The day after Labor Day when, for most of us, we return to work we dislike. Telling, isn’t it, that a majority of heart attacks occur on Mondays, the day that our labors begin, and the fewest occur on Saturdays, the commencement of a two-day respite from that same work?
It’s similarly illuminating the way our relationships follow a similar trajectory. We kick off things from a happy place (I got the job! I met someone!). But, over time, we either call things off or grimly hang on out of habit, fear, or a lack of attractive alternatives.
How peculiar is our species, the way we accept so much discontent in lives we know to be terminal (the mass of men living lives of quiet desperation, and all that).
Oh, perhaps as teens we briefly rebelled, chafed at the authority of our parents and adult culture (the ‘establishment’ we called it in the 60s and 70s). But soon enough we too were indoctrinated and, like the good foot soldiers we are, we busy ourselves preparing the next generation for more of the same even as we wonder what became of our own lives and fret over the state of the planet.
To make do, we numb ourselves during ‘happy hours,’ give thanks to god that it’s Friday, labor for tens of weeks per year for a comparatively tiny sliver of holiday/vacation. And all the while that ultimate of biological clocks ticks and tocks its way toward an ending which, ironically, most of us deeply dread and do all we can to avoid.
It’s notable, too, that we raise our children to expect different or at least more, but in a system guaranteed to deliver the same. Parents wish for their children meaningful work, loving relationships, and lives worth the living. Yet we model for them the very same modes of existence from which we – and our parents before us and their parents before them – yearned to break free.
How many parents challenge their kids to challenge them and the lives they’ve led, the lessons they’ve espoused, the norms they’ve normalized? How many urge their children to question everything, to practice humility rather than hubris, to find connection in a world hellbent on competition?
What the world needs most, if it needs anything at all from its human inhabitants (and that’s highly questionable), is for the ranks of its eldest to rediscover and then to practice and preach humility, wonder, awe.
We need to remind ourselves and our children of the miracle of being – we didn’t have to be, but for reasons unclear, we are, and that simple truth is both mind-boggling and profound, if we take the time to seriously contemplate it.
We might spend less time teaching our kids to compete, to be the best, to stand apart, to do and achieve and become, and more time suggesting they turn inward and to inquire into what they are when all those external accoutrements are stripped away and removed – because at some point, they will be.
What if, as Robert Adams advised, we urged our kids to forget all that we and the rest of the adult world taught them, acknowledged that we have made a mess of things, and to forget it all:
We have names for everything. What if we forgot about those names? And we stopped seeing things as something? What if we just observed things, watched things, without giving them a name, without coming to a conclusion? What do you think would happen? You would transcend everything. – Robert Adams
Doug, You have no idea (or perhaps you do) how much I needed to read this in this moment of NOW. As I begin a new year of self-directed education with my adolescent son, I encourage him to question everything even if, or especially if, it comes from me. There were moments today when I cringed hearing what I was saying once I realized it stemmed from my own conditioning. Due to increased stress lately, my son has been quick to remind me that “perhaps this is just a test of spiritual endurance.” Perhaps, the Universe has brought this Being to teach me once and for all how we must question everything, and wake up NOW! Thanks again for all you freely give, Doug. You remain my number one Peace Pilgrim. Namaste.