Getting into the Christmas spirit?

It’s that time of year once more. The season of goodwill, giving, Christmas cheer, and the celebration of the birth of one small baby circa 2000 years ago. Once the lights are up, the Christmas cards written, the carols sung and the presents wrapped, we can finally say we are “in the Christmas spirit” with an exhausted sigh, surrendering to the festivities and excess to come with welcome anticipation..

I was busying myself the other day, rushing from shop to shop, lists running through my head and dodging the crowds and the money collectors who seem to multiply on the streets in proportion to the season of generosity. I was thrust a card in my hand, which I hurriedly shoved in my coat pocket, only to resurface when I got home to disburden my load.

It wasn’t a flyer persuading me I needed this item to have the perfect Christmas, or to ensure my loved one would appreciate me, it wasn’t a half price sale to encourage me to buy twice as much as I’d planned. It was a Samaritans card, offering someone to talk to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, and just in case you doubted them, a 2012 calendar could be found on the back.

It struck a discordant note from the rushing and the spending and the humming along to Christmas tunes that my day had consisted of. The thought occurred to me that we so easily forget in the hype that ‘Christmas’ is thrust upon many people who do not want it, indeed who dread the absence it makes them feel all the more, shakes up the memories they would rather let lie. At the time when the message of joy and goodwill inherent in a festivity could not be more fitting, our twinkling lights take precedence, and those that are left behind rely on a stranger placing a card in their hand, offering them a number to call to escape from the mania, anytime.

And so I came back to the question, what is the Christmas spirit?

Is it a self-confirming sentimentality that in being abundantly generous once a year we are better people? Is it the season in which we are cornered into forced congeniality with distant family? Is it the one and only day in which we thoughtfully display our love and affection for those ‘nearest and dearest’?

God help us if that cynical snapshot is all the spirit of Christmas has amounted to!

If it is nothing else, it is a counter-cultural call to embark on the best kind of person we can be, in giving and receiving. Marking the small beginnings of a baby born in a stable in Bethlehem who would call into question the status quo and reveal a new potential for the way we should live our lives. I would like to think it much more fitting that the spirit of Christmas, even in its secularised form, could reflect something of this possibility in a change for the better, in all its rawness and vulnerability…

Rx

May the Spirit
bless you with discomfort
at easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships
so that you will live
deep in your heart

May the Spirit
bless you with anger
at injustice and oppression
and exploitation of people and the earth
so that you will work for justice, equity and peace.

May the Spirit
bless you with tears to shed
for those who suffer
so that you will reach out your hand
to comfort them

May the Spirit
bless you with the foolishness
to think you can make a difference in the world,
and do things
which others say cannot be done.
Amen.

-Uniting Church Blessing-

A list of 26

“and what it all comes down to, is that I haven’t got it all figured out just yet..”

- Alanis Morissette

There will be no revelations in this post, just a few of the most vital scraps of quotes and life lessons I have acquired thus far in my twenty-six year (young!) life span which have helped me along the way. These will be old news to most, but it does no harm to write it all down once again, and in writing, to remember lest I forget. I’m only getting older after all

1. “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.” – Dr Seuss
2. Let love in. it may knock the wind out of you at first and throw you off course, but the balance regained is something indescribably beautiful and terrifying all at once. (the nature of travel)
3. Experiencing a complete lack of communication in a foreign country gives you an entirely new perspective on the role of language, how we connect with each other despite it, and the amusing side to mime
4. Prove the world wrong. Preconceptions, whether false and true, assumptions and perceptions about you are an ongoing reality. Surprising others and even yourself by doing things outwith your character-stencilled-zone is one of the most refreshing rewards.
5. “life is a day that doesn’t last for long” –  the balance is somewhere between occupying it and exerting it.
6. We need contact and stimuli from the people and environment around us to survive and thrive. The smallest of affirmations that we have a place in this world should not be taken for granted. (Living in the Dark)
7. “Not all those who wander are lost” – just don’t follow hunting trails in the Malaysian Jungle.
8. Do not underestimate the power of negative noise – it is a horribly debilitating and undermining force.
9. You are the only one who can take the first steps towards changing your circumstances. Help is at hand from all kinds of places should you need it, but infinite hours of advising, collecting options, and considering the possibilities will not dismiss the fact that it is your life, and your decisions to make.
10. “Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.” -Edmund Burke
11. Keep an eye out for those burning bushes. Sacredness can shine through and present itself in the most unlikely and seemingly trivial situations. Recognising such moments can be an eye-opening revelation to the nature of spirituality around us.
12. “It is my belief, you cannot deal with the most serious things in the world unless you understand the most amusing” -Winston Churchill
13. Steadfast convictions of faith and belief should be considered and respected as much as those more tentative and uncertain. The growing dogma in society is that we can know nothing for certain, that truth is eternally subjective, which grates against religions founded on particular absolute truths. The danger in this is that those who have this assuredness are disregarded as narrow-minded, just as those still searching are expected to eventually firm up and settle on solid religious pre-prescribed ground.
14. Jimi Hendrix and Van Morisson are my valium to the small stresses and frustrations of daily life. Find yours.
15. “Be gentle with yourself” – we can be our own worst enemies and critics at times!
16. Patience is among the most unconventional of virtues today. In a world where we are constantly told to ‘go for’ what we want, the juxtaposition to this is whether we are prepared to wait for it.
17. Don’t let your thoughts get the better of you. If you are anything like me, over-thinking is a potential downfall. Keep it in check, and learn to recognise the start of that downward spiral whenever you can.
18. “No man is an island entire of itself.” We have all come from somewhere, been effected and shaped by the people, situations and environment around us to make us who we are today. This does not mean we have been defined by them, but we cannot deny the part they have played, and continue to.(Into the Wild)
19. “What is for you won’t go by you” – listen to the wisdom of your elders.
20. A saintly or soulful person is someone who can truly humble you without any realisation that they are doing anything special.
21. ¨Amazing isn´t it? to see that the island can actually sleep for one day.¨ – Nyepi day in Bali. An entire island in silence is a thing I never thought possible. Finding a place which is completely silent is more difficult than you may think, but “remember what peace there may be in silence.”
22. “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Victor E. Frankl
23. “I know there is a meaning to it all, a little resurrection every time I fall.” Keep digging for deeper things, the search alone is invaluable. (Diamond in the Rough)
24. Light takes on a meaning of its own when you start looking into photography.
25. “It is possible to win arguments, but meanwhile lose people”
26. Keep a sense of perspective wherever possible:
    

Rx

on being “Politically Correct” (PC)

Political correctness. It really is something of a dry joke most of the time. My favourite parodies are the politically correct bedtime stories, with Cinderella’s ‘Fairy Godperson’, and Snow White and the seven ‘vertically challenged men’ among many other choice phrases and bizarre twists.

What is my issue with political correctness? I know there are views out there that political correctness is a violation of free speech, a kind of totalitarian tyranny that is keeping its thumb firmly planted on our actions and words. I am less inclined to rant and rave at the government or system as the one who is primarily at fault. As with many of the fired-up terms we stake our values on, ‘freedom of speech’ is a given and inalienable right…within certain parameters. What sounds good on the glossy cover can become problematic when exercised excessively or with no concern for its reactions or consequences.

A project called ‘Free2choose’ set up in the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam invites visitors to watch a series of film clips on some controversial issues. After each one, they are asked to vote as to whether or not they would choose in favour of freedom of speech, freedom of religion or the right to privacy. The choices are much more difficult than you may think. For instance, a Neo-Nazi demonstration is being held in Berlin. Under our umbrella value of ‘freedom of speech’ the party have a right to demonstrate. Should we, however, extend that right to locations in front of synagogues?

A more recent and similar discussion revolves around the actions of Westboro Baptist church picketing outside funerals with signs stating ‘God hates fags’ and other such blatantly inflammatory statements. Aside from imposing a 150 metre of all protests outside funerals, no further silencing could be sought in line with the first amendment.

It would be sacrilegious to say the words ‘limit free speech’…but it is worth considering how much rope you will let it run with.

To speak freely, is not ‘PC’ most of the time. And this is in itself not detrimental. The original intention was to allow minorities who have been victimised and discriminated against a chance to alert the majority to derogatory words and statements which have sidelined and/or demonised them – words spoken without thought or consideration. This has been an invaluable lesson for all of us, this awareness that a word or phrase in general use can directly offend another, and that we have a responsibility to address it.

Does our current world of political correctness, however, actually tackle this responsibility? I believe it has in fact gone to such an extreme that, in fear of saying the ‘un-pc thing’, we end up saying nothing at all. The biggest and most frightening danger I find is that we are avoiding much deeper issues.

Our PC world can make sure to use the ‘correct’ term for the different colours of skin, but bypass any inherent racism; remove as much religious teaching and observance from formal education to avoid any favouritism, and then wonder at the discrimination that ensues from innocent ignorance; insert ramps and visual aids to assist those who are more vulnerable or in need of additional support, but fail to grant them access to the workplace or our personal lives.

We pencil push new terms and names around the table, but never change the sentiment behind the words themselves…

I think we need to let go a little, somehow, and not be afraid to make a few faux pas in our terminology as we go along. Our awareness of offending or sidelining another, if genuine, should also extend to seeking out an understanding of the other. And in the bigger picture, I’m sure a few slips of the tongue are outweighed by the endeavour to reconcile and reconnect with what has been a very prolonged silence…

Rx

Into the Wild

The story of Chris McCandless is a combination as fascinating, tragic and arresting as you can most likely get. A young man, who has excelled in the ways of the world as we know it, intellectually, athletically, socially, chooses to renounce it for a world of his own adventure. After donating the $24,000 of his savings to charity, and burning the remainder of his cash, Chris disappeared from his former life and family in the Summer of 1990 and became Alexander Supertramp.

For almost two years he lived the spontaneous and carefree lifestyle which is the stuff of Huckleberry Finn and Jack Kerouac. Hitchhiking, wandering, encountering personalities and exploring landscapes only those unrestrained, unconnected and fearless often experience. This prelude reads something like an extreme gap year, most of which has been pieced together by journalist and author Jon Krakauer in his book Into The Wild through interviews, postcards and his journal.

The ultimate destination for Chris was to the wilderness of Alaska, a place he had pinpointed for some time as the consummation of complete solitude, escape from the throws of society and embracing nature. In April 1992, he walked into the wild. Four months later Chris McCandless’ body was found, the most likely cause of death being starvation. An SOS note nearby detailed that he was weak, ill and alone, and pleaded for someone to help. He was 24 years old.

The press interest was immense, and the public opinion divided. To date it is still a case which provokes strong reactions. Was it folly or inspired to willingly enter into such escapism? To be denounced or admired?

There is something about the ascetic life, the ‘call of the wild’ that is both romanticised and alluring to many, myself included. The need to ‘get away’, and in doing so, discovering some missing piece or yourself or life’s mysterious puzzle; those age-old words of Jesus’ that you must lose yourself in order to find it; the attraction heightens some idea that our conditioned environment will not offer any meaningful answers, that we must escape it to find any kind of truth.

I tried something like it on my travels, the escapism, spontaneity, complete independence. But alone? I was never really alone. Not necessarily because I was usually surrounded by people in the same vicinity, or that I met and parted with company along the way, but because ‘family’ was with me. Whether it is the family we have been given, or the family we have chosen, they are, whether we like it or not, what has made us and shaped us into who we are.

“It’s the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We’re always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.” – Crash, 2004

One of the most remarkable things life has to offer is human encounter; that we can connect, affect one another. It is also the most complex, involving misunderstanding, aggression, division. To live a completely ascetic life seems to me to be avoiding the best and worst of humanity. I know that the voice that surprised me the most in effecting my return was one that said “you’ve had your time now, you best get home.”

Despite Chris McCandless’ efforts to divorce himself from his family ties, he built up new relations with the travellers he met, and left a lasting impression on a huge number of them. If it wasn’t for these connections we would know very little of his journey or his character, and it is these people who will continue to tell his story.

One wonders what wisdom McCandless may have reached should he not have fallen into such a tragic fate. He seemed to want to seek out the essence of life itself beyond all our modern day contraptions and distractions, and rather then writing him off as a foolish and naive intellectual, there must be something we can take from his revolutionary spirit…?

I will leave you with an excerpt to ponder from a letter Chris wrote to one of his friends not long before he entered Alaska…

Rx

“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security; conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one a peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun…”

– ‘Alex’ McCandless, letter dated April 1992

Beauty and The Commuter

There is an article or a you tube video many of you may already have come across. An experiment by the Washington Post, which sought to answer the question:

 ”In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?”

For all those commuters on the 12^th of January 2007, just before 8am, a violinist playing in the metro was most likely little more than background noise to thoughts more focussed on the day ahead and the weekend beyond. What they were all unaware of was the fact that the man playing in the baseball cap and jeans was actually Joshua Bell, an internationally famous music “virtuoso”, who had only a few days before played to a full house at Boston’s Symphony Hall, also holding his priceless Stradivari violin.

The experiment lasts 43 minutes, over six classical pieces and 1,097 people passing by. It is a testing of “context, perception and priority” – what will those people do?  The result was perhaps what any cynic would have expected, a total of $32 dollars in the violin case, no crowd and a handful who lingered an extra few minutes before continuing on their way. One person recognised him from a performance they had seen. The video is itself a little heartbreaking to watch..

The Washington post seems surprised, horrified, at the outcome. I’m not entirely sure what other result can be expected from a culture and a society which has to a large extent been programmed to limit our ‘awareness of beauty’ to times outside of the commuting reverie. Commuting is a noisy business. Think of the tannoy announcements hurled at you, crackled, indefinable, and largely monotonous; the jostling of bodies against one another as you fight for your personal space while dreading the thought you may slow the flow down; the smells of perfumes, cologne, coffee and perspiration; underlying it all, that feeling of tension, anxiety, expectation, weariness, and all amidst those swirling thoughts of jobs left incomplete and people yet to be spoken to.

It is no wonder people in the commuting run revert to what I call ‘bubble mode’, myself included. It includes plugging in to a new source of something, whether it be music, books, fantasy, all in the effort to maintain a bubble of peace-like preparation for/distraction from the day ahead. Mine is music, walking, and designing the fictional lives of my fellow commuters along the way.

What does the Joshua Bell experiment reveal? That we can only appreciate beautiful music when we have paid for an allocated time and appropriate setting to enjoy it in? That we are often too self-involved in our own worries to take in any external anomalies? Or does routine have the danger of defaulting us to autopilot mode, impeding our ability to take in any potential surprises that may lie in our path?

I love the students in Stockholme who inserted ‘piano stairs’, and watching a few people do a little ditty-dance of a tune as they climb up them. It would probably take that much to shake us from our morning monotony

All of this is a reminder to me to keep my eyes open as much as possible, adjust my attitude to a state that will say “what could happen today?”, and meanwhile looking for the weird and banal things that may make me grin or ponder, or the sights and sounds that may make me stop and wonder. If it is true what they say about beauty being in the eye of the beholder, it may be I’ve been letting too much of it pass me by.

Rx

(T)truth or (H)happiness?

It is that age old paradigm that seems to have plagued the human mind as soon as it became aware of itself and had the chance to reflect on life and all its choices. It could even be said to be an overused dilemma, but the question marks it throws up are still intriguing, even if they do tend to have that irritatingly infinitely-cyclical pattern that characterise many of the ‘big’ questions…

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” – Socrates

An admirable pinch of wisdom, but examining opens up some large cans of worms . It seems to be much simpler to boil the whole thing down to whether you would prefer to happily live a lie than unhappily know the truth. But this too sits with me uncomfortably as a kind of oversimplification that slightly misses the point. That whole polarised idea that if you are not happy you must be miserable, and anything that is not the truth is by default a lie… is about as appealing a categorisation as my facebook poll on choosing between truth or happiness . I wouldn’t want to choose between them either, but a lazy ‘why should I have to?’ answer is no excuse for disregarding the question to start with.

“In the hopes of reaching the moon men fail to see the flowers that blossom at their feet” – Albert Schweitzer

Perhaps it’s not so much the ultimatum that we have trouble with, but the tendency to jump for the ideal we imagine these words to embody, or more fittingly perhaps, what they embody for us. Our lives, ourselves, our history and experience will affect our vision and mould our outlook and the values we attach to it, but I wonder sometimes that in the seeking alone we can lose perspective. Let’s not be happy, let’s attain happiness. Let’s not be truthful, let’s seek ‘the Truth’.

My happiness… My truth… What happens if my happiness jeopardises someone else’s? What of the victims of deceit that are left all too often with a broken version of truth? That is not real happiness, you may say, that is not pure truth. Yet there is something to be said for the danger of a happiness based on autonomy alone, and the difficulty in creating a positive concept of truth scraped from the brokenness of our experience.

 “The truth is rarely pure and never simple” – Oscar Wilde

There is an article in Psychology Today which describes a study into the choice of truth or happiness, and in particular what kind of information we are receptive to depending on our mood. Results suggested that, “participants in a negative mood were much more interested in “repairing” their mood (i.e., becoming more “happy”), whereas those in a positive mood were more receptive to the ‘truth’.”

This highlights an interesting dynamic behind the choices we make as being as important as the choice itself. That I choose truth at this moment, for instance, may reflect more on my current circumstance than any overarching fixed preference for ‘Truth’. It’s a worthy question to ponder. In a day and age where we are literally bombarded with ever differing versions of ‘truths’ and infinite takes on ‘what will really make you happy’, it’s a tough task to sift the wheat from the chaff.

I am still learning, still changing and still struggling with these kinds of questions. I don’t mind that I haven’t figured it out, or that I ever finally will, and actually quite content to amble and wander along, trying to keep my head screwed on and all the while watching my feet for traps and stumbles.

Rx

Future me

I sent an email to myself today. To my ‘future me’ to be exact. While stumbling on the internet I came across the site, where you can create an email and have it sent to yourself on a specified date, weeks, months or years from now. I almost bypassed it completely, it’s a little bizarre after all…but something drew me back to it.

What would I say to me, 2 or 3 years from now?

What wisdom would I be able to impart, what mistakes could I warn against repeating again, what outlook on life and predictions for the future would I have?

It’s a worthy exercise I encourage anyone to do for themselves, for it very swiftly puts many things into perspective. As soon as you consider what may actually be of interest and use to relay to your potential self, it’s surprising how much of the triviality our days are generally consumed with is thrown onto the rubbish heap. Its something like a spring clean, where you can divide all the questions, problems and drama into “won’t matter by now” and “answer unclear now” (as the magic eightball is prone to say). What is left once all the muck is swept away?

My email, from what I can remember of my hasty words, was one essentially…of hope. Hope for hope sustained, and hope fulfilled, in my own life and in the lives of those I love. A wish I will have become a better person, a fear I will not have become a worse one. A desire to have achieved something, overcome it or never have had to experience it again.

I wonder what my somewhat older self will think of my words? Will they sound childish and irrelevant to my more experienced self? Will I still be fighting for the same hopes and dreams, struggling with the same worries and insecurities?

A small snapshot sent into the future of all that I find relevant and meaningful at this precise moment on the 19^th July 2011. I don’t see that my email will have a profound effect to my future self, as it seems in the whittling down of the unnecessary its purpose has been served. Yet, I look forward to receiving it nonetheless, and may send more in the course of time. We can spend so much time running from the past without realising, whether we like it or not, it has a part in defining our future.

If it could somehow help me make one better choice, one fewer mistake or a huge helping of a better sense of perspective, I’d write to ‘future me’ every day of the year….but I have a very strong feeling I really would start to get on my own nerves ; )

Rx

Accept it, change it, or walk away..

“Accept it, change it, or walk away”

 

This was the advice I was given from an old man with the longest beard I have ever seen, in a very small town called Pingelly in Western Australia. It’s stuck with me for some reason, most likely because I was struck with a certain admiration for this slightly odd, eccentric Australian in the middle of nowhere and his mish-mash of semi-buddhist, mostly self-compiled life philosophies.

He assured me with the greatest conviction that with any problem I was to encounter I had these three choices, to accept it, change it, or walk away. I could have argued and nitpicked with him on the exceptional or individual circumstances that couldn’t apply to any of these three options, or smiled, nodded and disregarded his words entirely. I didn’t however, and couldn’t in fact do either of these things. Whether you may agree or disagree with a persons’ life philosophy, it has a way of commanding your respect and attention in a way few other topics often do. The fascination doesn’t lie in carefully constructed terminology or regurgitating a famous poet, philosopher or scientist. These experiential wisdoms have come from life’s sorrows, tragedies, exultation and surprises, and are the outworkings and thoughtful considerations of what it has meant, or taught them.

It is this rough, unrefined quality which is at the same time so precious, and fragile, and one of the many reasons I will never crush someones life-perusings. I sometimes feel that in our struggles to do the best we can in this life we have, we crave these titbits of wisdom and life-knowledge, stashing and storing them away in our ‘life lessons’ cubbyhole for possible later use.

What did that old man in Western Australia teach me? What can any of us teach each other for that matter?

…To keep my eyes and ears open to the stories and experiences of those around me, and especially perhaps to those who are a few steps ahead. I find wise words have a way of coming back to haunt you when you may need it most.

Rx

Living in the dark

I watched a documentary the other day called Total Isolation, in which six subjects were put into isolated cells in complete darkness, and in two cases also blindfolded and succumbed to white noise for 48 hours. It was an experiment in sensory deprivation, a method said to have been used as a form of torture and interrogation strategy in prisoner or war camps in Korea in the 50’s. Without any stimulation to the brain for prolonged periods of time, victims of this treatment do not just become disoriented and restless, it can have a bizarre effect on the mind itself. The thought process slowed down, becoming more difficult to follow through, and in the absence of nothing, the brain even conjured up its own means of entertainment, hallucinations in the dark.

It seemed a strange, even banal means of torture to me when I first heard of it, but then again it is perhaps one of the most difficult situations to imagine even a hint of what it might feel like. There is almost nothing comparable to solitary, let alone solitary confinement and total silence that I can relate to. The only thing I have come across is Nyepi day on the island of Bali, in which the whole island shuts themselves away in their homes for an entire day unable to use electricity or make noise, to deceive the evil spirits said to be roaming the streets. That was quiet, and peaceful, but there was still sunlight during the day, movement and muffled noises in the surrounding area. That was a form of bliss, nothing close to sensory deprivation.

To have nothing around you but blackness, enough to not be able to see your hands in front of your face, no whisper of noise but the sound of your own voice, and completely alone with yourself constantly, having no sense of time at all… the agony of absolute boredom is something I can somehow relate to, as those of you who know me will confirm, but not to this extent. How long would you last? I’m not sure I would last more than a few hours, counted on one hand, in those conditions.

It fascinates me, how strange we are that the thought of nothingness petrifies; that our own interminable company will eventually become unpalatable; that pure boredom can in fact be one of the most unbearable challenges to face… it occurred to me that we are constantly surrounded by things around us that affirm our place in the sensory world, the most minimal of things, whether the feeling of rain on your face, the touch of a warm cup of coffee or a conversation on the phone. They offer to reassure us that we are here, present and alive. When all of that is taken away, it seeks to impinge on our very sense of reality (as we currently understand it of course : ). I know we often like to think of ourselves as very independent people (myself very much included), but I am coming to think we seek and thrive from this wealth of continuous affirmations more than we would want to admit to, reminders of our sense of place, even sense of self.

Rx

oh well, I hope it’s nice when we get there…