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The Inward Turning Year
Dec. 29th, 2010 01:21 pm
If there is anything I will remember 2010 for, it will be as the year I became comfortable with myself. I am thoughtful, playful, self-absorbed, frightened, and insecure. I’m OK with that. This year I’ve learned to accept who I am and all of my flaws, and how to navigate that confidence with the need to change. Accepting yourself, of course, doesn’t mean your work is done, or there’s no need to get better. It just provides an excellent foundation for you to do so.
A lot of people had a really rough year, and I almost feel guilty saying that this was the first year that I felt optimistic about the way things are going. To be sure, we live in uncertain -- even scary -- times, and I’m not ignoring all the people who’ve lost their jobs this year, are having trouble finding new ones, or have all kinds of other things going on that are wearing them down. Don’t get me wrong; I know it’s hard. But I think working through this hardship is just one way of making us better people, of reminding us of what’s important and the impermanence of everything. I feel like the current recession has shifted the national consciousness a little bit. We’re not as concerned about bigger and better as we used to be; we’re concerned about having enough, about making things that last, about quality over quantity. If there’s one good thing about this year, it’s that we’re all a lot more mindful about excess, and we’ve been forced to pull back from it.
Which means, for me, that I realize more and more to separate the impulse of gaining something from the act of pursuing it. For example, when the thought of getting a candy bar comes up, it does NOT mean I immediately have to go out and get a candy bar. I’d been operating under this semi-mindless behavior for a while now, and I still wrestle with it every day to be honest. But there are so many other things to consider: the dollar I’d use to buy this candy could get me a little closer to buying a car, or paying for my visit to the dentist. It could buy a better shirt, or shoes, or help me with the vanity project of having my braids done. Besides that, eating candy whenever I feel like it is probably going to give me diabetes some day (it runs in my family), and it’s definitely not helping my waistline now. Sure, candy scratches the itch that arises in me, but that’s only a temporary state. The itch will return, and another dollar will be spent. And another, and another. Eventually, I’ve got no money for any of the dozen other things I want to do and I’m in desperate need of new jeans that don’t cut into my belly. Sometimes, it’s good to just sit with the itch for a while, feel the urge arise, continue, and fade. Hunger has gone from the trigger of an automatic process (hunger --> buying food --> eating food) to a reminder to consider what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. I can ask myself “Is it OK to be hungry right now?” The answer is often “Yeah.”
I know that my situation isn’t as dire as most people; the example above proves that. For too many people hunger isn’t something that comes around every so often, a curiosity that you can explore and use to call you back to yourself. It’s a constant weight, a reminder of what is lacking. I realize that I’m doing a typically American Buddhist thing -- using first-world problems as a gateway into practice. It’s interesting because there’s an argument to be made that this view is only another delusion, and that we’re blanketed from reality by our own relative affluence. It’s easy to be mindful of hunger when we can make a choice at any time to stop it, but what about those people who don’t have that luxury? What can mindfulness do for them? How can they practice?
To be honest, I don’t know. Which brings me to my next point. I’ve become comfortable with who I am, but at the same time I realize that self-absorption is only so useful. I call myself self-absorbed because it’s my natural inclination to see the world through the way it affects me. I have a very strong ego that way! I can try to put myself in another’s place, to see another aspect of our shared experience, but it’s not automatic, and sometimes it’s not even something that occurs to me. With hunger, I can watch it rise, study it, and let it fall away. I’d like to be able to do the same thing with my sense of self; now that I feel comfortable with it, it’s time to let it fall way for now. It’s time to try and engage with the world as it is.
There is so much going on outside of my head! Every person you meet is a world unto themselves, a walking biosphere of processes, thoughts, dreams and stories that you only see a tiny fraction of in the time you meet them. There are seven billion different versions of “The Truman Show” going on at any one time, all the time, everywhere. It’s difficult to wrap my brain around the concept, but that’s the reality. It helps to remember that.
I would like for 2011 to be the year that my narrative becomes more entangled with others, where I can take a back seat in the interest of the other people’s betterment. I can’t guarantee that I’m going to remember this goal at all times, or that I’ll live up to this theme always, but that’s all right. Perfection isn’t what I’m after here. The effort is.
Of course, I have more ideas about resolutions and such, but that’ll have to wait for a little while. The next few days are going to be a whirlwind of activity, and I want to make sure I nail down my resolutions and have started working on them before I start talking about them in earnest.
Anyway, I hope everyone out there had an immensely happy set of holidays, and that your New Year is bright with promise and potential. I’ll see you guys on the other side!
A lot of people had a really rough year, and I almost feel guilty saying that this was the first year that I felt optimistic about the way things are going. To be sure, we live in uncertain -- even scary -- times, and I’m not ignoring all the people who’ve lost their jobs this year, are having trouble finding new ones, or have all kinds of other things going on that are wearing them down. Don’t get me wrong; I know it’s hard. But I think working through this hardship is just one way of making us better people, of reminding us of what’s important and the impermanence of everything. I feel like the current recession has shifted the national consciousness a little bit. We’re not as concerned about bigger and better as we used to be; we’re concerned about having enough, about making things that last, about quality over quantity. If there’s one good thing about this year, it’s that we’re all a lot more mindful about excess, and we’ve been forced to pull back from it.
Which means, for me, that I realize more and more to separate the impulse of gaining something from the act of pursuing it. For example, when the thought of getting a candy bar comes up, it does NOT mean I immediately have to go out and get a candy bar. I’d been operating under this semi-mindless behavior for a while now, and I still wrestle with it every day to be honest. But there are so many other things to consider: the dollar I’d use to buy this candy could get me a little closer to buying a car, or paying for my visit to the dentist. It could buy a better shirt, or shoes, or help me with the vanity project of having my braids done. Besides that, eating candy whenever I feel like it is probably going to give me diabetes some day (it runs in my family), and it’s definitely not helping my waistline now. Sure, candy scratches the itch that arises in me, but that’s only a temporary state. The itch will return, and another dollar will be spent. And another, and another. Eventually, I’ve got no money for any of the dozen other things I want to do and I’m in desperate need of new jeans that don’t cut into my belly. Sometimes, it’s good to just sit with the itch for a while, feel the urge arise, continue, and fade. Hunger has gone from the trigger of an automatic process (hunger --> buying food --> eating food) to a reminder to consider what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. I can ask myself “Is it OK to be hungry right now?” The answer is often “Yeah.”
I know that my situation isn’t as dire as most people; the example above proves that. For too many people hunger isn’t something that comes around every so often, a curiosity that you can explore and use to call you back to yourself. It’s a constant weight, a reminder of what is lacking. I realize that I’m doing a typically American Buddhist thing -- using first-world problems as a gateway into practice. It’s interesting because there’s an argument to be made that this view is only another delusion, and that we’re blanketed from reality by our own relative affluence. It’s easy to be mindful of hunger when we can make a choice at any time to stop it, but what about those people who don’t have that luxury? What can mindfulness do for them? How can they practice?
To be honest, I don’t know. Which brings me to my next point. I’ve become comfortable with who I am, but at the same time I realize that self-absorption is only so useful. I call myself self-absorbed because it’s my natural inclination to see the world through the way it affects me. I have a very strong ego that way! I can try to put myself in another’s place, to see another aspect of our shared experience, but it’s not automatic, and sometimes it’s not even something that occurs to me. With hunger, I can watch it rise, study it, and let it fall away. I’d like to be able to do the same thing with my sense of self; now that I feel comfortable with it, it’s time to let it fall way for now. It’s time to try and engage with the world as it is.
There is so much going on outside of my head! Every person you meet is a world unto themselves, a walking biosphere of processes, thoughts, dreams and stories that you only see a tiny fraction of in the time you meet them. There are seven billion different versions of “The Truman Show” going on at any one time, all the time, everywhere. It’s difficult to wrap my brain around the concept, but that’s the reality. It helps to remember that.
I would like for 2011 to be the year that my narrative becomes more entangled with others, where I can take a back seat in the interest of the other people’s betterment. I can’t guarantee that I’m going to remember this goal at all times, or that I’ll live up to this theme always, but that’s all right. Perfection isn’t what I’m after here. The effort is.
Of course, I have more ideas about resolutions and such, but that’ll have to wait for a little while. The next few days are going to be a whirlwind of activity, and I want to make sure I nail down my resolutions and have started working on them before I start talking about them in earnest.
Anyway, I hope everyone out there had an immensely happy set of holidays, and that your New Year is bright with promise and potential. I’ll see you guys on the other side!
