hopelesshappiness.com

This week I am reading “Small Mercies” from Dennis LeHane. One-hundred-twenty-three pages in, on their first date, as Bobby is walking Carmen to her car…

“He glances sideways once, catches her glancing sideways right back at him with a secretive smile, and he considers the possibility that maybe the opposite of hate is not love. It’s hope. Because hate takes years to build, but hope can come sliding around the corner when you’re not even looking.”

Hope is born and often dies as a feeling, a desire for something more. To take hope from its dormancy to any degree of fruitfulness, requires consideration, care, attention, effort. Of course at this point it is no longer just hope. Layers have been added creating a substantiality that though sprung from hope becomes a seemingly separate entity. It is not. I believe hope is still there; perhaps forgotten but not gone. When I lose sight of the hope that guided my beginning, I am then driven by circumstance and substance and structure, and in this entanglement, my essence is lost. Substantial abundance alone is abundance detached from hope. Substantial abundance connected to hope is, well, hopeful. To come closer and closer to an essential abundance, (though in this lifetime never completely attainable), requires one be driven by hope that is renewed and nourished in every moment by beneficence.

I believe all hope, to an extent, is selfish hope; as dictated by one's Humanity. But the more consideration, nourishment, care, attention, beneficence, effort that is freely given to one's selfish hope, the more unselfish it will become. And the more unselfish the hope, the closer one comes to an essential abundance.

So,

1. We cannot lose touch with hope, even if and especially when one finds their self in a state of or approaching substantial abundance; and
2. We must nurture our hope and continue to let it drive, even though it will potentially hinder and limit substantial growth and abundance.

Some get around these limitations by believing that hope is having done well. Some believe that substance, (regardless of how it is acquired), equates to a job well done. And some uncap substantial growth by believing that congratulating yourself for a job well done lays a foundation for continued success, and because it is a foundation, they misidentify it, (this righteous, entitled pride), for hope. And though it is a desire for more, in this case the expressed hope is stillborn. And in this case the consideration, care, attention, and lack of effort unfeelingly smothers any hope for hope. And in this case, substantial growth is inversely proportional to essential uncertainty. “I remain steadfast in my conviction that the constancy of uncertainty, the struggle between Goodness and Malevolence, Compassion and Cruelty, Empathy and Indifference, a desire for Justice and a self-serving greed, is necessary for essentiality, which in turn is necessary for survival; and ultimately salvation.”

Yet today we are all about substance and certainty. And today we ignore survival and salvation. And this perspective, this way of life, if it could speak, would argue. It would ask, “why would anyone want to aspire to uncertainty? And how can uncertainty be our savior? Our salvation?” It would declare, “we are more likely to find answers with pride and entitlement, might and right, power and wealth, certainty and oppression. Uncertainty! My God! That would mean asking questions, and talking to people, strangers, who are not us, to seek a consensus. That would mean listening, and working to understand, and compassion, and empathy. That would mean consideration and nourishment and care and attention and beneficence and effort. And what good is all that when the answers are all right here tangled up in our circumstance and substance and structure. My God, man, what are you thinking?”

According to Bobby, “hate takes years to build,” as does the entanglement, the configuration, the justification that supports substantial abundance for the few. According to Bobby, “hope can come sliding around the corner when you’re not even looking.” And hope begets hope. And hope reminds us that maybe we don't know everything; maybe we could make things better. And when hope is detached and forgotten for too long, it is replaced by pride and entitlement and might and right and power and wealth and certainty and oppression; and then ultimately, hate.

Perhaps, at least for practical purposes, hope really is the opposite of hate.

I am thankful for hope.

This week I am reading “All the Pretty Horses” from Cormac McCarthy. A short ways in Rawlins asks John Grady, “How the hell do they expect a man to ride a horse in this country?” John Grady replies, “They don't.” This was after the war in the 1940's when it was becoming more and more difficult to ride cross country on a horse. Some pages later the following exchange takes place:

“You ever get ill at ease? said Rawlins.

About what?

I don’t know. About anything. Just ill at ease.

Sometimes. If you’re someplace you ain’t supposed to be I guess you’d be ill at ease. Should be anyways.

Well suppose you were ill at ease and didn’t know why. Would that mean that you might be someplace you wasn’t supposed to be and didn’t know it?”

This discomfort, this feeling out of place, has only gotten more and more so in the decades since. I don't believe we were meant to be fenced in or out by so many property lines. That said, if we could be freed from the yoke of bureaucracy, I also don't believe we were meant to have the dominion we are inclined to, and that we often claim as a right and enforce upon those with less power. And if you're going to start quoting the Bible, don't forget the parts about replenishing the earth and breaking the yoke. Within my limited knowledge, I interpret dominion as a challenge for us to be responsible stewards. Today, we are not only irresponsible, but due to the obstacles constantly being placed and flung and stacked before us, at us, and on us as individuals, not a one of us can find our own way. I believe I am meant to be on my own path, but the powers that be, (both human and systemic), do a very good job of convincing me that clearing their path is my path. So, I am constantly ill at ease and most of the time I don't know why. And worse, I can’t explain it. And because of this lack on my part, because I refuse the scythe (when I can), for practical purposes I am merely seen as mean and surly; a curmudgeon to be largely ignored.

It is sad that our collective imagination is not allowed to extend beyond the entangled web of property lines, boundaries, borders, parameters, that has evolved from a spiritual connection of shared rights on a peopled land, to the commodification of land as dictated by power and wealth, to today's systemic political favoritism / oppression dynamic that is a (not so subtly) biased byproduct of capital-driven property rights. Though it is argued that virtue is not attainable without property, am I naïve to suggest a flexibility, a relaxation, perhaps even an erasure of some of the more entrenched, unjust, disheartening lines? I do not believe all of these lines are indelible and I do believe collective virtue is more and more possible with each passing day. Now if we could somehow bolster our collective imagination; soon...

I lay there dead, mangled, parts crushed, some strewn about in a mish-mash of gristle, blood, and fat now defined by an unbeating heart, an unthinking mind, an undone spirit. So, of course it is no longer of consequence to me. In fact I find it is a weight lifted. I am no longer mired in my conscious entanglements of arbitrary pedestrian fear.

I am speaking with presumption before the fact and metaphorically of course. The dismantling that I imagine as a horrible accident began decades ago when I first recognized that first difference between instinctive, affective, interpretive and contemplative, and it will end with my death. At that point, and not a moment before, I will know, or not. Whether I die quietly alone, or to much unfounded fanfare, (whether that fanfare be the nature and circumstance of my death and/or the histrionics that follow), I will die quietly alone; mangled; strewn about; gristly; unnecessary.

The biggest question for many is, in that moment after death, will I be looking down upon my mangled parts with some sort of greater Wisdom? Or will my truth merely be strewn about for others to forget, ignore, walk around, or scrape from the bottom of their shoe? The biggest question for me is, over the next few years, maybe decade or two, can I pull or keep myself together enough to be recognizable as a consistently coherent contribution?

Sure, the thought of an unworldly weightlessness, existential or not, does have a certain appeal. But the thought of me mangled and strewn about, (as we all to some extent are), keeps me focused on the task at hand.

Perhaps we are pedestrian because it helps us to deny that we are afraid, anxious, discouraged, apprehensive, nervous, suspicious, timid, abashed, cowardly, trembling, daunted, disturbed, intimidated, perplexed, rattled, disheartened, timorous, upset, worried, distressed. We work so hard to not be these things, we work so hard to prove to others that we are not these things, and in this hard-working waywardness we allow those with more to lose, those who are more afraid, to bluster and fear monger and overpower and we throw up our hands with a little cry of helplessness and continue to pretend and go along. And yet, despite how hard we all work, in the end we are exactly all these things.

If one is looking for assurances, certainty, control there are good reasons to be afraid. And being human, to some extent, each and every one of us would like to be reassured. I believe we find this comfort by trusting in someone or something. I believe our trust is far too often, misplaced. In theory trust works best when mutually reciprocated, and this give and take is most likely found with a someone in a personal relationship. Yet we more often than not tend to dilute and taint our personal relationships with a context. And on these larger scales (such as cultural, regional, national, spiritual identities, systems and beliefs), we find it much easier (often together) to trust prepackaged bureaucracy, convention, certainty, division than to experience the discomfort of unproven, untried change; it is much easier to trust something you (think you) know than it is to trust someone you do not know. Yet, looking closely, trusting someone we don't know is exactly what we are doing in every occasion in which we overtly or otherwise support the status quo. Looking closely, and from a distance, it is more than obvious that the something is not at all trustworthy. The status quo is not working. The status quo has never worked as one can clearly see by looking back and documenting change throughout our history, yet we still fight to maintain it, and for each day, (today more than ever), that it remains the status quo, we should become more and more afraid.

Perhaps in my role as an alarmist, this also makes me a fearmonger. But if we must fear something, (which we must, admittedly or not), I would rather we fear our current trajectory's inevitability than to fear the change necessary for our survival.

I believe by choosing the bureaucracy, convention and certainty of division, (of fearing one another), over the Beauty, Truth and Wisdom of Justice, (of fearing the unknown), one is not choosing conservative thought over progressive thought, nor is one choosing one individual representative over another. I believe this choice is made because it helps us to deny our ignorance and loneliness. We are more afraid of what we should fear less because it helps us to be more comfortable; forgetful; blissful.

And as with arbitrary and pedestrian, if one is to move beyond aware into active, if one is to be truthful about one's fear and/or other failings, one must disengage their ego. I understand and acknowledge that awareness is a necessary step toward change, but it is not change. We congratulate ourselves on our knowledge, put it in a shiny glass trophy case, and pull it out only to dust it off and reposition it so the different angle looks like progress. This week at work a topic reared its ugly head and we all gravely shook our heads and maintained we were working on it, researching, mulling it over, adding it to agendas, creating to-do lists, asking a committee to form a sub-committee. We've been saying these same things for the four years I've been aware. Awareness is not change and at work I have relatively little power. As an individual though, I have more power to actively find advantage in my fear and to use that to move me to action. I did that recently by taking a pay cut to move into a position where after a certain amount of vigorous head-shaking agreement, perhaps I can make a bigger difference. Or, perhaps not. I am, to a greater extent than I want to be, at the mercy of circumstance, and perhaps the action(s) I take will be of little or no or (even) negative consequence. But progress will not come until one moves from awareness to active awareness to focused peace, purpose, reason and passion in the effort to gain ground on Justice. Lofty aspirations. Unrealistic? Perhaps yes, on larger scales, but I don't believe so much so for an individual.

Still difficult though because I am arbitrary, I am pedestrian, I am afraid.

If I am arbitrary to help me deny that I am pedestrian, and if I am pedestrian to help me deny that I am afraid, then it is reasonable that I am afraid because I am arbitrary.

This is a good bit of awareness. I am working to move it to action.

Perhaps we are arbitrary because it helps us to deny that we are pedestrian, mundane, ordinary, commonplace, humdrum, plodding, stodgy, unimaginative, mediocre, dull, plain, simple, generic, unremarkable, quotidian, unmemorable, average, everyday, prosaic, ignorant; and lonely. We work so hard to not be these things, we work so hard to prove to others that we are not these things, and in this hard-working waywardness we maintain and perpetuate existing conventions and power structures constantly reminding the hired help that they are all these things. And yet, despite how hard we work, in the end we are all (each and every one) exactly all these things.

There will always be hired help; someone else to whom one can condescend.

I might argue that it is impossible to graciously condescend. I believe that to condescend must be a conscious act because to feel important is a conscious state of mind. I also believe that no single individual is any more or any less necessary than any other single individual. One can be individually important in a specific circumstance and can even force their will / importance in a power dynamic. To be more important is to create more consequence. To be necessary is to be indispensable. And considering the entirety, (past, present, and future), of Humanity, how can one individual be any more or any less indispensable than another? Indispensability is an absolute. So accepting this differentiation between important and necessary, by definition, to condescend is to consciously stoop or lower one's self to the level of another and if it is a conscious act, signals are sent that it is a pretentious act from an important person. The sadness in this dynamic is that the individual being condescended to must, in most cases, be gracious in their appreciation thus reversing the flow and allowing the pretentiousness to be interpreted (by the important person) as graciousness further stabilizing and substantiating the existing power structure.

I have previously suggested that in any process to reduce arbitrary suffering, one must avoid “the siren call of one's ego.” One must also let go of one’s ego to admit to one's mediocrity; obedience; insignificance. I believe one can and should seek excellence in circumstance understanding that the effort is individual and does not, should not, come at the expense of the hired help.

This past week at work, in a new position, I was asked to attend a meeting alongside directors and department heads not for any value in any potential contributions I may have added to the proceedings but to help set up the food ahead of time and to clean up afterwards. I was firmly reminded of my place. Power is a zero sum equation reeking of ego. This was not a surprise but I believe in an environment where one is required to pinch pennies, cost should not justify borrowing and using hired help of one sort or classification or category to an end that merely stabilizes or substantiates existing power structures. In this case I maintain the hired help should not have been invited. And for those who would hold up the “other duties as assigned” requirement as justification, I would answer in two parts:

1. That is the very definition of arbitrary; and
2. You're missing the point, that point being the delineation, not the task.

I would have come away with a completely different impression and interpretation if all the directors and department heads had pitched in equally. The task itself was not in any way difficult or taxing or demeaning. But no. There was a very clear and definite line drawn between the hired help and the wheels, making me believe that the directors and the department heads would have found it demeaning. As said, it was not a surprise but a disappointment nonetheless.