"i think this world puts far too much onus on success, celebrity, achievement, power and the things that feed our ego and narcissism. there is no measure of character to me worth anything than how we treat others. To be human is to be relational. If i can’t be kind and giving, then I am not being the human being i was born to be."
"i'm fairly certain that most of the pain and hurt in people's lives is caused by not being able to admit we are scared of being hurt, not believing we can be loved exactly as we are, and keeping others from seeing our vulnerabilities and instead pretending we know what we are doing. we humans seem to have an unending capacity to push others away at the very moment we need each other. but we think we're different because we have different tricks for avoiding being known and loved. in the words of Adam Phillips, 'we are most creative in the ways we frustrate ourselves'."
-Cary Gibson
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
a couple of things a little bird told me
I realize that at some point soon it will get rather ridiculous for me to keep posting things that Cary has shared with me, an abdication of my responsibilities as a blog-keeper, but I really liked these quotes and wanted to post them here. I will return with original content one day soon, but for now she is saying better things than anything I have to offer...
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3 comments:
(edited version of deleted comment, without a confusing double negative)
'm thinking things get interesting where those two thoughts inter(twine or play)...
if only because our ability to do the first is so affected by what the second brings to bear.
so if somewhere in love there is meant to be trust, honesty, forgiveness, i know i can't seem to get to the honesty without the trust, and trust, let alone forgiveness, can't happen without honesty. it becomes near impossible for me to act lovingly where one doesn't trust the honesty or intention of another. not unless one is willing to forego being loving to the self. or so it seems.
but i could be so wrong, it's just my own reaching for some kind of understanding of the high wire act of being loving to others and the self at the same time...it seems we find it easier to sabotage our relationships in a myriad different ways than deal with the messiness of mutual vulnerability... taking off our masks to one another while on that wire.
but as someone said to me only yesterday, understanding [the messiness] doesn't make it hurt any less...
:: we do not see the things as they are. we see them as we are ::
(ascribed to both Anaïs Nin and the Talmud. take your pick.)
i, for one, miss the provocation of your posts. and so we wait...
LB
I think the ground out of which all this must grow is a centeredness in oneself and/or God, as opposed to centering oneself in others (which is all too common and usually disguises itself as "love for the other"). this is not the same thing as being self-centered (which is to sacrifice the other, or at the very least to not give a hoot about them, which is sort of the same thing), but an anchoring on solid ground rather than something moving or unstable. we are only in control of ourselves. if our love/honesty/self-worth/etc...is based on another's actions or "reaction" to us, then we are in for a hell of a bumpy ride. The other person's honesty or intention is irrelevant to whether I act lovingly or not. I act lovingly because I am (or aspire to be) a loving person, and that doesn't change regardless whether the recipient of that love is a saint or a son-of-a-bitch. *I* want to be a loving person, God wants me to be a loving person, end of story. When we are grounded in ourselves and/or only striving to please God, then what others think/say/do or don't doesn't matter a whole lot. sure, it hurts because we are human, and we hope, and hope can get crushed a million times a day sometimes. But if our lives come to a crashing halt because of the actions or absense of another, that is a pretty good indication that our "anchor" is not on the right ground (I picture a ship dropping an anchor that gets stuck on a shark or whale underwater instead of the sea bottom, and what that would look like and mean for the ship. I think we often do that in our lives and call it "love for another". If a person has fallen down, I can only help them up if I am standing up myself, not if I lay down with them and grab onto them. picture saying "here take my hand, I'll help you up" in both scenarios, and you'll see that one of them is laughable).
so, those are my half-awake thoughts upon rising from bed.
yep. well put.
the first model of love we are given to learn from is all too often akin to being pulled down and held there. which to use your equally apt analogy is like the shark swallowing the anchor, so that one knows no other way of being than the bumpy ride.
i guess when faced with the realisation that as an adult we get to control where we place our anchor, we get the choice to either be adrift, or by trial and error work out for ourselves what being tethered to the sea bed feels like.
that shark can be a mighty powerful beast...
LB
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