Empathize

I've been feeling discouraged this week. I've been thinking about people who are active in my community, and feeling bad that I don't do more. In particular, I was thinking of a woman who does gardening with kids in the neighborhood where a teenager was recently shot and killed. I should be there. I should be helping kids. I should be in the communities most affected by poverty and violence. I should be supporting gardening.

Instead, where am I? I go to a stupid job that just helps people who are going to get rich anyhow, some of whom will devote their lives to helping the military, or to some other way of making our lives less humane. I go to work, I come home, have dinner, meditate, exercise, and go to bed. Actually, I don't even have time to do all that. Sometimes, I skip the exercise. If I do exercise, I go to bed too late and am sleep deprived the next day.

I shared my sense of discouragement with the two people I talk with most often.

One agrees with me: yes, my life is indeed worthless. This is someone who has always put me down for not doing enough to change the world (though he does even less).

The other tries to provide a rational explanation of why I should not be discouarged, that I'm living a satisfactory life and should not strive for more. That too is wrong, because it tramples on my dreams.

It is not uncommon for people to be discouraged or sick. What baffles me is that after all these millenia of being human, the majority of people are still clueless when it comes to knowing how to be supportive of their fellow humans.

What people do, is they try to make stuff go away. They try to either make bad the circumstance go away by rattling off a solution, as if it the circumstance could be quickly solved. Or they try to make the person's feelings about the circumstance go away, by saying cheer up, it's not so bad.

If you know someone who is sick or discouraged, don't tell them they would feel better if they did X, Y, and Z. Don't tell them it's not so bad. Instead, just do two things: see the difficulty of the situation, and see that the person facing it is beautiful, wise, funny, and smart.

I am here. Don't tell my unhappiness to go away. This is me. I am not wrong for being dissatisfied. I am not wrong for being unable to make things better with a wave of my hand. I am not wrong for not living the life you have prescribed for me. My life is not what I dreamed it would be, but I will prevail. I will live my life to the best of my ability.

In darkness and in solitude, I dance

Since I became a druid, I've come to love darkness and solitude. I came to love darkness the first winter I did meditation. In winter, when I do meditation, I sit in darkness. The darkness envelops me. At the end of a day of harried exasperation, the stillness of dark soothes me.

And in solitude, I am free. Free of the demands of others. Free of being misunderstood. Free of arguments and loud voices. Free of advice-givers.

In darkness and in solitude, I play some music on the CD player. In solitude, I don't have to worry about anyone else's preferences. I choose the music that I most want to hear at that moment. I choose the music that soothes my soul at that moment. I adjust the volume to exactly what I want. I move. I dance. I dance to give expression to the music. I dance to give expression to my soul. No one is there to tell me I'm not doing the right steps. No one is there to tell me I'm not adhering to the beat. No one is there to see how dorky I look.

In darkness and in solitude, I dance. Sometimes I dance to Joe Crookston singing "still my soul feels heavenly bound." Whether I dance to that song or another, when I dance, my soul soars heavenly bound.

In darkness and in solitude, I find an enclave of bliss.

More dreams

Yesterday, I was reading some of my old blog posts, including one from last October which said that my dreams are to live in a solar house, to live in an eco-village with family and friends, to be healthy, and to not have to go to a job which drains my energy and goes against my values. To that I would add:

• To spend my time hiking, kayaking, cross country skiing, rollerblading, and dancing.
• To have a room with lots of big sunny south facing windows, where I would sit and read in the winter.
• To have a cool, breezy outdoor spot where I would sit and read in the summer.
• To be on Mount Desert Island.

Walking through life

Sometimes life brings us pain.  Sometimes life brings us joy.  We can seek that which is good, but we cannot control what life brings us.  All we can do is keep on walking.

I am like the year, and people only want summer

I am like the year -- I have summer and I have winter. Most people want me to be only summer. If they see winter, they try to banish it. I don't like being banished. When I am around people, I try to be summer. But I don't have much summer to offer. That is why I don't like to spend much time around people.

I have a friend who is okay with me being March or November -- kind of tired or annoyed -- but who can't stand me when I'm January -- entirely sick and/or entirely depressed.

I'm not looking for someone who prefers me to be sick and depressed. I don't prefer to be sick and depressed. But unless someone can offer me compassion and acceptance when I'm sick and depressed, unless they can see through it, can see that I'm still the same joyful, optimistic, idealistic, funny, intelligent person somewhere deep inside, then they won't get much of me. If all they want of me is summer, they won't get much of me, because there's little summer to give.

Still trying to figure out who I am

Sometimes it seems that I am the opposite of who I used to be. I used to be idealistic. Now I am bitter and cynical. I used to want to save the world. Now I can't even save myself. I used to be energetic and loved climbing mountains, skiing, and rollerblading. Now I am tired and just want to stay home and rest. I used to love being surrounded by friends. Now I am a hermit. I try to avoid being around people. I don't like most people.

But I still love the same songs I've loved for as long as I can remember. I still love to dance, like I have for as long as I can remember. I still love the outdoors, like I have for as long as I can remember. I still love the same books I loved 20 years ago. I do like some people, and I'm still drawn to the same traits that I've been drawn to in the past.

I'm still the same person. But two weights press upon me. One is the weight of fatigue. The other is the weight of my job. It is because I live under these weights that I just want to stay home, rest, and be by myself whenever I get the chance.

Loving everyone is a tall order

There are some people I just don't want to be around. Longwinded, pushy, loud people. People who put other people down. Bossy people who don't listen.

I grew up a Quaker. I always believed it was my job to see that of God in everyone. It's not only Quakers, it's a Christian idea to love everyone. But I'm not a Christian any more. Can I free myself of this pressure I put on myself to try to love every annoying person I meet?

Such a sentiment seems contrary to the post I wrote yesterday about the well-being that I wish for people and communities. On closer examination, maybe my antisocial impulses are not so contrary to my care for humans. Maybe I get upset with humans because they fail to live up to my ideals, and because I care so much about my ideals.

No, it's not that I'm upset with the other humans. What upsets me is my own inability to put my ideals into action.

I think people should be treated as flowers: people should be nurtured so that they can bloom. We each have our own way to bloom, and no one should try to make us in to a different type of flower than what we are. To do so violates the sacredness of the flower that is.

When I see someone being pushy and bossy, it is as if they are stepping on a flower. I want to stop them, but I don't know how. That is what upsets me, and that is why I hate being around humans.

The things is, I can't. I can't stop everyone in the world from trampling each other. As long as I have the feeling that I ought to, I'm going to feel frustrated. It does not mean I should stop trying to make things better. It just means that I have to recognize my scope.

Christianity tells us to work toward that world in which all are treated with love. Paganism tells us that the world is full of light and dark, good and evil, easy things and difficult things. Yes, we need to strive to fulfill our ideals, but we also have to live within the finite. Our bodies only have so much energy and health and patience. Same goes for every other person. Some who have been through a great deal of hurt may carry much bitterness. I am not a superhero. I cannot singlehandedly overcome all the world's hurts.

Does that mean I shouldn't even try? No, it is only when we take the view that we have to create that world full of love that it becomes hopeless. When we take the pagan, earthy view, we realize all we can do is do our best to make our little corner. When my house is a mess, I still can carve out a peaceful corner for an altar. When my life is full of stress, I can still carve out a peaceful corner of 15 minutes spent in meditation.

Where is my corner when it comes to the question of how do I want to dedicate my life to make a mark on the world? Some people dedicate themselves to teaching children. Some dedicate themselves to creating a community garden. Some dedicate themselves to making music that soothes the soul. What is it that I can offer? What is it that I want to create? I'm middle aged, and I still don't know what I want to do with my life. I don't know, but I have some hints. I know that I value sustainable living and am interested in supporting community gardens, organic gardening, and renewable energy, but that at the same time, these are really never going to be my areas of expertise. I know that I have something to offer in human interaction, that I can be supportive of others, a good listener, and a facilitator. I know that I want to be part of a community that shares my values, and to contribute to nurturing that community. At the same time, as an introvert, I find being around people all the time tiring. I know that I like writing, compiling information, and working with databases.

Maybe I do know what I want to do. I want to dedicate myself to serving a community that shares my values, and I want to serve that community through a combination of interpersonal interaction (listening, facilitating) and some sort of work with information. I think the reason I feel so lost these past many years is because I do not currently have a community to which I wish to devote myself. The communities in which I find myself do not share my values. At this point, the advice-giver would inform me that he has brilliantly discovered the secret that has eluded me: that I simply need to join a community which shares my values. The problem is, that's not nearly so easy as it sounds.