Chris Herrington, Contributing Writer
Eventually, everything we do can be analyzed into an ad absurdum of selfishness….The word “I” expresses an acknowledgment of our owning our deeds, even if we are not fully aware of their subconscious intentions. There is thus a little dishonesty in everything we do, say, have….and finally even in our being, and first seeing this produces not true humility but a state of spiritual materialism….until ultimately the ego is defeated by its own game playing….we become God’s clowns, silly earthlings, foolish humans, etc.
Accepting that, the futility of our attempts to be good or do right, infinitely, would bring despair if it were not for the unutterable gift of love….we are loved in spite of ourselves….we see it in the eyes of others, we feel it reflected back from those we love….it is not owning, or obtaining, or manipulating, but merely sitting in the light of how beautiful it all is to be alive in the first place…not to make a big deal out of what we know or do, but rather just inductively seeing the nature of being as a state of existence that is so amazing it releases us from the shame of ever not appreciating it…we are just silly, foolish, and gloriously amazing….we just are.
It is for this reason that we can suffer the insufferable, the intolerable, the unbearable, and the unacceptable. Maybe then, seeing others for who they are, without objection because of our self-righteous indignation and outright rejection of them and everything they stand for, we can see the irony in their having crossed our path. That which we hate in others, we loath in ourselves. That which we fear from others, reflects our own inner demons.
It is self-loathing then that is at the bottom of our hyper-criticism. It is self-rejection that makes us demand perfection from others. It is our own shame that lies at the bottom of our humiliation of others. Our own fear of poverty which makes us squeamish about the poor. Our own insatiable nature that makes us hate the rich.
This may say a lot about those we hang out with, with those we poke fun at, with those who are the quick targets of our own remorseless barbs and sarcasm. We need them to remind us of who we are. They are us. And the more we reject them, the more true this is.
“The opposite of love is not hate, but rather indifference,” they say. It is amazing just how smart “they” are. No named experts have cornered the market on intelligent discussion, namely because we are too self-indulgent to think of these things ourselves. We are too wrapped up in our habits, our addictions, our own vision of the world to take the time it takes to really understand what others see. And the same is true of what we think.
We can see those who, like this, publish, do movies, paint, and post; all expressive people want feedback. They may not want or even need even constructive criticism; they may be that evolved in their craft, but they want feedback. Is it working, does it translate, do you get it? If this must include if you reject my work you reject me, then the artist has not sufficiently grown as of yet.
We are vessels of change, of entertainment, of information. In being the change, we observe, like Whitman, a blade of summer grass, the whirl of the universal fractally held within the cosmic dance of every event. The lesson then is to let the grass grow, to have events, to have experiences, and to be the change but to do it with the awareness of self-expression only. Self-deprecating humor is the best stand up. Humbleness is not something we can do to ourselves; we have to experience it in process.
We have children, we have mates, we go through school, we go to the dentist, we have moments when we lose it. These are shared experiences. These are human moments. To deny them is to become psychotic and at a loss in our compassion. To forget these shared experiences is to lose our humanity. To remember then is to be honest and true and worthy of trust. Why use against someone their own humanity? It invites the same on ourselves; and we can’t hide it forever. The truth will win out; it always does.
runningturtle87
