Sunday September 11, 2005
Before this blog came into being, I had things to say about my reactions to the attacks that surprised the Western world four years ago and the reactions of those around me.
I was changed that day. I had to speak my mind. What I emailed to my friends and family garnered a whole spectrum of reactions, but it mattered not. I had said what I needed to say. Agreement or disagreement with my point of view did not invalidate it, neither did my point of view invalidate others.
But I had the right to speak my thoughts and they had theirs -- an aspect of democracy I cherish and a freedom denied to many on this planet. What I understood in the global perspective was that while anyone in this world is denied safety, justice and the right to dissenting voices, none of us would be safe.
Denying our individual responsibility of ensuring such basic rights by claiming governments, elected or not, or religious factions to which we, of course, did not belong, or cultural differences of which we claimed innocent ignorance were to blame was the window those bent on self-destruction with the intent of inflicting harm on those they viewed with understandable distaste used to their advantage.
The institutions so handily scapegoated were simply different groupings of individuals. Individuals had to act differently if things were to change. Shining light in the places that human rights and dignity were being violated was no longer optional. It became essential for our collective survival.
So it is with individual survival. In particular with this individual's survival. What I said those many years ago was that terrorism begins at home. I urged others to treat each other with respect, whether they were related or not.
That Christmas the county in which I lived at the time held a vigil over the space of several hours. At regular intervals, the last 5 minutes of the life of a child who died that year in that county at the hands of his or her parent was described. They numbered in the double digits. I found this to be more chilling than the larger conflict going on so visibly. Adults in declared combat with other armed adults is at least a fair enough match. Adults terrorizing the most vulnerable members of our community behind closed doors puts the lie to our claims of moral superiority.
And so I went about reminding those I came in contact with who voiced the opinion that the terrorists were nothing like us that in my opinion we were all the same. They thought they were right and we thought we were right. Which necessitated that each group thinks the "other" is wrong. Focusing on the relatively few real differences supported continued belief in the lie that there is one "right" way to think or be. After all, how could we both be the same if one of us was "wrong". Logically that would allow for the possibility that we were wrong. If we were wrong, we couldn't justify our own attacks. What a dilemma.
I call the thinking and behaviour that creates this kind of dilemma bullshit. Mainly because we all say we can't stand bullshit. Half the problem is identifying bullshit. We know it when we see it in others, but it's hard to see your own, isn't it. Which is where the rest of the world comes in. Other people help us identify our own bullshit, whether either of us know it or not.
Bullshit begets bullshit and makes everyone in the vicinity uncomfortable. Eventually we get uncomfortable enough that we start to recognize in ourselves bullshit that we thought was brought to the party by other people. What an opportunity for change.
Here's the rub: change makes people uncomfortable; reformed bullshitters make unreformed bullshitters even more uncomfortable. If a reforming bullshitter is dissuaded by a barrage of heavier bullshit they have shown their true colours and are full of more of it than the rest of the group put together. You can't get rid of bullshit by covering it up with more. Shovels and hoses and the like are required.
I don't like to think of myself as full of bullshit. I'm starting to think I may be at least smellng like it right now. And I'm sitting here looking at a quote I've had posted on my wall for several years now. It gives me pause and makes me examine my handling of recent events in a different light. I'm still debating things but I'd like to share it with you on this significant day.
Oh, something else you should know, before you read it. This blog got rolling (sorry for the pun) the year I became determined to re-invent myself. Little did I know then what life had in store for me. I am not sure I have re-invented a self so much as discovered and awakened a part of myself that was always there. I'd just been ignoring and discounting that part because what it was feeling and telling me wasn't what I wanted to hear. Shades of my childhood experience now that I come to think of that.
Careful what you learn and all that... Right. Once this part of me had the floor, my dreams became a therapeutic battleground -- literally. What is happening right now in my family relationships was played out in the one that scared me the most. I wrote it in my journal and told many people, including my therapist, about it because I was shocked at the uncharacteristic behaviour *I* had exhibited in the dream. The reforming bullshitter, remember? I'd made a resolution a couple of years before that I was going to eliminate bullshit from all levels of my life. Maybe the resolution was the start of all of that has followed? Or maybe what followed was made possible (or necessary) by the resolution?
What I discovered was some of the bullshit was in my own head. The changes I am undergoing today are the result of my identifying the bullshit and refusing to play along with it any longer.
Okay, you've read this far, I'll deliver the quotation. It's attributed to T. S. Eliot but I've read similar things worded differently. Maybe this was the original:
In order to arrive at what you do not know, you must go by way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess, you must go by way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not, you must go through the way in which you are not.
Okay, so what's that got to do with the title of this post? I'm trying to figure out which of the ways I wasn't is the way I need to go through. Well, that's not true, I know which way it is -- it's the one that feels least comfortable, right? Indeed.
Still, I need some time to chew on this before I do or say anything more. While I'm doing that, I'll be redesigning and porting this blog to another application.