Tag: choices

Truth and Beauty

Art history students no doubt pursue the path they do so they can live and work among beautiful works of art. And also because they can consort intellectually with the artists in different historical eras and their discipline altering visions and techniques.

It can also be safely assumed that chefs love and respect food and no doubt love eating it, too. But I imagine they are discerning as their skill intensifies. They learn to prefer eating well-prepared good food over junk.

And there is an alarmingly high quantity of junk food available out there. A lot of junk generally.

There is a Biblical verse that says that we must learn to separate the wheat from the chaff in our lives. I think that is just an old-fashioned way of prioritizing and setting goals. Pursuing quality and goals that will lead you to a satisfying place instead of a spiritually barren and empty field.

“He is ready to separate the chaff from the wheat with his winnowing fork. Then he will clean up the threshing area, gathering the wheat into his barn but burning the chaff with never-ending fire.”

Matthew 3:12

And even as you deliberately set out on this path, it can take awhile to get there. Distractions abound.

I have been wondering lately what emphatically drew me to books and the words they are made of so early and passionately in my young life.

A love of books was shaped to a degree by my mother. Books were her other obsession along with prescription pills. But I caught the reading bug and have never recovered. Mom says I was an accomplished reader by the time I started Grade One.

Love of, and a requirement, to use and develop my imagination were part of that pull. By seeing authors use words to devise and describe scenarios, it seems like a superpower to me. Authors allowed us to visit worlds, and meet people I would never likely meet in everyday life.

Not anywhere near as many, at any rate. And never in much depth. Facts in scholarly books help us understand things. And a skilled and gifted novelist can articulate aspects of life and living that are not always quantifiable. Like love and truth and beauty.

Those magical moments in life are often fleeting and ephemeral. The dew that collects on a sunflower overnight won’t last long. A white beach brightly illuminated by the moon and stars will simply be another tourist trap come morning. The emotions that stir in your belly while looking at a beautifully executed painting or even a photograph pass by when you move along

It is the pull toward seeking and the seeing that sets the artist apart. They can often show us another way to look at things, think about things, and express things. With their works, they can elevate or move us into a deeper understanding of something on a personal level.

People in everyday life rarely let their guard down and reveal their weakness and deficiencies as tidily as an author can. In the beleaguered hero, we find an underdog to champion. In the vile and conniving character, we can pray either for his salvation or demise. In the vulnerable child left to her own devices, we pray for her survival and succor.

It can take an alarmingly long time to discover our fellows substantial liabilities in real life. It can take an even longer time to discover and deal with our own weaknesses and deficiencies. Working to tame and overcome them is an ongoing work in progress.

As I busy myself these days creating a home environment I deem beautiful and elegant and workable, I am dabbling in artistic choice-making.

Because as Matthew said in The Bible, it is the choices we make between the wheat and the chaff that inform our living environment and shape our character. By doing this consistently, we eventually see the results manifest in our every day lives.

So I set my sights anew on bringing truth and beauty into my life every day. It is a practice of ongoing renewal and commitment. I well know when I’m failing or falling short of these ideals. I also see when I succeed and I have learned to appreciate those moments, too.

I have discovered it is important to me as a daily mantra to keep striving toward my dreams and ideals. That vision is what guides and greases the trajectory of the journey. By my age, most of my peers and I have learned and accept our limitations.

We have, or should have, a clear understanding of what we can practically do and cannot do. We have tossed our big and unwieldy and unrealistic dreams for smaller, satisfying, manageable ones.

This is not the same as giving up. It is growing up. Seeking truth and beauty are my goals. I am fully cognizant that the little choices I make every day are one day woven into a much more complex and tightly woven tapestry that is my life.

Avoid the acrylic and opt for the real sheepswool yarn, say I.

I fully believe it will pay off eventually.

Eclecticism

I once had one particularly resonant life truth pinned up on my bulletin board among many other nuggets scribbled on bits of paper that spoke to me.

“Eclecticism is self-defeating not because there is only one direction in which it is useful to move, but because there are so many: it is necessary to choose.“

It was more a visceral understanding of that truism than an actual “knowing” that spoke to me. No question I was interested in a great many things as a young woman.

Life dictates you cannot possibly pursue all interests that pop up. Not if you want to achieve any depth of success in any chosen field.

In that respect, journalism was a reasonable path to follow. I got to ask lots of questions about lots of things from lots of strangers. And then I could actually publish or broadcast what I learned. I also got into a lot of high priced conferences by flashing my press credentials.

I worried a lot when I was young about the trap of commitment that making choices and becoming successful requires.

What lay under that fear was constantly questioning whether I was good enough to do anything. I understand that is quite common among human beings. Moreso among women I understand.

I can’t imagine why. (That’s sarcasm right there in case I needed to explain…. Girls do that.)

In the upcoming generation, I feel increasing societal pushback against the extreme standards and expectations that are put on women. There used to be a chart that circulated about how women’s leadership skills compared to how men’s skills were characterized.

He was assertive. She was bossy. He was determined. She was pushy. And so on.

It has always been a devil’s bargain. No matter how well women do, it seems, someone is always ready to “qualify” their success. It took me a long time to understand that.

So I bounced around a lot in my so-called career. Had a lot of jobs. Did some of them more or less well.

I actually enjoy being eclectic. It beats the heck out of being docile and predictable. At least that is what I told myself. Often.

Looking back, I see the truth that eclecticism was self-defeating in respects. But I also dodged a lot of bullets.

I watched senior, single academic women nursing Manhattans in bars after classes were done. I watched another former peer striding proudly as the flag bearer at the front of the annual academic procession during encaenias.

I have watched peers and colleagues zig when maybe they should have zagged at certain junctures in their lives. I know I did a few times.

All the intensity and love they poured into their careers and the strangers that once perpetually peopled their days have now disappeared. They are left with themselves and what is left from that life to comfort them in their dotage.

That seems like a very poor bargain to strike in life to me. Maybe I am speaking from a place of security and safety I had never previously known. Maybe I am a jerk and the truth is I couldn’t keep a job to save my life so naturally, I kept moving forward and moving around.

But I look back on some of those eclectic experiences with satisfaction and huge measure of gratitude for having done some of the things I did.

Trips to the Arctic, Argentina, across the Andes, all over Europe and parts of Asia. High up into the Himalayas. I saw some things that won’t leave until I do.

Young people now seem to prefer collecting experiences over “things” as our parents and grandparents might have. Vast amounts of material possessions are fated for the garbage dump when boomers start kicking off in droves.

I am of the Boomer generation and feel blessed to have adopted a life strategy of accumulating experiences over everything else well before my time.

I am not promoting eclecticism as an optimum life choice. I get and have experienced that spreading your interests too thin can backfire on you.

But I will argue I really didn’t feel I had much other choice. In my bouncing from thing to thing and author to author and one philosophy over another, I finally landed in a place where I feel myself settled and grounded.

For today anyway. It is both the curse and certainty of having an eclectic bent of mind that nothing is ever settled “finally and forever.” Not until death, perhaps, and lately I’ve been questioning if seeking will end even then.

I guess one day I’ll find out. For now, I’m going to scan my eclectic collection selection of saved recipes and see what dish I can concoct that I’ve never made before to see how it works out.

Seems like how I have greeted every day and experience since I’ve been on the planet. Why quit now.

It’s Not All About You

When I was younger, I was sure I was the source of every problem that cropped up in my life. And why wouldn’t I? I had a parent who was devoted to that narrative.

She flatly told me: “I love you but I don’t like you.” I couldn’t disagree with her. I didn’t much like myself.

But it takes a certain insidious brilliance to turn a struggling child’s every misstep into making them believe they have some core defect. Even moreso to blithely disregard the deficiencies and exposure to harm in the child’s upbringing into which that parent placed the child.

I guess I was supposed to take responsibility for that, too.

The dynamic is all too common and well understood in the therapeutic community. A child whose needs are not met and whose pain and needs are ignored will slowly come to the conclusion there is something wrong with them.

They cannot place the blame on their caregivers as their lives literally depend on them. And if they did, what power would they have to change anything? None.

I’ve been considering this lately in light of certain struggles in my life. I have been trying to evaluate where to draw the line between my responsibility and that of the perpetrator. It is not easy to work out when you were raised as I was.

Throw into the mix that I am a woman. Women are often perceived as bossy and mouthy and difficult and “other” when we speak up or out about something we take issue with.

I once read about a woman (maybe you know who it was; I don’t) who said: “I don’t know whether I am a feminist or not. I do know I am labeled a feminist whenever I speak up or take any action that distinguishes me from a doormat.”

I was lately labelled “fiery” by a new neighbor. I have often been called “intimidating.” I never got what that meant exactly. It probably meant I was not completely on board playing the requisite political games to advance my career. I paid the price but have no regrets about speaking up about what bothered me.

I may have extended my life (I hope the Universe doesn’t smite me for making this comment) by giving full voice to my pain and aggravations. I have not often held back my opinion or silenced my voice in the face of present or pending harm as an adult. Corrosive or angry feelings were often given full voice. Not very sophisticated or smart, I know.

All to say, I can relate to those who struggle with finding and using their voice. I am always surprised by the blowback experienced by people who choose to speak up. Like whistleblowers.

If there was ever any doubt about the power of words and expression, you need look no farther than the fate of recent whistleblowers for examples. Perception is reality. When a whistleblower speaks up about something that they feel is wrong, the usual defense tactic is to smear that person’s character and discredit them in the public eye. It usually works.

It strikes me how similar this is to the dynamic of the dysfunctional family. Truth is elusive and can be very subjective. This is in direct opposition to what we are led to believe about “honesty” and “transparency.”

In truth, it is a balancing act we struggle with from cradle to grave. Even a person raised in a perfectly happy and functional family soon has to learn “the rules” of whatever world they get involved in as adults. Some “worlds” are more desirable than others. All depends on whether you choose to make your career on Wall Street or Sesame Street.

Wherever you land, you are making constant judgment calls and tradeoffs between your truth and the shared reality you operate in. Most can suck up the shared reality and its inherent imbalances and hypocrisy for the payoffs in money or good reputation.

Children raised from childhood without consistent support for their emerging voices and inclinations may have more difficulties. They may have much more trouble discerning and acting on discrepancies in problems not clearly and easily attributable to “them” or to “me.”

It is a learned vulnerability. I am discovering that – while infinitely better than it was earlier – the grooves of self-doubt can be hard to surmount. Even knowing that makes it much easier than it was to discern between the “true” ownership of a problem. And its resolution.

You may play a part in your struggles but you are not operating in a vacuum. True, you must take responsibility to resolve problems as they arise. Determining the level of responsibility you must take comes down to a decision about what you can and cannot control.

Know that and sort out whether or if you can do anything about a problematic situation. If you can’t, do yourself a favor.

Walk away.

Do Unto Others

I believed this for the longest time. That if people care enough, are good enough, try hard enough, avoid the Nazis, good things would come into their life. I had to. I was dealing with a lot of (metaphorical) Nazis.

And it is not that I don’t believe that goodness triumphs. If life is – as many believe – a crap shoot, it is far better to load the die on the side of goodness and optimism. “Do unto others as they would have them do unto you.”

I lived in relentless negativity and pessimism for the longest time. That sucked.

It wasn’t that I consciously chose to see the world that way. Life convinced me. And if I’m honest, my life had a lot of help in forming a negative worldview from my stupid choices and bad behavior. I should have realized I couldn’t have it both ways. I couldn’t be both a screaming a-hole AND be blissfully content and happy. It’s called consequences.

For the longest time, I played a precipitous game between feeling I totally lacked control over my life and an illusion that I had absolute control. I was not well prepared for life.

In fact, I didn’t really have the basics nailed down. Emotionally and physically absent parents who pretty much left me to figure out life on my own. I was not qualified.

My young life was a series of jagged stops and starts, highs and lows, genius and bonehead stupidity. I was offered so many great opportunities that I did not have the necessary skills or experience to hang on to. What child does?

It takes a magical amalgam of upbringing, genetics, personality, opportunity, and chutzpah to land on your feet and stay there. I know one thing for sure. At a point, it is essential to take personal responsibility for your life, aka your choices. At a point, no one (even you) is going to buy: “The Devil made me do it.”

I make these observations as I face a mountainous mess of my own making. Confined in life and options, I continued making a series, if not bad, then not brilliant choices about how to invest my time and energy.

I have rather more of what I don’t want in my life (debt, clutter, stress) than what I truly want and need (friends, happy outings and mini-ad\ventures, dinner parties, fine Swiss chocolate).

I have learned that you must build, not grab. For someone raised I was, it is very difficult not to take whatever comes along and takes what is offered, instead of sitting back and first considering: “Is this something I really want?”

If acknowledgment of a problem is the first step toward solving it, then I have arrived at that point at least. For a troubled kid awash in lack, I am now struggling to balance and find my center now that lack is no longer an issue.

I chuckle at our collective envy and wonder about people who – by any outside standard – “have it all.” That is a very subjective experience to begin with. “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.” But this is also true even if you “have it made.” Life is going to teach you lessons – whether you are a prince or a pauper, a sinner or a saint.

It is only once your outside reality begins to line up with your inside reality that life becomes easier, even and balanced. From my present stocktaking vantage point, my biggest task these days will be to eliminate what I don’t want to make room for more of what I do. Out with the old and in with the new.

At least that is how it goes in theory. I’ll let you know how I do with that.

The target has been set. Now I just have to make a plan to reach it. And stick with it.

Wish me luck.

Choices, Choices, Choices

Lack of choice has been a constraint from time to time throughout history. Sometimes people know they have limited choices. Other times, people are blessedly oblivious. They accept what is, is, and for what it is.

In the past, people didn’t really expect anything as much out of life, or love or telephones. Heck. They didn’t even realize there was anything else to be had because there likely wasn’t. Limited choices made life less confusing. A little boring, perhaps, but infinitely less confusing. And clearer about the rules and priorities of life and living.

Fast forward say a hundred and fifty years to today from the invention of the telephone to its widespread implementation in North America and across the globe. We have evolved into a high maintenance consumer society that is offered and expects “everything, everywhere, all at once.”

Oh, you “need” a new cellphone? What color would you like? What size? What brand? Do you want a case with that? Glass screen protection cover? Warranty protection? What features? Voicemail? Call back options? (I admit the last two are standard on most cellphones but I am trying to make a point here.)

It amuses me to think that it wasn’t that long ago when telephones were hailed as a wonder of modern communication. Pick up this handle? Dial (or punch in) a telephone number? Talk with Aunt Beatrice five houses down the road? Wow.

I can remember when a telephone number was only five digits. Even less in rural areas. In country settings, there were telephone operators who manually patched and connected one call to another. They were usually party lines, too. In some areas you could not get a “private line.” You had to share with several nearby neighbors.

And oh, the scandals and subterfuge the party line ushered in. The telltale click when someone else on the party line picked up their phone to listen into your phone call. Or maybe the operator, a fearsome gatekeeper of local communications, never quite hung up after she’d made the connection.

I am sure some people would have paid good money for the information tidbits the operator carried about in her head about the neighbors. Talk about power! And there was only one style of phone on offer. It was black. It usually hung on a wall.

To connect to the operator who would connect you to Aunt Beatrice, you would have to turn a little crank on the side of the telephone. The number of cranks indicated which number (person) you were trying to reach. The world was that small and manageable.

Well, those days are clearly gone forever. I was in Home Depot today commiserating with a gentleman about the ridiculous amount of available choices for something as simple as window shades. Gone are the days of hanging a repurposed sheet or tablecloth to block out the light. Although sheets clearly did a very questionable job.

Today (hallelujah!) we have blackout curtains. In every imaginable color and style and fabric and size. Hundreds (and maybe thousands) of them. And after poring over Amazon and Wayfair and BlindsRus offerings for days and maybe longer, we make our choice.

They arrive at our front door and darn – they are two shades off the ideal shade we were looking for. “They looked entirely different on the website.” or so we write into the Amazon Reason for Return box.

Have we ever drunk the Kool-Aid! First, that we think that kind of nonsense is important or even matters in the grand scheme of things. It may matter some. Even I appreciate the nuance and subtlety of a fitting color match between this paint color and that shower curtain’s pattern.

But is any of that really important? Will we look back fondly on our shower curtain pattern as we lie on our deathbed? Obviously not. I wonder how many children are neglected today because Mom is focused on fitting in through fashion. I wonder how many Moms still wear their collection of 4 inch stilettos after their first child is born. Props if they even can.

Our focus of daily living and priorities are seriously out of whack. We will never go back to the days of a single style of phone or a few good gingham dresses to pick from in the Sears catalog.I am a Luddite, not a regressionist.

But of this I am sure, when little Sally made her first call to Aunt Beatrice, it was thrilling. There was respect and a little wonder for whatever magic it was in that clunky black machine that had brought that ability into being in the first place.

Today when people encounter a random instance of joy and wonder, they are eager to capture the moment on their cellphones. Then that the moment of magic quickly and emphatically passes and disappears.

I don’t believe we were ever meant to hold on to joy and wonder indefinitely. What we need to know is that those moments are out there and available to us, if we but stop, watch and listen. They often appear unbidden and when we need them the most.

How quaint is that? Who even does that anymore? But from my wheelhouse, it’s a collective loos of wonder and very sad that we don’t watch for wonder. Not often enough at any rate.