Everyone has something profound to say once they have “made it,” whatever that “making it” may entail for that individual—making a certain amount of money, buying one house or many, getting married, having children or seeing them happily married, degree(s), fame, promotion, “security”, fill-in-the-blank. I want to talk about when you feel so far from “making it” that you can’t even spell it! I want to point at the stream of cataclysms of the betwixt and between. Events, one right after another, which lead you to finally conclude that life is really just that: one big transition. Death might be the only full stop—the rest of life is a series of commas, semi-colons, and any other punctuation point of your liking which serves as a pause or connector but never quite an end. The glorious in.be.tween which pushes you to Be and Become. (What this means on a personal level, specifically in relation to my recent stay in Jo’burg, I will share later).
Volatile stock market to the global recession to Michael Jackson’s death to the turbulent changes in the lives around us: 2009 sucked. There is no other eloquent way to put it. If it didn’t suck for you: congratulations. I really mean that. Not being cynical at all. I am very happy that the events in your world can restore the balance in the universe for the rest of us.
We finally made peace with the realization that 2008 was pretty much a time warp: a hypothetical discontinuity of time which coiled and condensed the twelve months into a cliffsnotes version of our lives. 2008 flew by at the speed of light. 2009 was off to an unprecedented start. A historical election placed Barack Obama in Office (not just because he is everything he is and an African-American but the entire grassroots momentum). But then our jubilant delight came to a screeching halt upon the realization that his administration has eight years worth of trash to clean up. And perhaps we had some expunging, uncluttering to do in our personal lives. In the words of Herman Melville: “this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath.”
Well, the waters of 2009 were just the right amount of awful to ensure that my ship’s essence could be unveiled. From every which way. My steering drove me to the edge of my horizon. Events slowly continued to simmer from March to July and then the Universe cut open my reality in half and flipped it inside out. Visual: half sliced inverted basketball. It matters not the list of adversities that interrupted all plans (most of my closest friends already know these details), the point is, it was a challenging year.
Yet…
Friends went on with their wedding plans and I attended despite the economy. Loved ones passed away (some expected and others not so much) and we endured for ourselves and others. Friends lost jobs or quit jobs or continued to look for jobs or their jobs continued to suck even more.
And I made it. You made it.
We all did our best and are hopeful for a better 2010. I believe as humans we are, simply put, innately hopeful. By stating this I don’t mean to say that the enthusiasm for 2010 is overstated. Not at all. I am grateful for hope. Even when it borders delusion. Sometimes.
Anyway.
A query, an unpluckable splinter, embedded in my mind has been: what is the point of being strong? Sometimes this question would make me silently angry, other times it would lead me to tears of frustration for not accepting a perfectly satisfactory answer offered by those who are much wiser. And other times I simply could not help spitfire, “What’s the point?” to any friend or stranger upon them telling me, “I think you are soooo brave.” I don’t know about you but I know I wasn’t invited to the You-Are-Courageous Awards Ceremony and Oprah can not possibly honor every one of us on her T.V. Show. This very question has been lurking around as my imaginary, unwelcome companion since January of 2008. And it glared in my face to the point of blindness the entire two months I was in Jo’burg–but that update is for later.
And then, home for the holidays this Christmas, I picked up one of my brother Zain’s books on Buddhism that was laying around, and randomly browsed through a chapter, and came upon the following quote: “Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us.”
Right then and there—despite not having done any yoga in 6 months*—the past two years of practice where Marco, my favorite yoga instructor, would repeatedly say to the packed class, “We all want the freedom to BE,” finally made sense beyond the realm of my body twisting and sweating further and farther than imagined limits. He would usually say this just when our strength was to give way to collapse.
Once we begin to gather pieces of that which is indestructible about us we float in an unparalleled freedom.
A freedom begotten from the knowledge that we are at once nothing and more than what we think we are. The freedom to essentially just Be while we Become into that Being we have always been which serves as a steadfast zephyr despite perpetual transitions.
A freedom borne out of settling with the responsibility of choices we make. It matters not if the choice is more or less noble/dignified/courageous as compared with another, better or worse in hindsight, right or wrong despite insight, but to have the courage to sit with that choice regardless for whom (yourself or another) you do what you do. Ultimately, to recognize, that you exercised choice where you could.
In 2010 I hope you and I are even “stronger” so as to gather even more pieces of our essence which set us free.
Here is to discovering what we are made of through the choices we make with the help of those we hold dear.
Happy You Year.**
~annie
*Wow. 6 months. Must get back into it. Side-note: Also realizing the impact upon oneself of verbalizing simple facts or emotions out loud (or on paper) as compared to their weight when they are just a thought in one’s head.
**Thanks to Z-man for the phrase.
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As long as we think we are lacking and need something from “outside” our self, we keep in place a fundamental dualism and are relegated to continual suffering.
“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”
-Alan Watts
Life is full of up’s and down’s. Perhaps the down’s place us in perspective and on a level plane with the greater part of society, those with poor health and jobless.
Look towards 2010 as a year that will help you see the light at the end of the tunnel. If you do not get to the light in the year 2010, then you seek it in 2011, and so on. But never give up seeking that light because it is always at the end of the tunnel!!!
African Americans saw a brighter light when Obama was elected, nevertheless we continue to seek a stronger light, we must continue to do the same in our own personal lives.
@G-Mitch – my point was that there is no ‘end of the tunnel’…and the light is always pouring through the available cracks within the tunnel. can’t fall of the edge of the horizon if you can’t reach it….
@Double Dorje – Ah…Alan Watts, of course.
very powerful post, a.q.s. read a quote the other day which said “life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties”…may you walk into and through 2010 with no insurmountable difficulties. happy you year!
@TG. – Thank you T.G. Makes it definitely surmountable when one is surrounded by friends like you who make sure you don’t forget why you are doing what you are doing in the first place. Big hug.
Inspiring words Annie…”The glorious in.be.tween which pushes you to Be and Become.” In a class on meditation last semester, my professor told us to focus on the “space between the words and thoughts.” The moment of nothingness and silence between each transition to a new thought will lead us to the understanding of the universe, he says. I love your exploration of transitions, beginings, and endings. Beautiful… happy you year to you too <3
@Katelyn – Thanks for your insightful thoughts Ms. Katelyn. Yes, a good friend/former professor/mentor of mine always says that too: all understanding is in the space between the words and thoughts. That unattached place we can barely articulate.