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Sunday 23 February 2014

Opening Doors, Building Bridges

Image from Wikimedia Commons
My personal project over the last few weeks has been to work on letting go of my defences. If I would like to live in a society where I can work in a way that feels more meaningful to me, I have to stop hiding myself. I don’t like the systems of hierarchy, authority and fear by which we are governed. Although I have fantasies of living on my own island in harmony with nature where the problems of the world would not bog me down, I realise that I cannot run away from other people. Ultimately doing what I see as my life work will also benefit everyone else. To change the experience of feeling alienated, I have to open doors and build bridges where I am.

It’s not as easy as I expected it to be. After spending a month in reasonable isolation just working on personal projects, I felt ready to take on the world and share all the love I felt so abundantly while working creatively. Instead of getting annoyed with formality and falseness in my environment, I decided to see things differently. There are layers to reality and whilst I encounter the densest levels first, there are subtler, lighter layers to be found. If I could bring those layers into being, I would feel better and hopefully make others feel better too. As an example, when it comes to authority figures I could see past the container and try to find and respond to the person within. When I walk past a beggar on the street, my normal response is a mixture of fear and discomfort. I do not like the fact that I live in a society where some people end up on the streets. If I resort to guilt or pity I wouldn’t do anything to recognise them as a person like myself. Acknowledging that what I see is part of my reality and therefore an extension of myself makes me feel powerless because I don’t know what to do about it. Compassion in the face of what appears broken is harder than just looking the other way.

Thinking I am only responsible for making myself happy is one thing, but the reality is that I cannot do it all alone. It is inevitable that I will have relationships with some people that might or might not be fulfilling. The challenge for me is defining the terms of a relationship in my own capacity. If I don’t get the kind of support that I would like, can I continue to ask for it? If I hold out my hand to someone as an equal and I feel that they reduce me to an inferior or put me on a pedestal, can I continue to express myself openly even when I feel the urge to go into hiding? Can I be open about my spiritual beliefs when I claim to give others room to do the same? If I don’t because I have encountered people before who I felt have shoved their religious beliefs down my throat, then I am only reacting to the fear that I would be like them. By hiding or down-toning my way of looking at the universe, I am only claiming the moral high ground for myself, imagining that I am more open-minded and that I cannot share with someone who is less open-minded. In truth I am only afraid of being attacked or ridiculed.

I will not deny that I get angry when I am accused of trying to be different when I do what makes sense to me. In the same vein, I used to consider myself a feminist because of my unwillingness to subscribe to traditional notions of what it means to be a woman. But I am actually not all that rebellious. The term feminism is just a label that defines individuals in terms of patriarchy. Owning up to my own projections is one thing when I have consciously practised doing it for more than a decade. I don’t claim to be a master, but I find it easier than refusing to react to the projections of others. When I feel I am treated like a helpless five year old who needs protection, an immature 17 year old who needs to be directed or a silly female student who knows nothing, I experience any range of emotions that fall somewhere between annoyance and rage. If I succumb to the temptation to prove my independence or intelligence I’m remaining stuck in the same cycle, not doing anything to connect to people in a way that I am finally ready to acknowledge I have a need for. I don’t have a solution, but for now I feel it is best to continue to be open and do my best to support others as themselves, regardless of how uncomfortable I may feel.


My natural inclination is to express myself. Since I’m on my own planet at least half of the time, I probably should not be surprised that what comes out when I write often feels too deep and philosophical. I don’t always like being considered profound or contemplative in a world where people seem to be looking for lightness and, perhaps, superficiality. Whereas this aspect of myself doesn’t represent all of who I am, it certainly is a part of me that I have to embrace if I want to truly be me. Changing reality it is not an easy task. If we take the state the planet is in as a reflection of the relationship we have with ourselves and each other, there is a lot of work to do. When the going gets tough, I have to remind myself that perseverance is key.