I have a couple of friends who are from wildly different backgrounds, live in wholly different circumstances, and who nevertheless have a great deal in common.
What they have in common sometimes comes close to breaking my heart.
At other times it comes close to making me laugh out loud.
And if we’re really being honest here (and why not?) sometimes what they have in common makes me envious while at other times it brings me despair.
What they have in common is the belief that, if they buy the right book, find the right past life, discover the right weight-loss program, employ the right combination of aromas, dress in the right colors, eat the right fruit, sleep the right number of hours — in addition to lighting the correct candles, watching the best movies, feinging the right shui, chanting the best mantra, consuming the highest fiber, eating the most fat, eating the least fat, pressing the right pressure points, and breathing the proper way — everything in their lives, from childcare to pay grade to dress-size, will then be perfect.
Whereas I know the truth: If you drink at least a liter of water a day, find shoes that fit, and purchase the ideal lipstick (color stays on even when you eat but your lips don’t dry out), only THEN will all of life’s mysteries and problems be solved. I’d be happy to explain this to my friends, but they’re too busy with their reductive harebrained schemes to listen to my wisdom.
Want to know what I really think our problem is? We spend a lot of time wondering why our lives — and the world — seem so oddly out of kilter. We want to make use of our talents, and yes, we want to make life better for those we love. We also want to improve the world and give it the benefit of what we have to offer. We want to know how to do this better and so we look to those who provide guidance. But we’re terrified of organized religion, which tells us that whatever we do that we do to look after ourselves will damn us; we’re angry at systems that fail women and children; we’re tired of palliatives offered by those in power that advise us to give of ourselves until it hurts while the leadership remains rich, smug, judgmental, and sanctimonious.
We are left, therefore, with all this dispersed energy and diffused intelligence; we’re hungry for good stuff, smart stuff. And we’re filling up on junk food. Or if not actually junk food, then we’re filling up on pre-prepared, pre-mixed, pre-seasoned Condensed Soup for the Soul, a philosophy to be heated up and dished out as quickly as possible. At best it remains only partially satisfying — and it satisfies only momentarily.
If we ask for bread, in other words, we are told that carbohydrates aren’t good for us and that, besides, industrial farming practices are destroying the health of the earth, and even if we are given stones, we simply make those annoying recirculating fountains which are supposed to breathe life into our personal environment but which really just make us need to pee more often and start to smell like dime-store turtles after about a month.
From stenciling to spirituality, from how to find the artist in yourself to discovering the amazing power of tantric sex, from how to get published to how to sponge-paint your bathroom, we seek answers but find only promises. We knock, and the door is opened, but behind the door is a market-research team telling us to smear a brand of stretch-mark-fading creme, once used only by pregnant women, on our foreheads in order to uncover precisely the sort of outer beauty leading to inner happiness.
And if I exaggerate, it is not by much.
What’s wrong with cheap advice and quick fixes? When made by somebody who loves you, chicken soup may indeed be good for a cold. But sometimes you need stronger medicine, stuff that’s less easy to swallow.
Blooming where you are planted is fine if you’re a peach pit. But if you’re a grown person, you should remember that we don t have to stay buried but can rise up, brush off the dirt, and start moving.
(Brainstorm illustration incorporating a photo by Flickr user tvol)
