All my life, I've lived by the notion once expressed by Eleanor Roosevelt: "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." However, over the past six months or so, I've come to a stunning awareness: most people are only interested in "ideas" insofar as they are embodied in concrete PEOPLE. I've avoided the "cult of personality" for forty years, but now I find myself smack dab in the middle of it. To be honest, when I go out to speak, people often seem just as interested in the passion and personal style I use to express my insights as the insights themselves. Who would ever have guessed? And now I find myself in the curious position of being advised to focus on marketing "myself" - my passion and my personality (as an earthy contemplative or "worldly monk") rather than on the insights themselves. How do I reconcile these two opposing viewpoints?
My trip to Chaco Canyon several weeks ago has provided one possible solution. As I spent the weekend visiting the remains of ancient pueblos and examining some fossil shells and pottery pieces that appeared along the trail, I realized that my own life - when looked at from the perspective of the 4.5 billion-year history of the Earth - is really more like an ECHO of a bygone era than a substantial and lasting reality.
This means that when I'm forced to market myself and my persona (rather than simply my insights, which I like to think have more universal value) as a means of making a living, I can only do so by PRETENDING my personal style is something lasting and substantial. In other words, it's a sort of "game" I - and all of us - are being asked to play. How crazy! There really does seem to be a Trickster Spirit at work here! However, since this need for role-playing seems to be the case, I find that solitary times of retreat are needed in my life - especially now - to help me see through the relative unreality of the personal social role in order to identify with a vast and spacious cosmic perspective that goes far beyond my own short life and persona! For it is THIS vastness - beyond social role-playing - that is, I'm still convinced, the TRUE self :)
Photos: Evening-Primroses, Anasazi dwellings, fossil shells and pottery shards, Chaco Culture National Historical Park, NM, May 23, 2015
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