What does it mean to be human? This is a frightening question these days. Wouldn’t it be easier to stay on the surface of things and medicate ourselves rather than deal with stimulation, titillation or unpredictability in relationships; with whatever it is we do that allows the present reality to be produced over and over and over again, rather than expanding the spiritual, cultural, intellectual, emotional and soulful to seek out ways to integrate our past, present and future?
Reflecting on the question of what it means to be human has to do with “Who am I?”
In the profound words of Harvard Divinity professor Dr. Cornell West, I know I am who I am “because somebody loved me, somebody cared for me and somebody attended to me … somebody focused on me.”
Is this true for you? I suspect it is.
But some us believe we are “Self-made.”
This market-driven American myth that we are Self-made as if nothing preceded us…
that’s a FUNKY thought.
We emerged through the FUNK … through our momma’s womb.
Addiction in all its forms is a death of relationships.
Yet some of us don’t want to deal. We don’t want to deal with the dark side of anything … the underbelly. We don’t want to deal with the FUNKY-stuff.
Often times we want deodorized relationships. We blame everything and everyone for our frustrations and disappointments or we sleepwalk through them.
We are quick to pick out the shortcomings and foibles of others, but then we throw temper tantrums or run away when our point of view is challenged.
Relationships will bring us face to face with our hypocritical behaviors, attitudes and actions.
Truth is subjective. Truth is what allows suffering to speak.
This whole idea of the “Self-made individual” is a market-driven myth where we live in a world of make believe. It’s a house of cards … it’s some expert or guru telling you who you are, how you should think and act and you buy their perception of you over your own history, reality, experience and you end up broke-n down … at a dead end … empty … shallow … hollow.
What is so great about relationships when we bring our best self into the mix is that they are about connection, human potential, possibilities, liberation, aliveness, magnificence, creativity, intelligence, brilliance …
We have genuine dialogic (vs monological) conversations and we wrestle with “What does it mean to be a human being?” And this takes us into the center of life, death, love, loss, health, family, evil .. ALL OF IT!
We don’t get into relationships and live “happily ever after.” We get into relationships because we are willing and ready to be unsettled and unearthed. We come to learn and experience the many forms of the death of our EGO.
If we really want to learn wisdom, we must learn how to die to our “EGO-Self.” When we don’t expect too much profundity from others and die to our “Ego-Selves” we are not mental slaves of our past; we are mentally liberated. Then we have the courage to be curious, to think broader and deeper. We become radically open to each other.
Dying to our EGO-Self means examining our assumptions, presuppositions, dogmas, and doctrines, because giving up our assumptions and dogmas is a form of death.
In my experience, the only way to grow, mature and develop is to die to the EGO-Self. There is no re-birth without dying to the EGO-Self. When we die to our EGO-Self, we can say, I am a different person because I wrestled with life outside of my comfort zone, outside of what I believed to be true about myself, about you, and about the world at large.
In my dying I was turned upside down, inside out. My insides burned@! and now my pluralistic worldview rests in educating my “Self in Relation” to others, the Divine and the World.
We do this over and over so that when we engage … when we have a genuine encounter with another in relationship, in practice, it is a Heroic action.
Growing and maturing a “Self-in Relation” in practice and the shaping of that Self is a dignified, magnificent experiment in maturity but it’s an undignified and degrading experiment for the EGO Self-made, market-driven individual.
We have to think about these two selves at the same time. We have the capacity to uphold two opposing ideas at the same time and maintain our ability to function.
Some of us are bearing witness with all of our intelligence and enthusiasm to the Heroic actions of human beings. I personally see these Heroic actions in the journey that I take daily with couples. I see couples facing all kinds of challenges and difficulties together with COURAGE!
Do we recognize that all human beings are worthy and legitimate? Can we honor what we believe and what others believe … holding both of these ideas in our minds?
We have to trust our capacity to hold more than one truth at a time because there will always be opposing ideas and truths and … we don’t have time for revenge and hatred.
We can pursue the journey of liberating ourselves from our deepest fears, prejudices, presuppositions and misunderstandings and stepping into our magnificence as human beings who are who we are because we love somebody, because somebody loves us, somebody cares for us … somebody attends to us and focuses on us.
Loving in Connection,
Paula
