Laughing Through the Tears

If you haven't sobbed heart-wrenching, hiccup inducing tears into a seemingly empty universe, maybe you haven't lived.  If you haven't doubted, you haven't believed, not truly.  If you haven't crossed the valley of darkness, how well are you able to recognize the light?

Maybe the sorrow is not necessary for the enlightenment.   However, I'm at a loss when asked to find someone who has avoided it.

More Than Enough

A little girl stands at my school supply freebies table grasping the pink eraser that she just selected in her tiny hand, her eyes twinkling with delight.  When I tell her that she may take a few more supplies, she smiles and giggles.  She thanks me and proceeds to fill her hands with erasers and glue sticks and runs to her mother.  “I hit the jackpot!” she exclaims.  

A few minutes later, she approaches the table again, this time with a box in hand.  A well-meaning adult has given her a small box in which to carry her loot.  She nods to the half-filled box:  “May I have more?” she asks sweetly.  The gratitude that she had displayed only moments before has dissipated and is replaced by an unquenchable desire to fill the box.  

Humans are the only animals who show up to the earth’s cornucopia with a container.  The more we get, the more we want.  When our cup runneth over, we run to find a jug.

When you have more than enough, you can always get a bigger container, but why would you want to?  Lap gratefully from the abundance of the Universe.  Take a sip or a plunge; it doesn’t matter.  There’s enough for everyone when we show up with gratitude.

Start from Rock Bottom

A lesson in perspective: next time you're having a pity-party about not having the latest gadget, imagine yourself in the context of having just lost everything that you value.  You are suddenly unclothed and unrecognized (for reputation, friends, and family count here as well).  You have no home (yours or otherwise) in which to sleep.  You're ravaged with sickness.You literally have nothing.

Then, slowly open your eyes to what you do have.  The trick is to name it--name it all.  I have my memory.  I have the ability to read.  I have a job. I have cute feet.  I have a meal to eat tonight.   Forget always naming what you don't have.

Just start from rock bottom...and look up.

Here's to a Glass Half Full

Things that I love about this movement: young people taking action for a good cause, social media being used for more than lolCats, the overwhelming response that it illicited.

Forget for a moment all of the criticism.  The positive energy that is flowing through our youth as a result of this video can be channeled into improving our world, or it can be pushed back at them with well-intentioned banter about doing more research before spending their money on anything other than Doritos and the newest IPhone.  I'm in favor of a better world.

This I Believe

Life, our goal-oriented culture would have us believe, is the pursuit of grand moments: vacations, parties, graduations.  In my thirty-three years on the planet, I’ve found the opposite to be true.  The tiny, itty bitty moments are the ones that make my heart explode with joy.  I believe that those moments are the meaning of life.

           
I remember a moment when I was a little girl.  Paul, my little brother and best friend, and I were sprawled on the sofa as my mother read to us about the mythical Monopods from one of the books in the Narnia series.  I remember the scent of Mama’s soap, the giggle in her voice as she read of their quirky habits, the complete sense of stillness and assurance that comes from the steady cadence of a mother’s storytelling voice.

           
I remember a moment in Germany.  Kyle was just a little boy, not older than two.  We were on my bed; he was supposed to be settling down for a nap, and I was supposed to be cleaning or performing some other routine task.   His beautiful little fingers reached up towards the stream of light that had bent its way through the darkened room and he played with it.  Chubby fingers swaying through the untouchable, somehow he summed up the meaning of life in that moment.  A silent philosopher at the age of two.

            
I remember a moment that repeats from time to time.  Alex, fifteen, comes into my room randomly, without warning, and sits at the end of my bed as I try to sleep.  He plays his guitar and talks and talks and talks.  His deepening voice strums steadily on hour after hour as he tells me of friends and plans and himself.   I live for those moments. 

            
I remember Alan’s signature cuddles, and our dog Louis’ chin on my leg as I eat my dinner, and the moment when I fell in love with Will.  I remember opening the notes that my daddy left me when he was to be gone for a week, and dancing alone to my favorite song, and losing myself in a cup of tea and a good book.  I remember my boys covering me with flowers in a hidden meadow in a park, and finding a bird’s nest in a strawberry patch, and three lifetimes of bedtime kisses. 

Somehow the planned vacations and the long strived-for achievements just don’t measure up to a collection of these little moments.  They sit on my soul like so many birds perched on the branch of a tree in springtime.  But they not only inhabit me.  The older I get, the more I realize that these moments are me and the reason for me.  This, I believe.

Afraid of Change

Our need for permanence is tearing us apart.

We bury our dead in impenetrable caskets.  We inject-tighten-taper-nip-tuck-stitch our way to the appearance of youth, nothing but a snapshot of something we once were.  We protect old man-made structures—historical markers, we call them—as we destroy entire ecosystems.  We fill our planet with every manner of photographs, art, technology, literature, anything that will allow us to live just a little bit longer as we are right now.

Beaver dams crumble.  Anthills eventually wash away.  Bird's nests serve their purpose and then rejoin the earth. 

This is supposed to be an age of innovation.  Why is it that we are so afraid of change?

Prerequisites

There is a prerequisite for everything.  Before you can take and understand calculus, you have to understand algebra, trigonometry, etc.  Before you can have civilization, you have to have stability.

The question is: what are the prerequisites for the life that you want?  What are the prerequisites for a sustainable world?  When you figure out and take care of the prerequisites, the bigger challenge becomes just a little bit less intimidating and sometimes even possible to achieve.

De Facto Dictatorships

When people stop holding their leader accountable for the outcome of the group's goal, democracy turns into a de facto dictatorship.  We live in a country filled with the potential to create just about anything.  A sustainable economy.  A powerful education for every child.  A future filled with promise.  You name it.

Yet, we sit back and allow our leaders to dictate our actions.  We fail to question for fear of punishment, fear of loss, fear of the work that might ensue if we're listened to.

But the time is ripe for action.  That future filled with promise is now.  The only question is: who's going to be the first to question?  Who's going to start the revolution?

Choice

Life is a series of choices.  The biggest choice, however, is the one that you make when you don't feel like you have any choice at all.  When all has been decided for you, when there isn't any option that you like, you have the choice to grin and bear it--or you could live it up.  Have a party.  Enjoy yourself.

After all, you can't do anything to change it.  Right?

Everyone Above Average

We are creating a society of mediocre people.  In the same vein as Harrison Bergeron, equality is being misconstrued as sameness.  If everyone learns exactly the same skills in school, then we will be equal.  If everyone goes to college, then we will be equal.  If we're all above average, then we'll be equal.

An equal education is access to the same resources, not being forcefed a diet of the same information and skills as every other child on the planet.  Equality is having the opportunity to do the job you love, not feeling like a failure for not "making it" to an ivy league or even to community college.  Equality is about everyone having the chance to achieve their own brand of greatness, not achieving the impossible task of everyone being above average.

I have a dream, but it's not the same as yours.  And that's a good thing.

The Machine

Any part of a machine is equally important. Without the cog, the machine stops working.  Without the linchpin, the machine stops working.  Thoreau said to "Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine."  I guess it comes down to a choice that we each have to make for ourselves: stop the machine or make it bigger?  The default, of course, is to help build it.  But it's still your choice.

Waking Up

When you wake up in our society and find that you've turned into Kafka's metaphorical bug, confused as to your place in the world, you're probably headed in the right direction.

When you wake up and find that your life is in perfect alignment with our unnatural world, be worried.

Making Trouble

In "War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning," Hegdes discusses the fact that war is often used as an antidote to loneliness and isolation.  By being involved with a force larger than ourselves, we are pulled out of our own private struggle into a collective, however negative that collective might be.

I agree.

I also think that we do the same thing in relatively smaller conflicts.  Often, we struggle and create small conflicts--whether it's a fight or just generalized grumbling--in an unconscious attempt to connect where there is little or no connection.

This is true in the middle school classroom as "troublemakers" light metaphorical fires in order to draw the teacher's attention.  It's also true with many adults, who would rather experience conflict than a cold, impersonal bureaucracy.

Of course, if we know that the conflict is being created to make a connection, a simple (although certainly not easy) solution to conflict might be to create positive connections and rituals.

Just a thought.

Language of the Future

Language is cause.  Language is effect.  Language can be liberating; it can be enthralling.  One thing that language almost never is:

neutral.

We go to war for "Freedom." We call a bureaucratic ploy for control a pretty name like No Child Left Behind, and--suddenly--it's untouchable.  How can you disagree with freedom?  Do you really want to leave children behind?

So, how does a sane adult cut through the rhetorical catchphrases that oversimplify such complex issues as war and education?

Well, language is often used to create positive change.  In "Beyond Civilization," Daniel Quinn argues that instead of trying to steer people away from something (in his case, civilization; in this case war and NCLB), we should create a new meme, a new vision of what is desirable.

Sometimes changing the meme is as simple as changing a word.  Quinn quotes Marshall Sahlins who said, "We are inclined to think of hunters and gatherers as poor because they don't have anything; perhaps better to think of them for that reason as free."  The choice of words is essential to the vision.  Instead of insisting (in our materialistic culture) that being poor is good, we simply find something that our culture values (at least in theory) even more, such as being free from restraints.

Changing the language that surrounds the issue, however big or small it may be, changes the thinking and the values attached to it.  And, of course, once the mind and the heart are pointed in the right direction, we need only get out of our own way as we head to a better future.

Three Kinds of Laws

As far as I see it, there three kinds of laws.

The first kind is a natural law. Natural laws are unchangeable. It is what it is, and there's nothing any mere mortal can do to change it. Gravity would fall into this category. Also in this category: if you eat three super-sized McDonald's value meals a day, you will gain weight (allowing for a few very lucky people out there.)

The second kind of law is the imposed law. This is a law that most people in your circle or society believe wholeheartedly to be true. Democracy is the best form of government. Adults should own cars. Cellphones are necessary. Success can be measured by one's paycheck. War is inevitable. Abortion is wrong.

The third kind of law is the chosen law. These are laws that you have--over the course of years--created for yourself. I have to live in my current city. I can't leave my abusive partner. I'll never be a good writer, cook, or whatever it is I want to be. No day is complete without some vigorous exercise.

The trick is realizing that the last two types of laws are human-made and thus changeable. Not that all laws have to, or even need to, be changed. But they do all need to be at least challenged, just in case.