Impact — by Lucky

There is a part of being human that I’ve always found difficult. I hope that it doesn’t have to always be this way, this hard, but it always has been, and I want to try and do something about it. I’m afraid though. This is one of those things that requires me to ask for help. If that isn’t difficult enough, I know to get at this, in a real way, I have to ask for help from you, the very people my blindness impacts the most.

I can’t help it. I’m only human. That is not only my overused excuse, but it happens to be true.  Addressing this issue is probably going to take all the compassion I can muster, and all you can muster too. Being human means I generate impacts (often hurtful) that I’m not aware of. I am clumsy and blind, and I don’t know know it as much as I need to. Because all of this is so, I need you, and I know you need me. I would like to believe we could deal with the impacts we necessarily have upon, and with, each other.

I am one of, what my friend Jim calls, the “not-sees.” I don’t see some things very well.  What happens is that I do a lot of damage — I’m like the proverbial bull in the china shop — because I’m looking somewhere else, or I’m just unable to see all of the consequences of my actions.

I’ve done a lot of therapy, hell, I’ve been a therapist for a long time. Amongst the many things I did in both those roles, has been operate by the belief that I (one) could stop bumping into, and hurting (and sometimes being hurt by), people. I have been wrong about that. This is another example, though pretty ordinary, of how blind I can be.

Lately, I’ve come to see that my blindness is part of being human. I can see, only partly at best. That awareness has made it easier for me to apologize, but does nothing to help me cause less harm. Now my hope rests upon the company I keep. I know I’m going to bump into them from time to time —I’m fond of saying community is a contact sport — but it seldom goes easily when I do. I’m not pretending I’m not blind —I’m not a climate change denier (claiming we humans have no effect on the world) — in fact, I’m too aware that I do, and it leaves me feeling a regret I have a hard time getting past.

So my basic self-image right now contains an awareness that I am perpetually hurtful to the one’s I say I love. Since I say I love community that poses a real challenge to me. I want to do more than just feel bad about it. So, I’ve come to asking for your help. I know if I could just forgive everyone I wouldn’t have to feel this way, but I don’t want to issue a blanket pardon, that doesn’t adequately address the harm in the world that I (and others) seem to be a part of.

I realize I can’t make all of the hurt go away. I know that pain is sometimes the way Mystery gets in, but it seems that there is more hurt in the world than necessary. I’d like to be part of that changing some.  And, I’m just foolish enough, or immature enough, to think that it can be different, for me, and for all of us. But, I’m currently at the place where I can’t imagine that hurting, the hurting I’m responsible for, being addressed without your help.

I keep thinking about a more active form of forgiveness, one that is more immediate, personal, and natural. My imagination though runs to climate change. Before us, within our experience, there is plenty of evidence of our (we humans) impact upon Earth. Alongside that impact, I want to place the impact we have upon one another. Just as the climate is changing in response to our actions, so is the world of social relations being shaped by our impact upon one another.

I know I can’t help impacting you. I know you can’t help impacting me. But, I don’t live in a world where that is just a random coincidence anymore. I live in a world where I am awash in connection. I know there is little that is actually random about it. Yet, I still live like my social impacts are merely farts in the wind. That no longer seems right.

I need your help to live otherwise. Let’s talk about it. Let’s interact like our contact, our incidental impacts upon each other, are really gifts, gifts that indicate how truly connected we are. I want to celebrate the new awareness that is coming to me later here in life, and I can’t do it without playmates, without others who will share with me the difficult process of dealing anew with my (our) blind ignorance.

I don’t like to know that I am (despite my best efforts) overbearing, controlling, and think too much of myself. I don’t react well to finding out either. But, I can do better. I imagine that if I wasn’t feeling so alone, and so prone, in my isolation, to all kinds of bad feelings, that maybe I could handle knowing more about myself. I also imagine that if I knew I was deeply connected and wanted here, then I could celebrate the little things, the places where we intersect (despite, and even sometimes because of my intransigence).

Connecting asks this of me. I don’t think, despite all my self-reliant alarms, that I can pull this off alone. This is one of those places where I can’t help saying (thank God my disability has forced me into this ability), I need your help.

Please help me! I (words that are taboo in our social reality) need your hand. And, I have reason to suspect, you need mine. Let’s make the most out of our impacts upon each other!

The Tension — by Lucky

I want to spend some time facing one of the most vexing realities I’m confronted with. I haven’t really tried facing this dilemma head on before. It drew my attention recently, and appearing on my radar screen, I began to think this is a phenomenon I run into all the time, and I haven’t really looked at it. Now, I’m stopping to do so. And I’m encountering the reality that what I face now has been ruling me for a long time. I am filled with dread. I don’t want to encounter what I cannot handle, but neither do I want to be ruled by what I fear.

I’ve been feeling a kind of troublesome tension that wracks my awareness and limits me. I’m talking about my awareness of the terminal condition of this world. I know how bad it is. And, I have difficulty knowing. I feel like I should do something right now, and I feel guilty because whatever I would do is not enough. I cannot put this heartache to rest. I’m damned if I do (respond) and damned if I don’t (become passive and guilty).

I feel like I am caught in an avalanche. I should try to survive. I am overwhelmed by the power of what I’m involved in. Survival is not really my call. But neither is just giving in. I vacillate between these two poles, feeling trapped and distorted by my awareness, that this is the reality I’m in. I cannot conceive of a way to make a difference, nor can I do nothing for very long. I ‘m never get off the hook. For a while I can convince myself of a change, then little by little, I realize that change doesn’t really change anything. I live with a certain anxiety that this house of cards is already coming down.

Sometimes I think it should, that I should help it, that my contribution is to add weight to this crumbling structure, to help it fall. But then I just as quickly fear the possibility. I don’t want the human experiment to end on my watch. I feel intensely disloyal.

I don’t really have a place to stand. I’m just uneasy. Anything I do is contaminated by my awareness. Not doing anything, or enough, is equally unsatisfying. I am literally torn apart, if I let myself know what I already know.

I carry this burden. Who doesn’t? I don’t think this just troubles those who are awake, it seems probable to me, that I suffer an awareness, that even when it is not consciously felt, all humanity bears.

I live with an impossible recognition. The nightmare goes on, and if one pays attention, it gets more and more horrifying. Still, I live within it. I can’t help but think about what I might be like if I didn’t have to bear this form of gravity, if, somehow, I wasn’t caught up in these times. Still, I am.

I can feel this weight every time I move. I can feel it when I am still, too. To be honest, it distorts everything I do. I don’t want it to, but it does. This is my environment now. I live with the day-to-day possibility of collapse. All of my interactions are defined, to some extent, by the reality of demise. I don’t really know what kind of human this makes me? I just know that living seems to bear this form of torment.

So it seems to me that modern life contains a kind of anxious tension that our ancestors may have never known. Do you think they could have imagined a time when humans had reason to not trust each other, because we know now how culpable we all are?

I’m discovering something though. In the midst of all this difficult mess, I am finding that I trust more those who are not pretending that crisis isn’t looming. I tend to listen harder to those who let themselves feel the mess we are in. I don’t mean the one’s who are just horrified (and want to do something), but those who are intent upon living within the truth of this world. I tend to listen to, and respect, those who’s hearts are broken by this shattered world, and have the temerity to live, relate, love, and exist torn apart. Their guts hang out, like mine, and I am encouraged.

Strangely, there seems to be nothing so humbling and enlivening as acceptance. The world is crumbling. For some reason this is coaxing the best and worst out of our species. I chose to look at the best. I hope that serves evolution, because it gives me hope. It may be that it takes such extreme conditions to evoke an awareness that can bear a fatal truth. If it does, then I am glad I get to be on the scene, for this moment in our species life.

Switchbacks — by Lucky

I have been reflecting upon a wonderful metaphor/phenomenon that has been occurring in one of the groups I’ve been part of. In what, I think of it as a hallmark, as an elder achievement, that the members of the group experience each other as nourishing. In fact, the group has described themselves as a nutrient-rich environment, where people end up feeding each other. The idea, that we, in all our differences, could be food for each other, is a real testimony, to the learning and growth happening.

It occurred to me, as I gave this poem one last reading, that it spoke of another kind of food that has nourished me throughout my life. You may recall I was greatly touched by the metaphors of “a kind word” and “a bottle of water” that come at the end of the poem. This time I noticed a more difficult and more reliable food source, one I have a much more ambivalent relationship with. Switchbacks. Here, again, is the poem, but this time I urge you to reflect on the food; unexpected and seemingly oppositional change offers.

On the Path to Diamond Head

You climb the steep path of switchbacks,

In the hope of gaining a beautiful perspective. 

The path is rough and broken,

With too many stairs for any one person.

Always wondering how much more is required. 

There!  Below you are others,

Traveling on the same path as you,

Tired and thirsty, slogging through their desire to stop.

If only they could climb straight up,

shortening the endless path of switch back.

They could be where you are now, see what you see, be closer to their goal.

But… isn’t their journey hard enough as it is?

Instead of wishing them your vista,

Why not offer a kind word and a bottle of water?

                                                                                 Jeffrey Young

How many times over the course of my lifetime have I “slogged through my desires” only to find that I am thwarted by something unexpected. This is the kind of food I prefer to ignore, to complain about, and often refuse to eat. Life has fed me with another switchback. Even when I know it is coming, and that I have chosen this path, I fail to appreciate the switchback. Another more ‘beautiful perspective” might be ahead, but only if I will willingly negotiate a twist of fate that I don’t want. This is the kind of kindness, direction, and nourishing I have trouble with.

Switchbacks linger at my edges. They sometimes are indistinguishable from edge phenomena. There before me is the person or situation I don’t like, or the family feeling, or unpleasant truth, I’ve been trying to ignore. They don’t look like nourishing food. I want something else. I don’t want to know myself, or anyone, that much. Still, here it is, the bitter medicine of some greater truth, which propels me forward. Switchbacks make my life better, enriching me, keeping me on the path, guiding me towards completion. They make this life compelling, mysterious, and completely surprising.

Switchbacks add drama to this journey. And yet, I think I could live without them. I don’t like the whiplash and redirection they provide. I’m tired of the climb, tired of the tedium, tired of the predictable ritual of having to turn onto another sloping segment of the journey. Switchbacks may be helping me get there, may be helping me do the impossible, and are probably allowing me to know possibilities I could never have arrived at without them. But, I can’t say I am ever looking forward to them. This is a form of nourishment, which is so undelectable, that I would happily forgo it.

Switchbacks. I can’t live with them, and can’t live without them. It’s a good thing I don’t seem to have any control of them. Despite me, they just knock over my apple cart. They seem to me like some kind of karmic bullies that make the playground an unsafe place. All my efforts to avoid them are smoke signals and signs that guide them in. They are the smelly and unkempt relatives, who keep showing up at my birthday party. I don’t know how they know all my dirty little secrets, but they do, and they aren’t satisfied till everybody else does too. Switchbacks, the food source that keeps on giving, sometimes over feeds me.

I know, I should be grateful. Probably, I am. I have my moments of abstract awareness of some kind of oneness. I even have, fewer admittedly, moments when I genuinely know how blessed I am. Switchbacks carry me to places I wouldn’t willingly go. They are the guarantors of my journey. They seem to reflect some greater knowledge of my potential. In short, they are a blessing and a curse. The journey wouldn’t mean anything, wouldn’t hold any suspense, wouldn’t even be compelling, without them. They are the rocks in the road that let me know I’m getting somewhere.

And, all along, switchbacks are food, real food, providing me with substantial energy, maturity and growth. I’ll probably keep bitching and moaning about not being fed what I want, but I’ll never have a better, more reliable source of nutrition. The journey, my journey, relies on them.  I can’t get over, around, or past them. Mystery makes me through them!

A Kind Word and A Bottle of Water — by Lucky

Recently, I was sitting in my living room with a friend of mine named Jeffrey. We were talking about the many challenges we face by trying to be conscious. Soon the conversation turned to how we could help other path mates. He surprised me with the following poem, which he had written, to address this same question. Two of his metaphors immediately captured my attention — a kind word, and a bottle of water. I want to share the poem with you and inquire further into the make-up of these two offerings. I hope it touches you, as it did me, and that you share your awareness with another climber.

On the Path to Diamond Head

You climb the steep path of switchbacks,

In the hope of gaining a beautiful perspective. 

The path is rough and broken,

With too many stairs for any one person.

Always wondering how much more is required. 

There!  Below you are others,

Traveling on the same path as you,

Tired and thirsty, slogging through their desire to stop.

If only they could climb straight up,

shortening the endless path of switch back.

They could be where you are now, see what you see, be closer to their goal.

But… isn’t their journey hard enough as it is?

Instead of wishing them your vista,

Why not offer a kind word and a bottle of water?

                                                                                 Jeffrey Young

In reflecting upon “the kind word” and “the bottle of water,” I ask. What are they, really? How does one offer them? Who does one see? All along the way, as I reflected, I thought about those who have helped me climb. I may be just grateful enough to pass along some of what enables me to keep going.

As a burgeoning elder responsible to the future, I look to the young ones, sometimes behind me on the path, sometimes ahead, and I want to admire them (a kind word) and I want to refresh them (a bottle of water). But, what do I, who has been struggling empty-handed so long, have to give? My only answer, at this point, is this, a kind word of admiration for who they are becoming, and a bottle of water, some kind of customized nourishment, a little of life’s vitality, to enable them to continue.

As a burgeoning elder responsible to the present, I look to my fellow elders, sometimes behind me on the path, sometimes ahead, and I want to admire them (a kind word) and I want to refresh them (a bottle of water). But, I forget. I spend too much of my time doubting that I might hold anything that could provide succor, inspiration or energy. My hands are full of mistakes. My only answer, at this point, is this, a kind word of admiration for who they are becoming, and a bottle of water, a little of life’s vitality, to enable them to continue.

The latter, I’ve concluded, can only be transferred through adequate relating. The life-force, as I see it, is community (a knowing that the wholeness of all things is behind, and within). This isn’t a belonging, or an achievement, that can be passed on. This is only the solace of sharing a freshly broken-open heart.

The gift of water is the gift of Life. Sharing is what life is about. The climb, is Life’s gift to all of us. How we help each other along the way, is how we honor what has been given to us. Miraculously, at the same time, it is our gift of support for each other. My climb into being fully what the Universe created — more fully myself — is the gift I can best give, and strangely, the one that offers the most nourishment.

May there always be climbers — refreshment in the making!