We can all deal with babies and puppies and kittens and baby trees and things like that. We can watch them grow and enjoy their pleasure in meeting life's challenges as they come along: the first smile, the first step, the first dog bone they have to really CHEW. We don't seem to be able to deal with ourselves in the same way. That is, we are always trying to FORCE ourselves to grow or improve or be something LOTS BETTER than who we are at THIS given moment.
Maybe it doesn't have to BE that way. Maybe we can just trust that we'll grow into whatever we're supposed to be without our standing by with a switch to make sure we get it right! I mean, we don't need to DO or BE something special if "special" means different.
I'm going to stick my neck out here and say maybe we're as good as we're going to get. If we're an apple, say, we can always get riper or sweeter or redder, but we can't be a PEAR. If we're an apple from day one, the die is cast. Forget about being a pear or a pumpkin or a pork chop. (yum.....you notice how OFTEN I blog about food? Just plain old FOOD!)
Anyway, hope you liked the recipe for Pullet Surprise in the preceding blog! It's one of my better ones, despite the fact that I haven't made it since we all lived together on 3rd Ave N. in Iowa. Maybe I'll make it this week for my pal Cathy, who has been working extra hard on two websites in preparation for next year's teaching. I think she will love it.
Way to go, M.E. You've just cruelly crushed my dream of someday becoming a ballet dancer.
ReplyDelete(The shrieking laughter you can feel all the way through the internet is coming from my wife.)
I recall a Jack Nicholson film where he asks, "What if this is as good as it gets?" I find that incredibly depressing. Then again, I realized long ago that that I was born to be hanged -- but I am silly enough to never give up.
ReplyDeleteIn my favorite book by Pema Chodron, she says:
ReplyDelete"We already have everything we need. There is no need for self-improvement. All these trips that we lay on ourselves – the heavy-duty feeling that we’re bad and hoping that we’re good, the identities that we so dearly cling to, the rage, the jealousy and the addictions of all kinds – never touch our basic wealth. They are like clouds that temporarily block the sun. But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right here.
"This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake. Looking at ourselves this way is very different from our usual habit. From this perspective we don’t need to change: you can feel as wretched as you like, and you’re still a good candidate for enlightenment. You can feel like the world’s most hopeless basket case, but that feeling is your wealth, not something to be thrown out or improved upon. There’s a richness to all of the smelly stuff that we so dislike and so little desire. The delightful things – what we love so dearly about ourselves, the places in which we feel some sense of pride or inspiration – these also are our wealth."
and the favorite book by Pema Chodron is START WHERE YOU ARE (SHAMBHALA, 2004).
ReplyDeleteI think I was as good as I was going to get when I was three years old and naive. (She said with tongue in cheek.)
ReplyDeleteDarlene: lol....i'll bet you were adorable!
ReplyDeleteIt happened at about age 50: I quit buying self-improvement books. I guess that was when I had the "Aha!" moment that said that I was/had been as good as I was ever going to be.
ReplyDeleteIf only we could have known Darlene when she was three years old!
Good couple of postings, XE.
Cop Car
Beautiful and wise, M.E.
ReplyDeleteGetting back to what you said about the Puritans still being with us. One of their legacies to us is to constantly remind us what wretched sinners we are, how in dire need of improvement we are, how we can never measure up, rather than encourage us to understand, deeply, that we are God's creation, and therefor precious and of infinite value.
Cop Car: It took me a lot longer to reach that aha moment--if indeed i'm there at all. I'll bet you and Darlene were two little sweethearts at age 3...were you tossing away your teddy bear so you could play with an erector set? and was darlene playing with a wee toy piano? (or the big one??)
ReplyDeleteDiana: Y'know, that way of thinking has been around SO LONG, and has been drummed into us SO DEEPLY that no wonder we believe that's how it's gotta be! I finally just understood what "If you meet the Buddha in the road, kill him!" means!!
Uh, isn't it unAmerican to shrink from being MORE, or BETTER. Mix in a bit, quite a bit of 21st century capitalism and what do you have? Recipe for buying more stuff with which to look/cook/parent better all the time in every way.
ReplyDeleteIt's counter-culture to simply BE.
XE: At age 3, I was playing with blocks (no erector sets available), gyroscopes (my 11-year-old uncle had one), and spinning tops. I credit/blame the gyroscope (and, later, ENIAC) for driving me into the study of physics! By age 6, my dad had taken me to an air show for which I credit/blame my drive to learn to fly planes and to jump from them.
ReplyDeleteYou would not believe how disgusted I was when, at age 11.5, I received a doll as a gift! Silly me. I did not understand that my mother had poured her heart into making a wardrobe for that doll - she being a non-sewer (non-sewer is a verb not a noun!) Mother had grown up doing the chores of a boy, my grandparents having produce only girl children for the first 17 years of their marriage, and she really, really wanted me to have the opportunity to be a girly-girl.
Mom loved me, unconditionally, and took great pride in my accomplishments - such as they were - in life.
P.S. Well, of course, "non-sewer" is not a verb, but it is early in the morning so please forgive my lapse. I didn't wish to have anyone believe that it was necessary to identify my mother as not carrying sewage. *ouch!*
ReplyDeleteCC
CC: you've lived an amazing life! i love to fly, but the fun would stop for me if i had to jump out of the plane!! *:0)
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