I've been trying to gather into coherent thoughts some of the truths I've been experiencing and trying to learn lately. All the connections between ideas and thoughts are so weblike that I have difficulty getting started on a blog, because there is not really a starting point or a finishing point. Nonetheless, here goes...
Lately I can feel a difference in the way I think about and interact with people and the world around me, and I think it's a sort of maturing process. I found this nice quote that pretty nicely fits how I think it's been going for me:
The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself, he becomes wise.
- Alden Nowlan
At least for me, perfectionism and the accompanying attempts to feel in control of circumstances have been a hindrance to being a fully functional adult. It's been very difficult for me to start letting go of the parameters I'd set for myself and the world. It's extraordinarily hard for me to acknowledge that life is a process, and we can't attain our goals without some new goal or need popping up to replace them. It's a struggle for me to enjoy a journey to God-knows-where. Because I'm a bit of a control freak, and I am just starting to forgive myself for my imperfection and my imperfectibility. A few days ago, when I was having an especially hard time with this, a former teacher of mine posted this really helpful quote as his facebook status:
A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.- Lao Tzu
Another helpful thing that I discovered recently (but admittedly haven't explored much yet) is the Japanese worldview and aesthetic of wabi-sabi. According to Wikipedia, "[Wabi Sabi] is sometimes described as one of beauty that is 'imperfect, impermanent and incomplete.'" This really stuck with me:
[Wabi-sabi] nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, nothing is perfect.
- Richard R. Powell
I really love the idea of beauty in the imperfect, but it's hard for me to get my brain into that track. At this point, there seem to be a couple of options to approach life. In the face of inevitable imperfections, we can learn to accept them and settle for what we can actually attain (and maybe even appreciate them a la wabi-sabi); or we can fight them and work toward change and progress. I think a balance of both is necessary. To live right now and be happy, we need to be at peace with the world and with who we are and enjoy with gratitude all the great experiences and things that we are able to. But to sort through it all and come out with some sense of meaningful narrative, we have to be mindful of what we can do to impact reality and take action to change things that we want to change, keeping in mind that it's a lifelong process and we're not guaranteed anything -- we're never going to finally sort it all out, at least in this life. I can know in my mind that peace doesn't come so much from circumstances as from outlook, but it's a lot of work to maintain a can-do outlook when I'm feeling such uncertainty. I'm trying to find happiness in the process.
I think relationships are the key to learning happiness in the process. I tend to be goal-oriented rather than people-oriented, which means I seek a lot of my fulfillment through personal achievement rather than interpersonal relationship-building. This is heavily tied to the fact that my sense of self has really rested on what I can do and how competent I am, rather than who I am in relationship to other people. Do I need to mention that this has been a major problem for me? I've set myself up to feel like I'm never quite as good as I'd like to be, and I end up being critical of myself and others rather than seeking mutual support and understanding. It's very self-isolating. And it's sort of a hard thing for me to grasp, but this seems to capture the truth of the matter well:
We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.- Sam Keen
I think the most appealing religions and philosophies acknowledge imperfection, and however they explain its source, they tend to offer solutions that connect us to community. Healthy functioning churches are more about sharing experiences and support than about bringing people in line with a rigidly delineated path of righteousness. Even very individualized practices like yoga and meditation seek to help us realize our true selves and put us back in connection with a shared reality. We really can't go it alone (if we try, we're deceiving ourselves), and since independence is my natural tendency, I know that I have a lot of learning ahead of me when it comes to community and relationships.
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