It's one of life's great challenges, to put oneself in the mind space of someone else. This is the great value of novel reading, because novels don't write themselves. They are written by other people who see life from a different angle simply because they are different to us.
If someone like me is reading a novel like 'the shepherd's hut' a whole new mind space opens up. I can't imagine causing violence and so to read of people who do it so effortlessly, with relish, is to attempt to understand the Other; not to necessarily understand the behavior but to acknowledge it as simply there in the psyche of some people for whatever reason.
If you are prone to looking out for the Other - helping, healing, giving the benefit of the doubt - which is also classified by some as naivete, understandably, it's close to impossible to get into the head space of someone who isn't any of those things, or is rarely any of those things; certainly not his or her default stance.
One son was in an elevator carrying a Haigh's chocolates paper bag when a colleague asked him why he had bought chocolates. My son, who already thought this chap psychologically impaired, responded that he was going to dinner at his parent's house and bringing them the chocolates as a gift.
'Why?' the man wanted to know.
It genuinely intrigued him why my son would do that.
'Because, I know it will make them happy,' he replied.
This didn't impress the colleague. For whatever reason, his brain could not compute.
The more absorbed we are with our own problems, almost insanely forgetting that everyone has problems of one kind or another, the more introspective and lacking of generosity we become.
When we focus on what we don't have, like looking through a microscope at a single drop on a glass plate, we entirely forget about the fact that we are the speck in space.
The more we notice the space around us, above and even below us, in front of us and behind us, the better able we are to put our 'problem' in some reasonable sort of context.
In meditation I encourage, with carefully chosen words, for people to feel all of creation within them and for them to enter into all of creation. In a relaxed state, both mind and body, it is not difficult to conjure this sort of non duality where the 'I' is transcended.
When the 'I' is transcended, violence upon others is unthinkable. Still, it's not the way of the world, is it? Violence begets violence and so the wheel of violence keeps turning; selfishness endures.
I asked the teacher I work with about Emily when at school this week, a cute and highly intelligent but troubled 7 year old. It was rough right now, I was told. She arrived back from a holiday in Bali with her Dad to discover that Mum had moved out of the house; much of the furniture had gone with her.
The teacher made this interesting observation. 'I just hope that she has the tenacity to say, 'I won't wear this failure. Whatever you choose to do with your lives, I choose success.' And, it made sense at that moment why some people become quite hard and single focused. They have to be that way to survive a life where the odds right from the start didn't go their way. It's the survival instinct at play. 'I am going to work hard and make a success of my life despite the odds against me'. Right now, school is where she can feel safe.The rules don't change, the expectations don't change.
I remember now that the Headmaster of my sons' school said exactly this to me years ago; that money was no security for some boys there; that the school environment offered them the stability and care that they didn't necessarily get at home. This reminds me of Hillary Clinton's phrase, that it takes a village to raise a child. It is the truth.
It seems to me that it is quite an art to be human; to have the tenacity to succeed, whatever success means to the individual, and the heart to feel for fellow man, regardless of personal circumstances; to be open to failure.
If someone like me is reading a novel like 'the shepherd's hut' a whole new mind space opens up. I can't imagine causing violence and so to read of people who do it so effortlessly, with relish, is to attempt to understand the Other; not to necessarily understand the behavior but to acknowledge it as simply there in the psyche of some people for whatever reason.
If you are prone to looking out for the Other - helping, healing, giving the benefit of the doubt - which is also classified by some as naivete, understandably, it's close to impossible to get into the head space of someone who isn't any of those things, or is rarely any of those things; certainly not his or her default stance.
One son was in an elevator carrying a Haigh's chocolates paper bag when a colleague asked him why he had bought chocolates. My son, who already thought this chap psychologically impaired, responded that he was going to dinner at his parent's house and bringing them the chocolates as a gift.
'Why?' the man wanted to know.
It genuinely intrigued him why my son would do that.
'Because, I know it will make them happy,' he replied.
This didn't impress the colleague. For whatever reason, his brain could not compute.
The more absorbed we are with our own problems, almost insanely forgetting that everyone has problems of one kind or another, the more introspective and lacking of generosity we become.
When we focus on what we don't have, like looking through a microscope at a single drop on a glass plate, we entirely forget about the fact that we are the speck in space.
The more we notice the space around us, above and even below us, in front of us and behind us, the better able we are to put our 'problem' in some reasonable sort of context.
In meditation I encourage, with carefully chosen words, for people to feel all of creation within them and for them to enter into all of creation. In a relaxed state, both mind and body, it is not difficult to conjure this sort of non duality where the 'I' is transcended.
When the 'I' is transcended, violence upon others is unthinkable. Still, it's not the way of the world, is it? Violence begets violence and so the wheel of violence keeps turning; selfishness endures.
I asked the teacher I work with about Emily when at school this week, a cute and highly intelligent but troubled 7 year old. It was rough right now, I was told. She arrived back from a holiday in Bali with her Dad to discover that Mum had moved out of the house; much of the furniture had gone with her.
The teacher made this interesting observation. 'I just hope that she has the tenacity to say, 'I won't wear this failure. Whatever you choose to do with your lives, I choose success.' And, it made sense at that moment why some people become quite hard and single focused. They have to be that way to survive a life where the odds right from the start didn't go their way. It's the survival instinct at play. 'I am going to work hard and make a success of my life despite the odds against me'. Right now, school is where she can feel safe.The rules don't change, the expectations don't change.
I remember now that the Headmaster of my sons' school said exactly this to me years ago; that money was no security for some boys there; that the school environment offered them the stability and care that they didn't necessarily get at home. This reminds me of Hillary Clinton's phrase, that it takes a village to raise a child. It is the truth.
It seems to me that it is quite an art to be human; to have the tenacity to succeed, whatever success means to the individual, and the heart to feel for fellow man, regardless of personal circumstances; to be open to failure.
No comments:
Post a Comment