Wednesday, August 10, 2022
On Passion and Competence
We can’t make someone care about something they don’t care about and we can’t unmake someone care about something that they care about.
There isn’t a “your passion,” there is just passion.
There isn’t a person living “their passion,” there are passionate people.
There aren’t people who “love what they do” there are people that love.
There aren’t people who “love what they do” there are people who are well practiced at what they do and feel competent and fluid while doing it.
The things we don’t “love, like or enjoy” are the things we don’t feel competent in. The things we need more practice with.
Those who seem the most passionate about what they do are just people who have specialized at it and achieve a high degree of competence.
We tend to specialize in the things we are good fits for.
What makes something “hard” is that we are not yet fluently capable of it.
Wednesday, June 3, 2020
I Am An Actor Of Color
I am not black but I am a person of color. The platform that is available now for me to speak because of the spirit of now “white people listen” while “people of color speak,” is an opportunity that I will gladly take.
Let me take you back to when I started going to college way back in 2003. My auditor to get into college was a white woman. She did not accept me into the music program.
One day later I went back (we, POC usually have to work twice as hard or more to get equal treatment.) A woman with some Italian blood and skin, by the name of Laura Wallace (RIP) accepted me into the program and even offered me a partial scholarship due to my “great talent.”
Back then I was blind about race and privilege. My dad is a heterosexual white Jewish male and my mom is a heterosexual Christian Dominican woman (with not much melanin but plenty of African blood) so I’ve always been ambiguous about who I am in the racial continuum.
Ask my friend, Julianne B. Merrill what my original response to her calling me a “person of color” for the first time was. This was less than a year ago. When she called me a “person of color,” I laughed in disbelief. I even told my best friend (who is a brown Dominican woman) about this. She thought it was hilarious too. That is how unaware of my identity as a person of color I was. I am not anymore. I am no longer blind to my own color. Thanks Julianne for identifying me. It has helped me so much. I was so confused as to how to identify.
Anyway, back to the distant past... when 19 year old me got denied the first time he auditioned, 19 year old me thought that maybe he wasn’t talented or worthy enough to go to college for singing and acting. Today, 36 year old me sees that there had to be some sort of racial bias (conscious or unconscious) at play.
When my black friends would hint at any disappointment they had around being treated as less than because of the color of their skin, I wasn’t really sure what to think.
Though it was pretty obvious that my black friends were as talented and working as hard as my white friends and peers. What wasn’t so obvious, but now is very obvious is that all the theater faculty at this time was white.
In theater there’s this cliché, “the director hires himself.” The director of our musicals was a white man. He mostly hired white people. Early 20s me just knew to use the phrase “favoriticism.” 36 year old me is seeing that I was putting the incorrect prefix ahead of that ism. The word that really belonged there was the word RACE.
But young, naive, ethnically ambiguous early twenties me did not want to believe that people in the arts could be affected by something as primitive as racism. Thankfully, 36 year old me can now see things with a lot more clarity. Sadly, this was clear to my black friends the whole time. Luckily, my psyche must have been protecting me from the ugly reality that green and young me couldn’t bear. So my psyche kept me in a bubble.
I remember working so much harder than my white counterparts. I remember feeling relieved to see that there was the role for an Italian character (because role distribution in most musical theater material is disproportionately uneven in favor of white people.) I remember the auditions being open to the entire theater department and I remember many of my peers telling me “You rocked that audition, that part is yours.” And I remember getting my hopes up and going to sleep excited to read the casting list the day after. The role of ethnic Vittorio Vidal will be played by... you guessed it! A caucasian!
To this day, my biggest heartbreak in my theatrical career was not getting the role of The Prince/Wolf in my college’s production of Into The Woods... because... you guessed it, this role will be played by... Another caucasian! (As it’s “supposed to be” even though this is fantasy and fiction. Remember a POC playing Ariel?)
Just like they did to my closest friends La'Nette, Nieves, Aprilmarie and Kyle!
The only way we would get a role was if there were no other roles left to give us. Or, in my black friend’s cases, if they were the “token black person.”
And all these years my friends were clearer about and resigned to the racist reality they were living in. Meanwhile naive, ethnically ambiguous, “could pass for white” me (but ONLY IF I neutralize my “Spanish accent”) is here in a gaslight of confusion thinking that I’m just not talented enough. I’m buying new outfits for my auditions, going to the gym, crash dieting, buying accent reduction programs and lessons, taking voice lessons outside of college, etc.
To make matters even more cringey, when I went and auditioned and booked leading roles in community theaters outside of school, the director of the musical theater program at college called me out on it. He told me that I was “arrogant” and that I had a “star complex” and that I wasn’t going to “stop until I saw everybody applauding me while I was at the center of the stage.” Well, about that last part he was right. I won’t stop, not so much until I see everybody “applauding me at center stage,” but until I satiate the need in my soul to get treated with respect and dignity. Not like he did by being racist, making fun of my accent, my heritage, my background and my story. Not like he did by sexually harassing me. Not like he did by unconsciously trying to erase me out of the world of theater. I am not a usable toy for people to use and discard as they please. That is why I became self-employed and continue to hone my craft and pursue my dreams and create my own opportunities by setting goals and meeting them.
If I had left it up to the white woman who first auditioned me, I may not have had a college education. If I would have left it to the firstdirector of musical theater, my resume would have contained zero leading roles.*
(*To be honest, I did get two or three leading roles in college but usually because they had no one else to play these roles and/or because we had a change in staff and a professor that had graduated from a college in NYC replaced the professor that went to college in Illinois.)
As much as these things I’ve shared about have sucked, racism has made and continues to make me stronger. I don’t wish it on my worst enemy, but it can be framed as an ill that can make us stronger.
I am so sorry that I couldn’t see things this clearly before. Not for me, but for my black friends who would occasionally bring this up only to be shut down and gaslit by me to one degree or another. I am sorry.
One of my favorite things to see these days is to see my black actor friends thriving and growing in spite of all that is stacked against them. Sadly, many of the white alumni are now far removed from theater and the arts. Happily, the black and brown alumni, myself included, keep creating our art and awaiting for the light at the end of the tunnel. And we won’t stop. I know it. Because we are talented, we are skilled, we are passionate, we are resilient and we are worth it!
Love to all,
Gabriel Weiner Jáquez
Let me take you back to when I started going to college way back in 2003. My auditor to get into college was a white woman. She did not accept me into the music program.
One day later I went back (we, POC usually have to work twice as hard or more to get equal treatment.) A woman with some Italian blood and skin, by the name of Laura Wallace (RIP) accepted me into the program and even offered me a partial scholarship due to my “great talent.”
Back then I was blind about race and privilege. My dad is a heterosexual white Jewish male and my mom is a heterosexual Christian Dominican woman (with not much melanin but plenty of African blood) so I’ve always been ambiguous about who I am in the racial continuum.
Ask my friend, Julianne B. Merrill what my original response to her calling me a “person of color” for the first time was. This was less than a year ago. When she called me a “person of color,” I laughed in disbelief. I even told my best friend (who is a brown Dominican woman) about this. She thought it was hilarious too. That is how unaware of my identity as a person of color I was. I am not anymore. I am no longer blind to my own color. Thanks Julianne for identifying me. It has helped me so much. I was so confused as to how to identify.
Anyway, back to the distant past... when 19 year old me got denied the first time he auditioned, 19 year old me thought that maybe he wasn’t talented or worthy enough to go to college for singing and acting. Today, 36 year old me sees that there had to be some sort of racial bias (conscious or unconscious) at play.
When my black friends would hint at any disappointment they had around being treated as less than because of the color of their skin, I wasn’t really sure what to think.
Though it was pretty obvious that my black friends were as talented and working as hard as my white friends and peers. What wasn’t so obvious, but now is very obvious is that all the theater faculty at this time was white.
In theater there’s this cliché, “the director hires himself.” The director of our musicals was a white man. He mostly hired white people. Early 20s me just knew to use the phrase “favoriticism.” 36 year old me is seeing that I was putting the incorrect prefix ahead of that ism. The word that really belonged there was the word RACE.
But young, naive, ethnically ambiguous early twenties me did not want to believe that people in the arts could be affected by something as primitive as racism. Thankfully, 36 year old me can now see things with a lot more clarity. Sadly, this was clear to my black friends the whole time. Luckily, my psyche must have been protecting me from the ugly reality that green and young me couldn’t bear. So my psyche kept me in a bubble.
I remember working so much harder than my white counterparts. I remember feeling relieved to see that there was the role for an Italian character (because role distribution in most musical theater material is disproportionately uneven in favor of white people.) I remember the auditions being open to the entire theater department and I remember many of my peers telling me “You rocked that audition, that part is yours.” And I remember getting my hopes up and going to sleep excited to read the casting list the day after. The role of ethnic Vittorio Vidal will be played by... you guessed it! A caucasian!
To this day, my biggest heartbreak in my theatrical career was not getting the role of The Prince/Wolf in my college’s production of Into The Woods... because... you guessed it, this role will be played by... Another caucasian! (As it’s “supposed to be” even though this is fantasy and fiction. Remember a POC playing Ariel?)
Just like they did to my closest friends La'Nette, Nieves, Aprilmarie and Kyle!
The only way we would get a role was if there were no other roles left to give us. Or, in my black friend’s cases, if they were the “token black person.”
And all these years my friends were clearer about and resigned to the racist reality they were living in. Meanwhile naive, ethnically ambiguous, “could pass for white” me (but ONLY IF I neutralize my “Spanish accent”) is here in a gaslight of confusion thinking that I’m just not talented enough. I’m buying new outfits for my auditions, going to the gym, crash dieting, buying accent reduction programs and lessons, taking voice lessons outside of college, etc.
To make matters even more cringey, when I went and auditioned and booked leading roles in community theaters outside of school, the director of the musical theater program at college called me out on it. He told me that I was “arrogant” and that I had a “star complex” and that I wasn’t going to “stop until I saw everybody applauding me while I was at the center of the stage.” Well, about that last part he was right. I won’t stop, not so much until I see everybody “applauding me at center stage,” but until I satiate the need in my soul to get treated with respect and dignity. Not like he did by being racist, making fun of my accent, my heritage, my background and my story. Not like he did by sexually harassing me. Not like he did by unconsciously trying to erase me out of the world of theater. I am not a usable toy for people to use and discard as they please. That is why I became self-employed and continue to hone my craft and pursue my dreams and create my own opportunities by setting goals and meeting them.
If I had left it up to the white woman who first auditioned me, I may not have had a college education. If I would have left it to the firstdirector of musical theater, my resume would have contained zero leading roles.*
(*To be honest, I did get two or three leading roles in college but usually because they had no one else to play these roles and/or because we had a change in staff and a professor that had graduated from a college in NYC replaced the professor that went to college in Illinois.)
As much as these things I’ve shared about have sucked, racism has made and continues to make me stronger. I don’t wish it on my worst enemy, but it can be framed as an ill that can make us stronger.
I am so sorry that I couldn’t see things this clearly before. Not for me, but for my black friends who would occasionally bring this up only to be shut down and gaslit by me to one degree or another. I am sorry.
One of my favorite things to see these days is to see my black actor friends thriving and growing in spite of all that is stacked against them. Sadly, many of the white alumni are now far removed from theater and the arts. Happily, the black and brown alumni, myself included, keep creating our art and awaiting for the light at the end of the tunnel. And we won’t stop. I know it. Because we are talented, we are skilled, we are passionate, we are resilient and we are worth it!
Love to all,
Gabriel Weiner Jáquez
Monday, April 22, 2019
Caring
I saw this happen with me and I see it happen all the time with so many people. The minute we stop feeling cared for, for whatever reason it is (usually because we seem self-sufficient enough to others), we start to get cold.
For me and many others, it happened when our parents met another lover that wasn't our parent. Many times by then, we are bigger and more able to take care of ourselves and some of our parents tend to forget to prioritize us and care for us because they are crazy with a hormone called oxytocin along with a mindset that makes them regress into a teenage like state where they subconsciously go "It's MY turn, I did enough for these boogers - I tried hard enough - I'm going to give myself a chance to be happy with this man - they're old enough."
Notice I said subconsciously, not intentionally. And believe me, this story is SO common, you wouldn't believe it. Basically it happens in at least half the cases where the parents end up getting divorced.
The kids somehow get a message of "you don't matter so much" and then the kids go into a state of apathy and coldness as a defense mechanism to survive. All of this happens, again, subconsciously.
The only reason why I can see this and illustrate so simply is because, as they say, hindsight is 20/20. And the reason why I write it is because I think talking about this is very important.
Parenting is no easy feat, and no parent neglects their child when they are in their right mind. But it is very difficult to be in your right mind when you gave birth to kids of a person that was also not cared for and has patterns of coldness and apathy way beyond their conscious awareness. And no easy feat to run on fantasy for the first few years of your marriage and then wake up hungover from all that fantasy seeing the aloof, absent and detached person that you married and bore kids to.
The human condition can get very dicey and complicated and our wiring doesn't care about any of these stories. It's a lot more simple: don't receive care, you get cold and apathetic and start to think in very distorted and strange ways.
Being cared for is as important as food, education, clothing, shelter, water, sleep and sunlight. Not receiving adequate amounts of care lead to all sorts of strange thinking, behaving and self-destructive patterns that become adaptations.
Our bodies depend on certain needs, not all of which we readily understand. The need to be cared for, understood, validated, heard, appreciated, included and accepted are a lot bigger than we realize. The catch is if we aren't receiving those things, we aren't learning how to give them. And when people give them, many times we are skeptical and incapable of receiving them.
So the solution is not easy. Many times genuinely caring people get misconstrued as people with agendas - an idea we often internalized when a step parent or a new lover of our parents came in. And sometimes these strangers that we perceive as invaders of the family mean well and sometimes they don't. To a kid who is missing the warmth and attention of their parent, it usually doesn't look good no matter what.
So parents, be careful with how you introduce and transition a new step parent or lover into the life of your children and adult children, consider these principles and seek therapy and support groups. The goal is to end up with at least one or two truly caring people in your life. People that easily and willingly care about you and people that you easily and willingly care for.
In city cultures, like in NYC, this is not easy to find. I have met and spent time with so many people who have a severe deficit of caring. I know, because I am one myself. But the good news is that seeing I am not alone has really inspired me to take the first step and be there for someone else as best as I can. Often times I am received with great skepticism or if the people are gay they assume there's a sexual agenda behind my friendship. It's really sad what's happening with us humans.
The other thing is this: clicking like on a post, commenting your condolences with a black heart emoji or using that stupid new feature where you react to a person's text - none of those go deep enough to establish a true connection with anyone. People need to feel like they matter a little bit more than getting a double tap on their Instragram post or a star emoji. That's like giving someone a spoonful of fluff or icing when they need a three course meal.
Call a friend, make a date to hangout with them, listen to them when they talk, surprise them at their job, connect with people with all the sense and not just sight and sound.
And for God's sake, don't fall into this infinitely reductive digital screen fluff of connection where the most you can do is hold the text down and pick a reaction from a list that pops up. Nothing irritates this caring deprived hopeless human race lover more!
Sunday, April 21, 2019
How To Be Secure In Your Views And Knowledge
I don't know about you, but the thinkers I respect the most are the ones that are very secure in the knowledge they posses and in the views they hold. Of course I'm not talking about obstinate and closed-minded know-it-alls. I'm talking about thinkers who have views and information that are rooted in something much greater than speculation, emotion or shaky sourcing.
As a strong and deep thinker myself, I have found myself in countless debates with people who get highly triggered by the confidence and security behind the positions and perspectives I hold. And even though I hold less and less of these as I mature more and more, the few that remain and I hold on dearly to are just as threatening to those who don’t seem to feel as certain and secure in their personal convictions.
And here's the thing. Well, let me give you this analogy - since I love analogies. Not many days ago, I was putting shelves in my closet. To put them on, I had to find the places in the wall that are supported by what's called a stud. A stud, for those of you that don't know, is a part of the foundation of the wall that is solid and keeps that wall in place. It's like the skeleton of the wall.
Anyway, in a few misses, I drilled a hole and put a screw into the parts of the wall that had no stud, these screws where not supported by much more than the plaster the wall was made of, in other words, there was nothing solid or substantial behind it. Any shelf I would try to hang on that would eventually collapse, as plaster alone could not secure much.
So just like that, if we're going to have a belief, opinion, view or idea that we're going to feel secure about, we're going to have to base it on a stud that can support and have something quite substantial and solid in place. Here are some things that are not substantial or solid enough to allow us to be secure or confident in our view:
1. Emotion.
2. Speculation.
3. Superstition.
4. Assumption.
5. Fear.
Although any or all of these could work with someone who is not a strong thinker, they will never work with someone who has spent a great deal of time "stud finding" (to go on with my metaphor). None of these things could ever trump the following:
1. Awareness.
2. Experience.
3. Experimentation.
4. Evidence.
5. Testing.
To arrive at information, views and knowledge that have something solid behind it, we have to do more than just spew out our inherited, passed down, unquestioned beliefs and assumptions. It takes actual work and deep digging to find views that we're not going to feel insecure about.
The way to know if we're secure and have arrived at a view that is holistic is when we don't easily feel triggered when somebody challenges our point of view. When our point of view is in alignment with the powerful force of reality, it is pretty much in place as securely as a view can be.
That's the nice thing about it, reality is self-confirming because we are wired to feel in harmony and balance when we are aligned with it. All half-baked beliefs and views come with an immense amount of insecurity in them. That is why people get so emotional and "passionate" about their views - because they feel they have to campaign for them with all their might in order to keep feeling like how they see things is actually true.
And lest anyone reading this misconstrue my point: I am not saying that feeling very secure in what you believe is evidence that the belief is accurate - our capacity to be deluded and out of alignment is obviously monumental. What I am saying is that if our views bring us a sense of harmony, simplicity, peace and relaxation along with a feeling of warmth, clarity and love, that is how we know that we are in alignment with reality.
When we feel insecure, defensive, reactive and emotional, we can be pretty sure that something is out of whack.
I love how we are wired to reflect our state of mind. Any misinformation or out-of-whack belief will cause a state of insecurity and anxiety. The truth and sound and solid views don't have to attack, defend, react or go into crisis in order to make their point known.
So if you find yourself getting threatened by someone expressing their view or position that doesn't align with yours (or lack of yours) - use this as a gauge that there is more work to be done in the investigation department. Of course, if security and confidence are things you value. I have never seen someone becoming non-defensive and secure in their views without using their intelligence in a very pointed way to arrive at a place of clarity.
Maybe sometimes people do get there by virtue of aging, but I am of the bias that getting clear and straight in your mind, heart and gut does take some pointed and intentional work. Especially in a world that is full of folks that get by with very shaky foundations. If they survive and get away with it, then why bother? My answer: because paying the price of living in a state of psycho-emotional insecurity is no fun at all. And it leads to a lot of craziness. Invest a little, dig deeper and find some good instruction and guidance, I think it's worth it. It will make you more secure in yourself and way more confident. Of course this is assuming you haven't yet signed up to go on this ride. It's a long one, but it's a fun one. And it's totally worth it.
Friday, April 19, 2019
There Is No[t So Much Of A] Self
A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of staying with my brother, his wife and their 11 and 4 year-old. During my stay, my mother came to visit from the Dominican Republic and I got the opportunity to observe how all this self stuff works. I feel so lucky and grateful.
Here's what I saw... so my nephew who was then 3, but is now 4 seems to prefer junk food over whole foods. Now his father, mother and my mother (his grandmother) all obviously prefer that he eat wholesome foods because as grown-ups we understand whole foods are more nutritious and nourishing. Of course my nephew doesn't understand nor care about that. He's a 4 year-old.
Anyway, here's what I saw and how it clicked for me that there isn't nearly as much of a self as most of us seem to believe... My mother, with all her good intentions is trying to get him to eat actual food... but he's still being stubborn and throwing a tantrum that he wants the sugary and unhealthy stuff.
And it was around this time when mom turns to me and tells me something to the effect of: "He doesn't like real food, he only likes junk."
Something about when she said this made it very clear to me that what she was referring to as "He" was his supposed "self," but really, "he" is just a human with a tongue and a brain that are susceptible to addiction. Processed sugar is a highly addictive drug - when we give it to very young humans, their taste buds and digestive and biochemical systems trigger a chain of effects that sooner or later become cravings for the substance.
So is it that "He" (his "self") prefers processed sugar over wholesome foods or is it that his body is addicted to a substance completely unbeknownst to him? And here's where excessive "selfing" begins. His parents and peers tell him "YOU only like junk food" (When the fact really is: your body has been repeatedly exposed to an addictive substance and now it is craving more of it). Repeat and drill the idea that it is "YOU" (whatever that is) that loves junk food, and now we have a self that actually believes that "he" is a junk-food lover.
And the same goes with so many other things. "YOU" like this cartoon. "YOU" like this color. "YOU" like to drive me crazy. "YOU" like to manipulate. "YOU" don't like to read. "YOU" don't listen. "YOU" are... "YOU" aren't...
Before you know it, these messages get repeated and reinforced so many thousands of times and it all starts so early that it just keeps piling up and being recorded in a way that creates a seemingly solid self that was never real to begin with. And all I keep thinking about is all of the years of meditation and self-inquiry that are necessary to get dismantle this innocently created mess.
For me, when I was a kid, my mom and my dad used to look at me and tell me stuff about "myself" that to this day baffle me. And maybe that is how I was able to remember and see this innocent process happening. Because I would see the baffled face on my nephew when he would be told certain things. Kind of like "huh?" Followed by "I have no idea what you're saying, but you sure do sound really convinced and you're an adult, so you must know what you're talking about."
And that power differential is what tends to get the young child to buy and accept and embrace these false aspects of themselves. And as anyone who has looked at human development and psychology enough knows, it won't be long until the child actually starts to play that role to fit in with the family. A role that more often than not becomes a self for a long time.
Hopefully that little vignette is clear on how I've made sense of the "there is no self" teaching. Basically we are all just animals who are assigned names and then these names become the containers of a bunch of aspects of ourselves, none of which are ultimately real. Just like our name isn't actually who or what we are, neither are such acquired conditioned aspects of the "self." They are all just adaptations.
At some point, if we're lucky, we start to look at all this stuff and try to get to the bottom of what is actually so for us in a more organic way. I haven't found we ever completely get rid off all the stuff that was given to us by others who were and are there as we grow and develop, but I have found it is possible to get by with a lot less than was given to us. Especially the heavy stuff. And boy was I given some heavy shit to carry. Thank God, I don't feel I have to carry those heavy loads anymore.
By the way, the picture I posted is a Dominican doll that is faceless - it points to how the Dominican people don't have a specific face because they were colonized and populated by so many different races and cultures. In a way, I thought it went along with the no-self theme.
Lastly, I still do feel and think there is SOMEWHAT of a self, just one that is a lot more rudimentary and simple than we realize. I believe every animal, cell, tree, human has somewhat of a self - that self is what makes it an individual. And I believe that is what most humans are disconnected from, their basic, more real and true rudimentary self. I think that's what deep spirituality is trying to take us to. To that primordial, essential, basic self. And I believe we all share the same self, except we all are unique expressions of it. To get there, we either first have to realize that universal Self or we have to see through enough of the false created self. It takes a degree of maturity and interest in really getting the the bottom of who am I really - which is an interest that doesn't arise until one is ready. :)
Gassho (this expression represents two hands coming together in front of the chest, each hand representing a heart. "My heart and your heart are one" - that is what the meeting of the hands represents)
Namasté (this expression means the light of the universal Self in me honors the light of the universal Self in you. Or you could say God - I replaced the word "God" for universal Self this time.)
Best wishes.
Monday, April 15, 2019
Forgive Yourself
We all screw up. A lot. It'd be great if we knew that we were screwing up in the midst of our screwing up, but it just doesn't work that way. And would it be great? Would we ever really learn if we didn't fall hard? I don't know.
A part of my fantasy has always been that we all just "know better" - but would that really be ideal? Or is it better that we, in fact, don't know better, think we do and then fall on our faces and learn?
Is there a designer to the way this all works? A God that intentionally planned for all of this to be this way? A God that decided that we would get cocky, act in ignorance thinking we were fully aware and then look back and feel like an ass?
I don't know - and I don't think it matters. I think that what matters more is that when we wake up out of an ignorant phase where we thought we knew what we were doing, we act with great compassion and kindness towards ourselves.
And I know this is very hard to do when we have a long history of being shamed when we made a mistake. We really don't need to keep doing that. So you royally screwed up (acted a fool, said yet another big fat lie, sabotaged a great relationship, made a dumb investment, treated someone like crap or whatever other dumb thing you did) - OK. It's true, it hurts. It's true, you feel like a total ass. But do you need to beat yourself up and keep perpetuating the shame? Do you really need to keep telling yourself that you're such an idiot and that you should have known better?
You didn't know better. Now you have the opportunity to learn what you didn't know then. But you can only harvest the fruit of that hard-won learning experience if you're able to get past the self-hatred and ongoing shock and disbelief you have about having been such a fool.
We are all fools. And that's the thing that is so hard for us to get. We keep lying to ourselves telling ourselves that someone out there that we respect and look up to a lot is not a fool. And we tell ourselves that we should and could be like them. The thing is... that person you look up to and admire is also a fool. You just don't want to let yourself know that because then you won't be able to keep fantasizing about one day not being a fool. If they're also a fool, you can no longer keep buying time to hopefully one day be no longer a fool like them.
I know this for two reasons. One, I happen to keep on falling for the sticky trap of idolizing and idealizing certain people. I swear up and down they are not fools like me. I swear up and down that if I could just be them I would no longer be a fool. I project a highness onto them and I fall for it over and over again. Two, I happen to be aware that some people look up to and idealize and idolize me. They swear up and down I am not and cannot be a fool like them. They are wrong. But they won't allow themselves to know that. Again, because that takes away their naive hope that they so deeply and desperately cling to. The hope that not being a fool is actually possible.
The day that you or me won't be a fool won't come. The day that your or my idols won't be fools won't come. That's true because we are all fools.
The only way one can successfully not be a fool is by being an idea in someone's head. But hang out with that person long enough (move in with them) and the reality will replace the idea and you will see a foolish human sooner rather than later. I repeat, the only way to not be a fool is to be an idea or an image in someone's head. And the only way to maintain that image is by having very limited contact and closeness with the real human person that this wishful thinking idea represents.
Idols are just that, idols. Not real people. And all real people have foolishness as a component of their humanity. All kinds of foolishness.
As crushing as this is for the naive little child inside of us, it is very important that we come to terms with that truth. And I am not saying it is easy. We have invested a lot of energy into fantasizing about being extraordinary or believing in extraordinary people. We have put a lot of our eggs into that basket. But the truth is that people are just people. And all people have many flaws.
Now, this is not to excuse any of your shitty, stupid or dumb behavior. And it's also not to give you a pass into not paying attention to your way of moving through life. This is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. It is far from that.
This is more an invitation to forgive yourself and accept the shitty actions, attitudes and beliefs and opinions you've held in the past and to see them as natural waves in the development of a human, for the sake of continuing to develop and grow as a human.
Just because we are all fools and just because we will always be fools doesn't mean we can't continue evolving and growing and becoming more conscious, appreciative and humble people as the process of maturity keeps taking place. It's just that this process of maturity literally cannot happen as long as we continue being unforgiving and self-shaming of our inherent fallibility.
And again, just because we'll never be fully perfect, doesn't mean we can't be earnest and sincere in our desire to continue to grow and evolve as much a possible. Just because "nobody's perfect," doesn't mean we can't tap into our deep desire to every day be a more honest, humble, kind, sincere, empathetic, compassionate and reliable person. Sure, none of us will ever get perfect at it, but all of us can grow, one baby step at a time. We can all move more and more into the side of the spectrum that represents the values that through many generations we have come to know as goodness.
Is it easy to transform and grow in this direction? Not necessarily. Does it get easier with practice? Yes, over time. Can we do it alone? To a certain extent, but like with anything else, doing it with proper support makes it more effective. Can we forgive ourselves for our past transgressions? When we're ready, yes, just not before we get over the fact that we have all been and continue to be vulnerable to being an ass.
I write this because I know many of us struggle with self-forgiveness. And I write this because I know it is possible to make this struggle a little less difficult. The key is wanting to be compassionate and gentle with oneself more than wanting to be self-condemning and vindictive with ourselves.
The nice bonus is that the more magnanimous we get with ourselves, the more magnanimous we get with others. Over the years I've learned that we can only be as forgiving and understanding of others as we can be forgiving and understanding of ourselves. And I've learned that self-forgiveness and forgiveness of others is always completely worth it. You won't get cash and prizes for it. Not at all. Life and other people will be as challenging as always - but at least you'll live the rest of your time on this planet with less of a burden on your shoulders, with less pressure in your head, with less of a burden in your body, with less of a monkey on your back.
So give it a try, forgive yourself.
A part of my fantasy has always been that we all just "know better" - but would that really be ideal? Or is it better that we, in fact, don't know better, think we do and then fall on our faces and learn?
Is there a designer to the way this all works? A God that intentionally planned for all of this to be this way? A God that decided that we would get cocky, act in ignorance thinking we were fully aware and then look back and feel like an ass?
I don't know - and I don't think it matters. I think that what matters more is that when we wake up out of an ignorant phase where we thought we knew what we were doing, we act with great compassion and kindness towards ourselves.
And I know this is very hard to do when we have a long history of being shamed when we made a mistake. We really don't need to keep doing that. So you royally screwed up (acted a fool, said yet another big fat lie, sabotaged a great relationship, made a dumb investment, treated someone like crap or whatever other dumb thing you did) - OK. It's true, it hurts. It's true, you feel like a total ass. But do you need to beat yourself up and keep perpetuating the shame? Do you really need to keep telling yourself that you're such an idiot and that you should have known better?
You didn't know better. Now you have the opportunity to learn what you didn't know then. But you can only harvest the fruit of that hard-won learning experience if you're able to get past the self-hatred and ongoing shock and disbelief you have about having been such a fool.
We are all fools. And that's the thing that is so hard for us to get. We keep lying to ourselves telling ourselves that someone out there that we respect and look up to a lot is not a fool. And we tell ourselves that we should and could be like them. The thing is... that person you look up to and admire is also a fool. You just don't want to let yourself know that because then you won't be able to keep fantasizing about one day not being a fool. If they're also a fool, you can no longer keep buying time to hopefully one day be no longer a fool like them.
I know this for two reasons. One, I happen to keep on falling for the sticky trap of idolizing and idealizing certain people. I swear up and down they are not fools like me. I swear up and down that if I could just be them I would no longer be a fool. I project a highness onto them and I fall for it over and over again. Two, I happen to be aware that some people look up to and idealize and idolize me. They swear up and down I am not and cannot be a fool like them. They are wrong. But they won't allow themselves to know that. Again, because that takes away their naive hope that they so deeply and desperately cling to. The hope that not being a fool is actually possible.
The day that you or me won't be a fool won't come. The day that your or my idols won't be fools won't come. That's true because we are all fools.
The only way one can successfully not be a fool is by being an idea in someone's head. But hang out with that person long enough (move in with them) and the reality will replace the idea and you will see a foolish human sooner rather than later. I repeat, the only way to not be a fool is to be an idea or an image in someone's head. And the only way to maintain that image is by having very limited contact and closeness with the real human person that this wishful thinking idea represents.
Idols are just that, idols. Not real people. And all real people have foolishness as a component of their humanity. All kinds of foolishness.
As crushing as this is for the naive little child inside of us, it is very important that we come to terms with that truth. And I am not saying it is easy. We have invested a lot of energy into fantasizing about being extraordinary or believing in extraordinary people. We have put a lot of our eggs into that basket. But the truth is that people are just people. And all people have many flaws.
Now, this is not to excuse any of your shitty, stupid or dumb behavior. And it's also not to give you a pass into not paying attention to your way of moving through life. This is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. It is far from that.
This is more an invitation to forgive yourself and accept the shitty actions, attitudes and beliefs and opinions you've held in the past and to see them as natural waves in the development of a human, for the sake of continuing to develop and grow as a human.
Just because we are all fools and just because we will always be fools doesn't mean we can't continue evolving and growing and becoming more conscious, appreciative and humble people as the process of maturity keeps taking place. It's just that this process of maturity literally cannot happen as long as we continue being unforgiving and self-shaming of our inherent fallibility.
And again, just because we'll never be fully perfect, doesn't mean we can't be earnest and sincere in our desire to continue to grow and evolve as much a possible. Just because "nobody's perfect," doesn't mean we can't tap into our deep desire to every day be a more honest, humble, kind, sincere, empathetic, compassionate and reliable person. Sure, none of us will ever get perfect at it, but all of us can grow, one baby step at a time. We can all move more and more into the side of the spectrum that represents the values that through many generations we have come to know as goodness.
Is it easy to transform and grow in this direction? Not necessarily. Does it get easier with practice? Yes, over time. Can we do it alone? To a certain extent, but like with anything else, doing it with proper support makes it more effective. Can we forgive ourselves for our past transgressions? When we're ready, yes, just not before we get over the fact that we have all been and continue to be vulnerable to being an ass.
I write this because I know many of us struggle with self-forgiveness. And I write this because I know it is possible to make this struggle a little less difficult. The key is wanting to be compassionate and gentle with oneself more than wanting to be self-condemning and vindictive with ourselves.
The nice bonus is that the more magnanimous we get with ourselves, the more magnanimous we get with others. Over the years I've learned that we can only be as forgiving and understanding of others as we can be forgiving and understanding of ourselves. And I've learned that self-forgiveness and forgiveness of others is always completely worth it. You won't get cash and prizes for it. Not at all. Life and other people will be as challenging as always - but at least you'll live the rest of your time on this planet with less of a burden on your shoulders, with less pressure in your head, with less of a burden in your body, with less of a monkey on your back.
So give it a try, forgive yourself.
Saturday, November 18, 2017
Her Creativity And Mystery
When an infinitely curious and inquisitive mind and a sensitive and emotional heart like mine meet life, there is great potential to live in a combination of infinite wonder, torment and faith and doubt.
Questions like does perception create life or does life create perception circle round and round at times giving rise to creative stress that leads to burnout and at times leading to creative tension that leads to openings that satisfy the insatiable thirst of an infinite philosopher.
Inquiries like these make the chicken or the egg conundrum seem trivial. They make the notion of sanity and insanity seem arbitrarily subjective.
Sometimes I wonder if life is living me or I am living life. Sometimes I wonder if I am in a waking state or if I am inside of a dream. Sometimes I wonder if this is the afterlife. Sometimes I wonder if I am even me at all.
And how could I not have these questions in the midst of the bottomless creative mystery that life is? How could I not be constantly sniffing beneath every manifestation if they all exude a scent of the universal essence that my heart has always been longing for?
I am quietly, calmly and intensely desperate to realize the eternal in a way that satiates the existential angst that lives in my gut. I am secretly crossing beyond the threshold of the supposed known into the depths of the timeless divinity that permeates all that is.
And how could I not be? After all this unrest. After all this unease. After all this longing.
I would write that I am ready. But I don't know who I am. So I'll just write that I am here. Willing.
Questions like does perception create life or does life create perception circle round and round at times giving rise to creative stress that leads to burnout and at times leading to creative tension that leads to openings that satisfy the insatiable thirst of an infinite philosopher.
Inquiries like these make the chicken or the egg conundrum seem trivial. They make the notion of sanity and insanity seem arbitrarily subjective.
Sometimes I wonder if life is living me or I am living life. Sometimes I wonder if I am in a waking state or if I am inside of a dream. Sometimes I wonder if this is the afterlife. Sometimes I wonder if I am even me at all.
And how could I not have these questions in the midst of the bottomless creative mystery that life is? How could I not be constantly sniffing beneath every manifestation if they all exude a scent of the universal essence that my heart has always been longing for?
I am quietly, calmly and intensely desperate to realize the eternal in a way that satiates the existential angst that lives in my gut. I am secretly crossing beyond the threshold of the supposed known into the depths of the timeless divinity that permeates all that is.
And how could I not be? After all this unrest. After all this unease. After all this longing.
I would write that I am ready. But I don't know who I am. So I'll just write that I am here. Willing.
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