Erleichda
I find this hard to talk about because I don’t have circumstances which reveal the truth of this thought. But here is something I know even if I‘m still experimenting with exactly how to say it to myself:
It is important to heed the serenity prayer -- know the difference in what is your sh*t and what is someone else’s sh*t and control your sh*t and don’t even try to control someone else’s sh*t.
Perhaps I could, and perhaps I should, say that in a more elegant way. Hmmm. Ok, everything isn’t personal so quit taking it that way. But that is just a fragment. More generally, lighten up.
Walk in your own integrity. Know who you are, what you want, what you are willing to give and to give up, and stick with that while the rest of the world goes its way and does what it is going to do. There is no how someone else should act, what someone else should do. And you can’t change it anyway. No matter how other people act, do the right thing. And don’t lose yourself to them.
Don’t lose yourself. Don't please. Rock on.
And if I could just share another observation. I passed a hearse the other day. It was a Cadillac, model called eureka. I'm sorry, that is funny.
9 comments:
amen!
No matter how other people act, do the right thing. And don’t lose yourself to them.
If you're in the town square when the speaker is rallying the lynch mob, is it enough to just turn and walk away? Is that "the right thing" to do?
I'm not saying that walking away is your habit. No, not at all. This blog is evidence to the contrary.
And you do get your direction shifted by the speakers and the mobs, when you hang around and shout back at them. It's not the reason you came to the square in the first place.
But when you change direction, do you "lose yourself"? Or are you being even more deeply yourself?
Thinking out loud here. This stuff is troubling me. I'm thinking I spend too much time tilting at windmills, and not enough time growing my own true deep roots. Maybe I haven't got the growing conditions right yet - the authentic personal reasons for being where I am and doing what I am.
And I need to lighten up!
The problem with the town square comparison, says I, is that thinking along those lines is the very thing that predisposes us to tilt with windmills.
There is no lynch mob. Outside of movies and novels have you ever seen one, been within 100 miles of one, know anyone who has seen one, know anyone who knows anyone who has seen one?
So we subliminate. That person (for example) voted for George Bush and that's sort of like, maybe if you look at it the right way, kind of like he's part of a lynch mob. Yeah, that's the ticket! It's like stopping a lynch mob! Hey, you naughty person who voted for Bush, you are a ... hmmm.... naughty person!
That's it. I'm great and noble because I didn't walk away from the lynch mob .... of sorts.
[pop] The daydream is interrupted and you look about you and see that there is no lynch mob, never has been one, in your lifetime there never will be one. You (generic, not you speciffically, Laura) are just a person who is being tossed about by the opinions of others and you are daydreaming that it is a lynch mob.
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Next episode: "Hey, you can't put that dead mouse in the trash can! What if it were a dead sperm whale? Would you still put it in the trash can? Hmmmm ... let's be consistent."
What in the absolute hell would lead anyone to think that doing the right thing would equal walking away from a lynch mob?
Or maybe women in Canada are not socialized to please, don't struggle with overpersonalizing every little thing, don't get angry and defensive in situations best negotiated by other means. Maybe it is just that different up there than here in my backward holler. Or maybe there are a lot more lynch mobs up there, I don't know.
And I mean that in the least defensive, lightest and sort of smirking grinningest way possible.
winkie winkie
Oh, I'll grin right back, CG. No different up here - you've got me pegged exactly. The only thing I can't admit to is the part about getting angry - even when I'm defensive, I'm much too anxious to please, to ever admit to any anger!
Eleu, I guess I was using too stark an example for something very ethereal, and maybe it doesn't exist at all. What I was thinking of was the lynching of ideas, or of entire topics of discussion. I'm thinking I should just stay away from the forum where I see that happening, because I can't change it anyway. It just irks me and spills over into my own blog as clumsy hasty vitriolic posts (me? angry?) that are ho-hum for my own readers and never seen by the people from that other forum. And besides, while I am shouting where no-one hears, I'm neglecting my own sh*t.
So, I'll echo barefoot gardener and say "Amen!" And put on some fiddle tunes and clean my house so there's room to store some garden produce and give some rowdy thanks.
Or, to use another religion's phrase, let your life speak. But there are times to speak, and ways to do it, and times when it is, hmmm, contra-indicated.
good advice, will look for that model hearse.
Clearly you have read Jitterbug Perfume...I haven't met enough people in my life who have read it -- granted I was born 4 years after it was published...and I read it for the first time a few months ago.
You probably don't need to know the circumstances under which I found out about the book, but something is compelling me to tell you so here goes. In short, I've been having an affair with a married man whom I am very much in love with. (There is a 30 year age difference. Hence how he would have known about the book long before me) Jitterbug Perfume is *one of?* his favorite book(s) of all time, and I recently found out for some reason he hasn't had his wife read it? But felt the need to share it with me. It is on the growing list of reasons why this particular novel is so incredibly important to me and has changed my life.
How can anyone read this book and not fall in love with it...I'm assuming that because of your reference you are equally as passionate as I am about it? Maybe? Maybe not? ::shrugs::
Anyway...I appreciated the reference.
Sincerly...
C.E.L
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