My daughter, Oswald Bates
Life is absurd. Why should we expect anything other when it comes to the questions we ask?
I have a 13-year old daughter who loves to play with language and perspectives (i.e. future actor…?) and occasionally she’ll walk into a room blurting out a sentence she’s made or is making up extemporaneously that she thinks sounds intelligent or profound, and she’ll hold her character long enough to see how her audience (usually of one, me) will react. So far I’ve been lucky enough that I haven’t had food in my mouth when she does so because they’re usually quite funny in a nonsensical way, and highly reminiscent of the In Living Color character, Oswald Bates, who perfected the form, and I’d have a mess on my hands to clean up.
It often leaves me Sherlock Holmes-like in trying to find where this budding vocabulary comes from, given that she reads young teen books and still likes to watch Disney shows, neither of which lead toward such proclamations. Sometimes her sentences don’t even have a verb—she’s piling words on creatively enough to garner attention but adding up to anything? not so much.
Today, however, she said something as if she had been channeling something that I have been lately thinking myself. It was the first time I didn’t laugh out loud: I actually thought about the potential sagacity of what she’d said. Maybe it’s only a million monkeys at a million typewriters (I’m really dating myself and my audience with the typewriter reference), but here goes:
Zen and tranquility are the demise of human ability.
HUH?? WTH? She has really no idea of what she’s saying, yet there was a little crevasse in my mind where her witticism found a home (imagine Neanderthals roasting a buffalo thigh over a small fire.) Because: this is a notion I’ve been grappling with for about a year now. Add in “therapy” and you get the trifecta.
Humans possess abilities of all stripes and put them to use in the making of a living, a family, and into an existence they can happily call their own. Abilities paired with ambition can lead to doing wonderful things that create a beautiful life (although not guaranteed). Each of us needs to strive—even if only a little bit—if we aren’t going to tumble into becoming a hapless mess. The pressures of having ability and the demands of the world are an algebra for life.
Yet there is a limit on action and chaos that one can take. “Zen and tranquility” are also both vital to the creation of a beautiful life. If life is all hustle and achievement, chasing and postponing enjoying, what joy is there?
Then again, if taken in huge doses, Buddhism (which I’m generalizing for Zen) and tranquility can lead to vegetation as a state of being. A turnip I am not.
We can’t simply sit around and navel gaze or feast on lotus plants, especially when there are so many who can’t afford the luxury of this choice (i.e First World Problems…).
Since the beginning of my studies to become a therapist I’ve been asking myself where therapy fits on this spectrum. Where does the over-therapizing we’re guilty of in the west lead us? Is it helping us cope better, serve better, and make a better life for ourselves and others? It’s sometimes hard to see, especially with so many of us so willing to stand in the way of our own freedom.
Applying this same scrutiny to meditation (another extension, from Buddhism) and tranquility (which I’ll call self-care) leads to similar circumspection: is meditation for people who lack ambition? Is tranquility for those who can’t cut it in the real world, or lack the creativity and grit to forge their own way?
As someone who meditates daily and has for a long, long time, and as someone who doesn’t put big-ticket items higher on his personal hierarchy of execution, I often wonder. In fact, I am torn. While I consider myself a fulfilled and happy person, am I fooling myself? Would I be more fulfilled and happy had I chased a different rainbow?
I’ll never know. We’ll never know.
But if you feel like you’re missing something currently and you know what that is, then by all means, pursue it. Today, now. Don’t hesitate. There are no barriers, only a lack of imagination and courage. As I said in the Esalen post a few months ago, there is nothing to fear.
Which is why I’m using my daughter’s nonsensical Gordian knot of logic and paradox to good use. I’m launching the marketing for two ventures this week, both revolving around coaching. I hope to report good things soon. Start looking for TheProfessionalFriend.com in your feeds.
KOAN #18
I love how the koans I draw from the box I store them in come up often relating to the text that precedes it (above), purely by happenstance. This one, if actually undertaken, will drive one to pendulum thoughts for sure: this or that? right or wrong? real or fake? do it or kill it? A thousand questions that either kill or exalt
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Produce a small play in a small space. Or simply perform a story or skit in front of other people you don’t know.
Not only will you be asked and ask yourself a million questions, but you’ll never know the answer until you do it. It’s one of the most meditation-in-action items in this box, and takes much longer to engage with than the others. Highly suggested for it will bring new shadings to your every thought.