand that Idiot is an interesting word for a lot of reasons. It’s generally meant as an insult. It assumes some sort of comparison – that is, “I’m stupid compared to you.” But if you go back far enough, it actually comes from a greek word that means “own/private.” A man that keeps to himself, that does things his own way.

We are now in an alternate universe where the man who was once considered worthy of insult for trying to do things outside the bounds of community is now exalted as the fully self-actualized archetypal human.

Something is amiss.

I’m indubitably aware that we are victims. Marketers appeal to our sense of individualism, our desire to rise above the commoner and excel, to ride the tidal waves of commerce and materialism and prestige to new lands that need conquering. We are ourselves unselfish. Rather we are creatures persuaded into this harsh lifestyle of wine and LCDs and imported automobiles.

Excuses are meant to minimize the effect of one’s own mistakes and misgivings.

And as people die from starvation, and as others are held down by failures of systems supposedly designed to help, and as resources that could help are hoarded, our advice seems all the more surreal:

“Pick yourself up by your bootstraps, get your life back together, do something with your life.”

The message seems to be “If you were just a little more idiotic you clearly wouldn’t’ be in this mess.”

As our toxic individualism has grown, we see psychological and often physical barricades to concepts that are obvious in community. Universal healthcare makes sense to those unconsumed with self. Peaceful resolutions take the place of pervasive war metaphor because it’s not OK that innocent men, women, and children should die. To suppose this is necessary evil is to be only half correct.

As dangerous as this individualism to our world at large, I’m aware that cynicism is equally as damaging and it is an aspiration to be free of this. It is my affliction.

To combat this, surround yourself with people that have an unselfish heart, those who have an appropriate perspective on how to navigate these lives we find ourselves in. Long for relationships that intertwine regularly with deeper meaning and purpose and those in need.

We are not alone and we are not meant to live lonely.