Monday Musings: Just Keeps Coming

Hi Everyone,

Life just keeps coming. There have been so many times this Spring when I have thought that it just can’t get any worse, and then it does. And sometimes, it gets better too. And then those realizations that we have been lucky, and that our situation could be much worse. But always unexpected. 

I certainly didn’t see what has happened this past week coming, or the reaction to it. In the middle of a pandemic, another of our favorite epidemics rears its head again, race relations. And the seething edge of hate and disillusionment just looking for a reason to come out on every side. And not always related to the first, the racism. 

I’m not sure I really have much to write about this, other than it is all very sad. And seemingly ill-timed. 

In a much bigger sense, what is our response, our very personal response, when things seem to keep coming at us, piling on. One more, and then another. We have seen a bit of the anarchy response this past weekend, haven’t we? 

The truth is, life is always full of the unexpected. Though this year of 2020 seems to have really challenged us. I’ve looked to places for inspiration, calmness, a sense of guidance and even joy. One of these has been poetry, and some of the wisdom writings of the masters. 

Tonight I’m drawn to the poem If by Rudyard Kipling.

I think at first viewing all those years ago, If appeared to me as another morality “to do” list that often seemed far out of reach, and impossibly hard to accomplish. Like the Ten Commandments. Another standard, set higher than I can possibly achieve, by another Victorian I could never please. (A little family history here, I had a very demanding grandmother, full of Victorian morality, as she was born in 1889, and haunts my family to this day). 

But now If seems different to me. There is a loving gentleness to it as I read it now. As a hope, an aspiration, a loving dream for a son, and even a realization that it is almost an impossible standard, and yet with a life-time of work, perhaps somewhat achievable. And parts are achievable every day. For if we don’t strive for something, for something better than us, we have no chance of getting there. 

So, I thought I would read If with you this evening, and perhaps offer a few of my thoughts, and invite you to offer some of yours, to this piece of wisdom and comfort that I feel that I need, and perhaps you do too (just a guess). 

If – Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

I’ve often quoted this passage in many discussions of the mental game in tennis. It’s a favorite and clearly a calling to what it takes to achieve success. Often, we get caught up in a moment, and people lose their heads. And we are social creatures, and look to others, and how they are behaving, often taking a cue from that. But often the person who succeeds is the person who takes a different course. Follows a path determined by something greater than what is currently going on. Greater than public opinion. 

If you behave like everyone else, you are average. Average is 50/50, win some, lose some, but those who succeed do much better than that, they are exceptional.  

I watched Invictus the other night, about Nelson Mandela’s first several months in power, and how he stood alone, and stood up to his own majority (“They elected me, now I have to lead them.”), that wanted to punish the whites, take away their sports and dreams, and instead Mandela asked for something quite different, to unite the country. It’s easy to go with the flow, especially if you don’t, they will blame you (and they blame you anyway, so who cares???). Hold on to yourself, keep your head. Yet make allowances for their doubting too. 

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise

The results don’t always come right away, or how you hoped or expected. And being hated can easily turn into hate. When violence is perpetrated against you, it is much easier to be violent than to be MLK or Gandhi. It’s easy when one side lies, to start lying yourself. The Tao says “There is no greater misfortune than underestimating your enemy. Underestimating your enemy means thinking that he is evil. Thus you destroy your three treasures and become an enemy yourself.” 

When we resort to the tactics of evil, we become evil too. And yet if we look too good, too much the other way, too grand, not “un real,” we lose the people. Jesus hung out with the common men and women, even the “dregs” of society. They are the ones that needed him the most. And he was the most attractive to them, they are the ones who got him. Thus, the popular saying, “What would Jesus do?”

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;

If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

We can have dreams, and goals, but we have to get down and live in the real world. Same with thoughts and ideals, these are amazing tools, but not our masters. It is easy to get lost in thinking, in planning, in good intentions, and never acting. Acting and living in reality is where we must always live and succeed or fail. To be appropriate to the situation.  Because outward success and failure is just an illusion. You know who you are. You can see inside the veil of persona, and hype. 

I have a friend who was treated very badly by her ex-husband, who cheated her out of everything she was owed and left her with nothing. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right, and it shouldn’t have been allowed to happen by the courts, but I tell her this, “Every morning when that man wakes up and looks in the mirror, he’s still an ass hole.” You can’t hide from yourself. Deep inside we all know. All the money and success in the world just means he is looking in a nicer mirror. That’s all. 

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools;

We don’t have control over others, do we? Or outcomes. What people say about us, even how they use our own words, can be twisted and abused. All we can control is who we are, our actions, our beliefs, our best. We can pick up the ruins and build again. As Elie Wiesel says, the question God is going to ask you that you should be afraid of isn’t, “Why didn’t you become a doctor or a lawyer, it is why didn’t you become you?”

If you can make one heap of all our winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

Life is a gamble, even if we think we are being safe, and it often isn’t fair. But we are all in, and we really have no choice. And when things go against us, can we rise up and move on? Complaining about how unjust it is, may feel good, self-indulgent, and may be very true, but doesn’t really help you get back on your feet. For that work, it takes letting go and moving on, from the very basics of your being. 

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

Life can break us, or at least try, but it is our will that determines the most. “It matters not how straight the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” --William Earnest Henley, Invictus. Sometimes our will is all that is left, but it is powerful. Don’t give it away. There have been a lot of times this spring when the will does seem all that is left. And we power on. Keep walking forward.  

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

This is walking in the Golden Bubble. Knowing who you are. You are self-empowered, in the energy of the universe, the Divine, and are so know yourself, that you are not afraid to listen to others, yet remain true to yourself. People can be who they are, and they don’t threaten you. You cannot be swayed from who you are, by either fame, favor or pleasing others, and you know your place in the world. You have a calling to be you. 

If you can fill the unforgiving minute,

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

Living in the moment, with everything you got. Don’t leave anything on the table. That is what it is really like to live, and to “have everything.” 

It’s a touching poem to the next generation, to a son. And yet, this is not about what it is to be a “man”, which is too literal, but to be a person. Some people have gotten turned off by this poem by the “maleness” of it, of misogyny, but I think that is missing the biggest point. 

And these are not just Victorian ideals, but the best humankind has to offer, from all times. Lao Tzu, Buddha, Jesus, MLK, Gandhi, Malcom X, Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela and many nameless others. These are the real “Tough guys and gals”. People that stand for what they believe, live what they believe. 

“And the world makes way for [a person] who knows where they are going.” 

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

And my grandmother, yeah, she was tough. And she made life very challenging for me in many ways. And I have often hated her, … or tried to. But now, after all these years, I also see that she is where I got my moral core, my unwavering sense, deep down, of who I am. The stuff that can’t be taken or bribed away. Of what is the true course, the best course, the compass of my life. And in that, I’m forced to admit, that is some pretty damn good grandparenting… Family matriarch. 

In our current crisis, actions come out of two things. We have people with 1) feelings and 2) a belief, a story. 

Nothing happens without both. The feelings maybe anger, and the belief is that it is OK to loot a store, or destroy property, or hurt people, get revenge… to be heard.  

Before, the rage, the feelings were contained by a story, that it was not OK to behave in a hurtful or unlawful way. But as soon as the story has been changed, then many things are possible. 

And of course, the police can feel fear, or anger, and beliefs like “to protect and serve” can change to “I need to defend myself,” or “what I’m doing is defending myself or my loved ones,” or “resisting arrest is a threat to me and must be stopped.” And things can get out of control. 

If there is the feeling and the belief. 

What we need is a view, a story, that encompasses all. Encompasses the bigger picture. What is best for everyone, what is in everyone’s best interest. Our country, the world. What makes everyone feel safe, cared for, protected. A story that society is for everyone, and not just for one group or another. Something a bit higher on the evolutionary scale than “Survival of the fittest,” (Darwin) or “The world is a jungle” (Hobbs).

This is the wisdom of If, and the type of power, the type of person, that we need in these times today. And someone will stand, perhaps has already stood, and will lead us home. Who will kee