It is absolutely remarkable how easily some intelligent and revolutionary people are inclined to or convinced to regurgitate or reproduce ‘approved’ social conditionings and norms. Or who, in marketing themselves, truly feel an obligation to present a Polaroid picture: wife, children, picket fence, dog. As if to become such represents completion, success, or something to aspire to.
As if a Hollywood ending is winning.
When it is profoundly unfulfilling.
Just how humanity got into this hypocritical mess.
A cheap thrill. A fast-food meal. A TV special. Then over.
And it has been done before. Too many times to count.
So secretly, they look for more. Yearn for more. And when they find it, hide it, desperately. For the pressures of their perceived societal expectation make them forget what they were fighting for. And as the iconography of their existence eclipses their resistance, ever so slowly, they inch closer, to becoming what they profess to strive against.
Peeling back that external layer, that veneer, you find them desperately plotting a second life. A hidden balance, where true emotional satisfaction can be hoarded, and enjoyed, part-time.
And in living that double life, they have forgotten how to connect with the real. Or the power of doing so. And that the real is what attracted them to activism in the first place. That the real is how they got where they are.
That the truth doesn’t need to be proven. Because it has its own frequency. It’s own primal recognition. That beautiful, crystal clear resonating ring of truth, is everything.
No lies can stand in the face of it. Not even those with established “proof”.
People Are Not Motivated By A Veneer Of Perfection
A puzzle isn’t fun if it’s already done.
People are motivated, inspired and intrigued by the incomplete. By the imperfect and flawed.
That is what injustice is. The absence of justice. So people feel an innate desire to find and fit justice into its rightful space. They are motivated by what is missing. What is lacking.
The very nature of the existence of the incomplete is a call to action. People want to engage. To respond. To help. To get involved.
Life is not Hollywood. It is far more complex, multi-dimensional and stunning in its ironies and mathematical improbabilities than any movie ever has been.
And a fake or manufactured existence is not really living.
Real life is THE greatest story you could ever tell.
It is the story that people can truly, innately, deeply recognise and connect to.
It creates a space where readers always want to see the next chapter of the story, and that next chapter writes itself.
Life is serialised by its very nature.
The wise stop trying to manufacture it, open their eyes and hearts to what is, and embrace it.
The reaction of others is a reflection of the conviction of self. Nothing that you relentlessly stand by, that you hold up as beautiful in all its glorious imperfection, can ever be desecrated by someone else.
Because every insult or dispersion they cast just becomes a platform for you to reaffirm and promote your love.
Each nasty sentiment or stone cast becomes a wonderful opportunity, a priceless chance for you to use logic and transparency, to smack them down. And to annunciate and emboss your love.
And embolden yourself.
In doing so, not only do you emerge victorious, but your messages of love and righteousness then self-propagate, and your critics, burned, soon learn to grumble in private.
Super-Heroes
Super heroes are not normal. Super heroes don’t fit in.
Super heroes give of themselves beyond what could ever be expected.
To extremes.
And the reason they are revered is not because they do what everybody else does but because they don’t.
They love beyond the capacity of normal people to love. They have empathy beyond the ability of an average person to empathise. They make the hard choices and the self-sacrifices. They show their vulnerabilities. They do not act in self-preservation. They do not justify their shortcomings, or taking easy ways out, as being self-protection. They do not flinch from being different. They don’t just mouth words of support for the marginalised – they proudly take them in their arms.
Then teach people – by example – to redefine their concept of love in accordance with the depths of their generosity, compassion and tenderness.
They do not merely mirror what is without – they live and lead by what is within.
And in showing that, in allowing the real to come through, they move others to follow suit.
No fan wants to see a super hero do what they’d do. They want to see a super hero do what they only wish they had the strength to do, but fear they don’t. Something they fervently admire in another but couldn’t achieve themselves.
And that is the power of super heroes – to influence others to look outside of their own boxes. To be brave. To step beyond the borders of conventionally supposed civility and recognise that there is something deeper than the matrix. Something realer.
Real super heroes speak truth. They don’t bury it. They risk all, and in doing so gain even more. Real super heroes have weaknesses and flaws. And are proud of them. That is how others connect with them.
Real super heroes convert their most feared perceived weaknesses into their most universally revered and celebrated strengths.
Let Your Critics Make A Meal Of Your Flaws
No news is bad news and there’s no such thing as bad press.
Your critics can be conditioned and constrained or they can condition and constrain you. It is about what you let them do.
Not about what they think of you. Or about what they say of you.
Let’s look at some famous examples. And how they are loved regardless, or even enhanced by what society would say are dirty little secrets fit only to be hidden in a closet and jealously guarded…
David Carr:
Here is an extremely mild reference to the famed NYT reporter, from his Wikipedia page:
“In his 2008 memoir, The Night of the Gun, Carr detailed his experiences with cocaine addiction and included interviews with people from his past, tackling his memoir as if he were reporting on himself.[10] The memoir was excerpted in The New York Times Magazine.[11]“
Specifically, he talked about how he abandoned his baby in his vehicle while he scored and got high on crack cocaine.
But he talked about it truthfully. He bared his soul and his life in all its mixed hues, victories, conflagrations, even the shame and degradation. And was loved and revered, if not even more infamous and widely followed, for it.
Daniel Ellsberg
Dan Ellsberg was described (disturbingly) by past colleagues at the U.S. Embassy in Vietnam as “a great cocksmith”. In a thinly-veiled effort to discredit him, they regaled reporters with lurid tales of sexual conquest, decadence and extra-marital affairs.
Back to Wikipedia:
“Ellsberg has been married twice. His first marriage was to Carol Cummings, daughter of a Marine Corps brigadier general. It lasted 13 years before ending in divorce (at her request, as he stated in his memoirs Secrets)…
…In 1970, he married Patricia Marx,”
Married to his wife for 46 years, no one, least of all me, could give a flying toss what Ellsberg did or didn’t get up to in Vietnam, or who with. The overarching point is that no such dispersions cast by those on the fringes of his past life, can touch the man or his accomplishments.
By his work he is known. His unflinching acknowledgements of his own struggles and his unwavering beliefs vastly eclipse any attempts made to smear him. He is impervious to them.
Madonna:
When, a decade after the fact, an unscrupulous photographer dug up and sold photos of Madonna posing as a topless model in the early 80s, industry insiders salaciously declared it a massive scandal and speculated that it would end her career.
When confronted with the images, her response to the ensuing media frenzy was extremely simple, eloquent, and timeless.
“So?”
It instantly took the wind out of the mass media’s sails – as it put the onus back on them. Rather than be able to report on an emotional reaction to the scandal, they were forced to try to self-justify why it should be a scandal at all. The furore soon collapsed and Madonna went on to become the biggest selling female recording artist of all time.
It’s All What You Make Of It
Life gives you lemons, make lemonade, they say.
You don’t have to be perfect to be an icon. You just have to be honest.
Honesty about your mistakes, your weaknesses, your struggles, your most humiliating moments, your disappointments, your shame, only guarantees it can never be held against you. People will love and adore the more human side of you. They will see themselves reflected in you. You will win over those who reject the images of perfection. Because they already know deep down that it’s not a real projection.
And courage is contagious.
EVERYTHING that is said about you is an opportunity for you to get your own points across. Everything.
So love who you LOVE. And do it proudly. Admit your fuck-ups, and allow others to see you as more than some painting to hang on a wall. Become real. Become mortal again. Discover who you are.
Then live it proudly.
Carpe Diem.
Daily Wisdom:
Signs of Change:
As we develop faith in our teacher, we develop faith in ourselves. This invigorated confidence strengthens our practice.
Pride, arrogance, anger, begin to diminish and shrink as our mind becomes less pre-occupied with self-cherishing.
The commitment to succeed does not just come from the student, but also from the guides and gurus. Their commitment is equally strong, if not stronger, to see students discover their own buddhahood.
A good coach or mentor believes in the student and recognises the student’s potential and best qualities. Their recognition helps the student recognise themselves. The guru introduces them to the best of themselves.”
– Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
Written by Suzie Dawson
Twitter: @Suzi3D
Official Website: Suzi3d.com
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