In the beginning ... The most enduring perception of my short life is that things seem not as they should be - everything appears to be reversed. Each day my senses are confounded by conflicting messages about what is right and true. At every turn I betray my own ideals. My apparent destiny is to waste the vitality of youth only to stumble into a grave. All around me society holds to values so bizarre that sporting prowess and useless beauty are rewarded with wealth. In fact, if you're so good at pretending to be something you're not you can even become a screen idol and have people adoringly fantasize about you. Something is odd ... no? So I stood on my head ... figuratively of course. Now the view looks better, the dirt below my feet is replaced by the crispness of a clear sky into which I tumbled headlong. Was it the new supply of blood that changed my perception, or the changed perception that caused the flush of blood? Either way, once inverted my world looked so much bigger. Instead of being fixated by my struggles to escape the micro-gravity of failure, my focus was changed to see a universe where once before I beheld only an island. A new gravity took hold - all puns intended! The old desires of success, comfort, and importance were now replaced by a vision of all I was really created to be. In the instant nothing was actually changed, merely inverted. Instead of seeing a grave waiting to rob me of this body, I saw a future for my soul. What was once big became small -- the secondary was now primary. All that I had held to be important was seen to be only a footnote of distraction in a story too big to be fathomed. Finding the big story, participating in a grand adventure, simply has no comparison. Where I was once the lead character in a play of one, I now understand how boring my monologue must have been. Now I was in a cast of thousands, my importance defined by the outside, the inside was framed. I think all the great tales give us a peek into the big story. At the heart of all such stories, from Tolkien to Shakespeare, is the struggle with inverted perspectives where comfort and personal success battle for status with honour, mercy, humility, and duty. We love these tales because in them we catch a glimpse of the big story we ourselves long to join, if we could only be free of our self. Hadassah, aka Esther, managed to stand on her head (http://tinyurl.com/7j6xl6b). The view was nice from "down" there.
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Why?
Probably the best therapy is to express yourself. Why do you think psychiatrists make you lie on the couch and talk, while all they do is murmur "hmmm", "uhuh", or "go on"? Archives
May 2017
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