Still, Mark and I were talking by the fire this morning ... it's a good holiday thing to do ... and the conversation turned to ourselves years ago: groups we believed in, self-empowerment, and young people experiencing punch, energy, & the desire to express it. One young man Mark had heard of, a musician in Jefferson Airplane (the group that showcased Grace Slick) and a high flying leader in an international spiritual organization, had a run-in with the politics of the same. Other young leaders, who also had Ego, challenged this man, who took their censorship to heart and went on to make a fabulous mistake, putting their opinion of him before his own relationship with the universe. Maybe he was too young to have his own inner resources well enough established to fight making that error. Anyway, he committed suicide. There's something in the story about an important line between speaking Truth and falling to our own ego; I refer to the young, challenging leaders when I say it's so human to confuse ourselves with what we think we know, allowing the headiness of self-discovery to push out awareness of what, then, we got sick of hearing: "knowing our own 'place' in the big picture": "Be a lady," "Don't criticize your mother/father," "You don't know enough, yet," etc. ... I still like to see a young person saying what their truth is, meeting the inevitable resistance that real Truth always does. But how do you recognize when you are not right and your ego is talking? Some of these young men were up against feelings of competition, jealousy and __ what? the sureness of a good philosophy? The musician was (as probably were his 'competitors') in the damnable position of soul-searching what was right. It's like the day you get fired, or when you choose to walk out on a job because the alternative offered is completely intolerable; and for the first time you are facing what has a really large cost. The sting of that is where integrity gets a chance to be carved, painfully. No philosophical fireside discussion does the carving, either; the instruments are self-doubt, worry about looking like a fool, and searching for the place inside your self you can consult and trust, hoping there is also a nearby outside supporter, too. The story of the young musician's suicide reminds me how I have let other people monopolize my relationship with what's greater than them or me. The error seems ironically human; and it seems so deadly wrong. 'Human' because we certainly do care what others think; I do, anyway, though I would prefer not caring. And 'deadly wrong' because it elevates others above the intimacy of our own 'Being Connected'. What is that old poem? ... Desiderata: "... Be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. For this time of hibernation, rest and reflection, I want to keep this story close. I would hope it serves me the rest of the year to find courage for Truth, and keep loyal to it. I wish each of you the same. Wonderful winter to you. It's that place where, more than any other, it doesn't matter much what people think of me. A place where it seems safe enough. Not that I don't care at all what others think of me. But early-on, I didn't ... I just needed to tell people I was hurting.
After the inevitable happened (i.e. finally saying 'ouch') __ people really liked my confession because 'they'd felt exactly that way, themselves. They went on, to open up about their own similar experiences. __ I have seldom gone back to micromanaging my facade, or to 'putting my best foot forward' after that ... I probably realized that the things I had tended to do (& probably still do) in social situations, was the very thing that had ended up turning me off to social situations! It's good for me to see that I always have s o m e place where what I do or say just doesn't matter all that much :0 |
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