Tag Archives: Self awareness

Trapped Inside,”A Life Safer Than We Can Bear”

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This cartoon made me think of the W. H. Auden wisdom, “We have made for ourselves a life safer than we can bear.” Auden knew that it is mentally healthy to take care of oneself, to maintain diligence about his own safety and welfare but that this precaution could easily go beyond the pale and create a dungeon, or a cage for oneself. There is a certain amount of risk in being human; after all we are physically and emotionally vulnerable and we are daily exposed to circumstances, socially and even physically where others wish us harm. Yes, growing a “thick skin” with firm ego boundaries is important but even this evolutionary tendency can go beyond the pale when beneath the surface we have not resolved the need for establishing a certain autonomy in life. Finding this autonomy, and its concomitant authenticity, will equip us to withstand even the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” making the cage unnecessary.

It is common also for a group to become trapped in a self-imposed prison, or “cage.” There they “hunker down” inside the cocoon of their belief system and wallow in the squalor of, “Why do they hate us so much?” when only a blip of self-awareness would answer the question. But the fear-base of a cultic group of this sort can only intensify their resolve to fight on, knowing that “right” or even “God” is on their side. The tighter the coil of their mindset becomes, the greater the likelihood of violence, on self and/or others.

This process, individually or collectively, is just “another day at the ranch” for an ego. We all have one and it is an incredible accomplishment to gain a degree of awareness to the point that we can daily watch it ply its trade in our heart…or at least try to. There is, in a sense, nothing “wrong” with this; it is just part of the “human-ness” that each of us is blessed/cursed with. This awareness is related to humility but only if this “humility” can achieve what I call “humility-ization” which makes this otherwise “accomplishment” a simple experience in the warp and woof of our daily life, and never a “fait accompli.”

“Oops!”

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Hannah Arendt’s work has emboldened me recently to “assail” reality, blessed with some dimension of her “internal dialogue”. Taking a critical stance toward reality is a dangerous endeavor as the attempt to “view” reality entails an assumption that one is separate from it.  That very assumption can easily lead to sheer madness as it implicitly gives one the temptation to think with delight, “Oh boy, I’ve got it!  Lay down world and take it! I’m special, having a word from ‘on high’ that you need to listen to.”  The imperious attitude that one has achieved objectivity is the very same peril that I’m so “arrogantly” hoping to not share here.

The alienation that I labor with always brings to mind the quip from Emily Dickinson, “Life is over there…on a shelf” as if it was a book or a curio on a shelf.  That “blessing/curse” gifted us with the brilliant poetry of Dickinson though I have achieved only a critical viewpoint that I share here occasionally. “Reality” is a set of assumptions and biases that we live by, a body of “givens” that is necessary to be able to wake up in the morning without the task of “making sense” of our world all over again.  When we awaken in the morning, the implicitly agreed upon worldview will still be with us and we will again be able to put our pants on one leg at a time.  BUT, as this “reality” unfolds over the passing of time, it accrues sinister notions that need to be addressed.  In my life, that has involved disavowing, for example, that women are to be submissive to their husbands, that persons of color are inferior to we honkies, and that my spiritual tradition did not have toxic dimensions.  When critical thinking begins to set in, it can leave one with a sense of having become unmoored.  It is frightening to have the insipid experience that, “I don’t see things as I was taught to see them.” But I am today coming to accept this “internal dialogue” that insists that I have something to offer…but only to “offer” and not a view point that I can wield like a hammer.  Remember the old adage, “Give a kid a hammer and everything is a nail?”

I like to describe “reality” as a mere “dog-and-pony show” to which we are taught to subscribe.  Shakespeare described it with the cryptic observation that it was “a tale told by an idiot.” His insight makes me cringe at times when I recall the many times this has been the case with me, and inevitably still is! But the humility of this insight makes it easier for me to utter the famous wisdom of Senator Ted Cruz when I am wrong, “Oops!”

“As a Man Thinketh, So Is He”

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I do not think that the Bible or any Holy Writ was given us to amuse ourselves “like a kitten given its own tail to tease.” (Goethe) And it certainly was not given to us to “make us Christian.”  The Bible is Holy Writ that has come our way to enable us to live more simply and honestly.  But our ego will have the tendency to take it and run with it, shaping it into one of those kittenish baubles.

Notions such as “ye shall be judged” by the words from your mouth was a simple instruction for us to self-reflect occasionally and pay attention to that “self-narrative” from which we speak and in some manner “speaks” us. It is very revealing. Such is the case here with my sporadic musings.  If you blog, or keep a journal, or are a professional writer, you really ought to peruse your work from time to time and self-reflect and, let your musings reveal your heart. Yes, this biblical admonition conveys the power of language and is related to the Christian belief that Jesus was “the Word made flesh.” There is a sense in which our very identity is simply “a word” enfleshed, a “word” that reveals the very intentions of our heart.  Yes, “as a man thinketh, so is he.”

For example, take a gander sometime at politicians and you will find their words say so much more than what they intend. This is vividly illustrated at this time when our world is terrified by this “pestilence” the gods have sent our way. No, I am not speaking of Trump here though, though  Trump and Trumpism are part of the same pestilence. And for even greater amusement, “take a gander” at preachers.

Carl Sandburg and Greta Thunburg

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I forgot to append a Carl Sandburg poem yesterday to my musings about Greta Thunburg.  And I admit I am a bit sheepish as the poem likens her unto a weed, but I have a hunch she will readily identify and appreciate the “likening unto” a weed.  She is used to it.  She has always been different and has become accustomed to it  She and I have that in common…and I don’t think her “diagnosis” is far removed from mine.  Perhaps more on that later.

Greta is accustomed to being “out there.”  And the awareness of being “out there” can be so terrifying that one is driven into a pathological orientation to life. It can drive one into such a radical estrangement that one feels the world is “out to get me” and thus something to be fearful of; this is paranoia.  This paranoia can find expression so readily in political and religious orientations, always pitting one view of the world against the rest of the world.  This profound distrust fails to realize that we can never escape the reality that we are in and of the same world and the attempt to escape this realization is at our own peril.  The “them” that we loathe is “us.”

Please read this beautiful wisdom from Carl Sandburg:

There is a desperate loveliness to be seen
In certain flowers and bright weeds on certain planets.
With the weeds I have held long conversations
And I found them intelligent
Even though desperate and lovely.
The flowers however met me with short spoken.
“Yes” and “No” and “Why” were their favorite words,
And they had other slow monosyllables.
They seemed to find it more difficult
Than the gaudy garrulous bright weeds
To be intelligent, desperate, and lovely.
Take a far journey now, my friend, to certain planets.
Meet then certain flowers and bright weeds and ask them
What are the dark winding roots of their desperate loveliness.
See whether you bring back the same report as mine.
See whether certain long conversations
And certain slow practices monosyllables
Haunt you and keep coming back to haunt you.
For myself, my friend, I have come to believe on certain planets anything can happen.

(“Bright Conversations with Saint Ex” by Carl Sandburg)

 

 

The Perverse Delight of Being Right

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I grew up being right.  How did I know I was right?  Because I “knew” that I was right.  How did I know that?  Because I was taught what right was, and how to merit that label, and therefore it was simple to just adhere to the definition and make sure your thinking and behavior complied to its premises. “Right” is always something external to the subjective experience of a young child and gaining the delight of knowing that he/she is right requires dutifully imbibing the definition of right that is proffered.  I used the term “imbibing” because it is more than a mere cognitive matter; it is a matter of “soaking up” the nuances of the culture to acquire a subjective “experience” of being right, meaning it is not likely to be questioned.

I have questioned this “rightness” of mine my whole life.  Oh, somewhat less in my youth as just did not have the self-confidence, the courage to stand on my own two feet and think for myself.  “Thinking for oneself” in a collective mindset that discourages it will leave one with a sense of alienation and I got a double dose of that malady.  The experience of alienation was so intense that I desperately tried to comply, to believe the right things, to do the right things so that I would have the comfort of belonging.  But if you must “try” to belong, you are in deep shit as far as having the comfort that belonging offers.

This “splinter in the brain,” as Emily Dickinson called it, has tormented and blessed me, the whole of my life.  Even today, as I am standing on my own two feet, there is the deep-seated nagging realization that I am now defying nearly all of the offerings of the tribe I was born into that would offer one the “delight” of being right.  I now see that the desperate desire to be right of my early youth was merely the result of the implicit assumptions I had gained from my tribe that I was intrinsically wrong, leaving me with a deep-seated experience that my simple “being” in the world was wrong.  I now seek “The Joy of Being” wrong, which is the title of a very important book in my life by James Alison, the complete title being, “The Joy of Being Wrong: Original Sin Through Easter Eyes.”  I personally believe this joy is what the teachings of Jesus was about, that he assured us that we could have this joy if we found the courage to relinquish all the pressures to fit in and just “be” present in the world.  This, in my estimation, is “salvation” which in the words of T.S. Eliot is, “a condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything.”

A very important caveat is warranted.  This freedom to “be,” to live free of the bondage to social norms, does not allow one to live in disregard for the conventions of one’s tribe.  Many of these conventions might not apply to me but that does not give me the freedom to go on the war path against them.  In that case I would be guilty of the very same obnoxious contempt that a tribe utilizes to stamp out the individuality of a soul. But it does give me the freedom to speak out about perceived injustice and evil as long as I don’t get so arrogant with self-righteousness that I encourage violence, overt or subtle.

The inspiration for this discourse stems from an article I read this morning in the New York Times about an Indian woman, Gauri Lankesh, who had this courage to be herself and speak out about the injustice of her country. She was a journalist who was murdered in 2017 because of her bold, and at times brazen willingness to “speak truth to power”.  Extremism always springs from knowing you are “right” and the arrogance that gives one this assurance arises from deep-seated darkness that permits violence.  This darkness arises from primitive fears and anxieties so intense that the light of conscious awareness is disallowed, a light that would permit respect of difference.

Vulnerability, Faith, and “Opiate of the Masses”

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Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, observed in his book, “The Edge of Words: God and the Habits of Language” that self-awareness is a very subtle and  often misunderstood phenomenon.  According to him, “Imagining that we have arrived at a satisfactory level of self understanding is clear indication that we have not in the least.”

Self-understanding is the process of becoming conscious.  And this is a task that we never finish completely though it is so comfortable to convince ourselves that it is.  The resulting certainty allows us to function in the smoothly-oiled social machinery of day to day life but only at the cost noted by W. H. Auden, “We have made for ourselves a life safer than we can bear.”  At some point in life we need to be able to challenge the smug certainties that we are ensconced in and tippy-toe into the risky domain of faith where we deal with the vulnerability that makes us human.  Otto Brown noted, “To be, is to be vulnerable” and until we have learned to live with some degree of vulnerability we have not become human. But use of this word “faith” is risky territory as it brings to mind religion and often there lies one of the most pernicious traps available to mankind.  For, “god” which often is the key figure in faith can often be merely another escape, a veritable opiate as in Karl Marx’s observation, “Religion is the opiate of the masses”

Self-awareness and Bullying

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In my last post, I shared thoughts about bullying and self-consciousness or “self” awareness.  A couple years ago when I was on Facebook an upper classman when I was in Jr. High at my small Arkansas high school shared his shame and regret about bullying a helpless, self-conscious, insecure lad in his class. This gentleman had been a star athlete himself, later to have a tryout with the Arkansas Razorbacks; he was handsome, intelligent, and headed to success in his life.  On Facebook he shared about his effort to reach out to this man he had bullied to apologize but had received no response.  This gentleman had found awareness and now sincerely rued his cruel behavior to this “nerdy” and perhaps handicapped classmate.

Self “awareness” is something we mature into, slowly becoming aware of the “presence” of other people in our world and becoming sensitive to their reality.  There are times, however, when this maturity never comes and, furthermore, there are times when people are ensconced in a social milieu where this “self” awareness is discouraged.  The best example I find of this occurred in the New Testament with the crucifixion of Jesus, as explained by Fr. Richard Rohr who interpreted the famous words of Jesus on the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” as, “Father, forgive them for they are not aware (or conscious) of what they do.”

These men did not awaken that morning, convene down at Starbucks, and suddenly decide, “Hey, let’s be mean and nasty, violent and brutal, and put that guy to death who does not see this world as we do.”  They had many meetings at that coffee shop in planning their deed and came to the firm conclusion that they were going to do the right thing, the “lord’s will,” if you please. They were firm in their convictions and many of them I’m sure were morally upright men, probably in a respectable position down at the local church….or, “synagogue” in that day.  They were probably members of the school board, members of the Lions Club, active in what used to be called, “benevolent societies,” and faithfully they bought Girl Scout cookies each spring.  And I’m sure that there were young, unmarried men in the mix also, those who avowed that they didn’t, “smoke, drink, chew…or go with the girls they do.”  But it is possible for good men to do bad things when they are driven merely by ideology, steeped with preconceived ideas about their world and the deep-seated conviction that they objectively understand the world.  When men and women are addicted to their ideas, regardless of how “noble” those ideas may be, they lack “awareness” and are capable of great evil in what they deem as service to the good.  T.S. Eliot summarized this problem, “Oh the shame of motives late revealed, and the awareness of things ill done, and done to others harm, which once we took for exercise of virtue.”

“Be Best,” Don’t Bully!”

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In clinical practice, I often had to deal with bullying, though mainly the more “mature” variety as seen with teen-agers.  Younger children, however, would occasionally present to a counselor in her office, plaintively asking, “Why don’t they like me?”  The counselor would first offer some reassurance and then begin to offer coaching on basic social deportment, how to behave in a less obnoxious manner, not rudely and intrusively.  The young bully who actually sought help of this sort, who could ask the question, “Why don’t they like me?” was demonstrating that he had the maturity to be aware of the problem and therefore was probably amenable to being helped.  The real problem lay with those children who could not imagine the possibility that there was anything wrong with their behavior and then lash out at those who appeared to not like him.

Self-awareness is an essential dimension to the bullying issue.  Most children who get to the playground age in public schools already have social antennae so that they are amenable to feedback from the social context in which they find themselves.  They even will feel a sense of shame if they breach the unwritten rules of the social contract and then amend their ways in an effort to fit in.  Some, however, will not have internalized a sense of healthy shame and will brazenly stomp on social convention and find themselves frequently in trouble with the principal and eventually in a residential treatment facility.  Some will not be amenable to the rules even then and will grow into adulthood and begin to “rock n roll” with their anti-social attitude and behavior until they find some conflict-habituated place in the social structure.  Some, perhaps, will even become successful businessmen and/or politicians and maybe even find themselves as the leader of their country.

This “self-awareness” is the gift of the neuro-cortex which gives us the Shakespearean, “pauser reason,” a filter with which we check our impulses.  For example, if one encounters a belligerent bully as an adult he will usually know that he cannot respond with bullying behavior without risking severe conflict.  This makes me think of an old Jim Croce tune from the 1970’s, “You don’t tug on superman’s cape/ You don’t spit into the wind/You don’t pull the mask of the old lone ranger,/And you don’t mess around with Jim.”  If you remember the famous tune, you recall that a man wandered into town who did not regard the admonishment, “You don’t mess around with Jim.”

Yes, I’m curious what is gonna happen this Tuesday in Singapore.

“Literary License” and Personal Narrative

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I became “literary” lew when I started this blog about six years ago.  I increasingly realize that the choice of that moniker was more astute than I realized.  These six years have helped me explore further the inner recesses of my heart and I’ve learned that my early grasp of the world was very “literary.”  Then I was taught that the world I lived in was a very literal, linear-thinking world.  I dutifully complied and I’m glad I did, but wish I’d have done so with less passion! But now, pretty late in the old “ball game”, I’m using this literary license very freely and enjoying the freedom to interpret life from a less rigid perspective.  The world is multi-dimensional and I’m finding life much easier and pleasant, having slowly allowed this wisdom to sink in.

Decades ago friends introduced me to the notion that life itself is but a story and approaching it as such makes it easier to pose the question occasionally, “Now what’s the point of this story going on here, the one I’m being presented with, or the one that I find myself immersed in personally.”  This is simple use of Shakespeare’s “pauser reason” which, if employed here and there, can allow us to make better responses to parts of the story that we are presented with.  Otherwise, we will be unwitting participants in a narrative that is, unbeknownst to ourselves, setting the course for our life.  One simple example, drawn from my clinical practice of the past, is the “martyr complex” of someone who finds himself/herself constantly playing the role of the victim throughout life, not realizing that some unconscious need is being fulfilled.  When one self-created crisis has resolved itself, this person will seem to ask upon awakening the next morning, “Hmm.  Now what’s underway in my life today that will allow me to perceive myself being the victim, allowing me to start the drama mill of my life to going again?”  This person seems to pray daily, “Give us this day, our daily crisis…”

Though most of us aren’t martyrs or victims, we inevitably play some role that we are only barely aware of if at all.   I’ve found this “literary license” helpful in gaining some degree of awareness.

ADDENDUM—This is one of three blogs that I now have up and running.  Please check the other two out sometime.  The three are: 

https://wordpress.com/stats/day/literarylew.wordpress.com

https://wordpress.com/posts/anerrantbaptistpreacher.wordpress.com

https://wordpress.com/posts/theonlytruthinpolitics.wordpress.com

Shakespearean Wisdom for This Moment

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Hamlet is perhaps my favorite Shakespearean character.  He was such a sad, tragic figure allowing what Eckhart Tolle would call his “pain body” to tyrannize him, often moping about the castle with his nose in a book trying to escape through literature.  At one point his mother, Gertrude, noted of him, “Look yonder, the poor wretch comes reading.”

Each of Shakespeare’s characters revealed a glimpse into his own heart and how he saw the world of his day.  Hamlet’s famous lamentation, “The world is out of joint. O cursed spite that I was born to set it right” revealed that in Shakespeare’s astute judgment his world was pretty well “out of joint” and probably always had been.  With Hamlet’s arrogant claim of responsibility to “set it right”, I think Shakespeare was pointing out the silliness and arrogance of anyone thinking he could “set it right.”

Shakespeare was clearly an idealist and had keen understanding of the heart of man leading him to describe our collective machinations as “a tale told by an idiot” on one occasion.  This wisdom helps me at present moment in my “idiotic” world to remember to “chill out” when I’m getting too over-wrought with the Trumpian lunacy, not even being close to taking the ego’s bait that I “was born to set it right.”

I think that Shakespeare realized that in describing life as a “tale told by an idiot” he himself was part of the fabric he was describing and therefore not spared idiocy himself.  The world at any moment has a “world-view” which is taken to be the valid way of seeing things but Shakespeare was reminding us, “Hey, keep in mind that beneath the surface there is idiocy lurking.”  And that is always true on a personal level as well as a collective level.  With most of us, if we could subscribe to this wisdom, would merely have to recognize occasional internal conflicts which will never become “idiotic” if we simply have the presence of mind, and humility, to recognize their presence.  “Awareness is all” says a bumper stick on the car of a friend of mine.

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ADDENDUM—This is one of three blogs that I now have up and running.  Please check the other two out sometime.  The three are: 

 

https://wordpress.com/posts/anerrantbaptistpreacher.wordpress.com

https://wordpress.com/posts/theonlytruthinpolitics.wordpress.com