The recent modern American lifestyle has turned our evolutionary development on its head: whereas for millions of years we struggled incessantly to retain our foothold on this planet, in just the last 30 years we have more or less eliminated all significant daily threats to our existence. With TV, people can live entire lives without genuine environmental interaction. Many are detached and seeking validation through some sort of worthy challenge, some way of being engaged in a struggle that they know they may not win. It’s easy to opt out of the struggles that we’re supposed to have and rest on our laurels, however richly deserved.

Maybe you’re like that, maybe not. But always staying in a place where you have well-known landmarks to guide you might leave you wanting more. Use evolution as the guiding constellation: life is a series of challenges and responses. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. If you haven’t lost at something in awhile, maybe you’re staring down challenges that are too small for you.

In the final analysis, perspective is more a function of loss than of age. Loss is what tests our mettle, and our response to loss determines our willingness to go outside our comfort zones. I really enjoy this following poem: it’s flippantly poignant.
— —- —-
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

– Elizabeth Bishop

If you don’t know this movie, you might want to get familiar with it; it can be watched over and over again with benefit.

jim p.

Those of us with kids (Jim, Eric, Hieronymus), this one’s for us:

“All, all that I had
Was yours more than mine.
All my best intentions
Were thine, thine, thine.”

-Karin Boye (translated)

3 daughters
3 thines!

The wretch concentered all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And doubly dying shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonor’d and unsung.”

jim p.
“You think I’m doing this because I’m self-centered?”
“It’s your defining characteristic.”

In two months my two turn 13 and 10. I’m with yuh.

I also brought one of those “books of immortal poetry” (the guys liked to hear ‘em, but only war poems…). My father was a Wm Blake man (I am more a Robt Frost kind of guy). Several live with me still. I may have to return to reading aloud at the dinner table (I used to read to my wife, but have fallen out of the habit since the children arrived!). Thanks for the moment of reflection.

On another topic, either for discussion or reflection: how does one teach perspective? My current observation is: I do not like to hurt anymore, or at least hurt to the point of improvement. What I mean is, for years I a)could forego temptation (sweets, let’s say), and b)used pain as a measure (e.g., repeats HURT). For the past year or so (as I accept “middle age”), I have been less willing to forego smaller sins (lifestyle creep, e.g., good wine; more-than-occasional ice cream; deep, dark chocolate…); further, I am less willing to run in a way that hurts (and, trust me, I am a world or two below you: I am talking maintaining barely sub-3 marathons through my forties). This scares me. Comfort, the love of comfort, the eschewing of self-sacrifice (or the shift away from “serving others”) is, to me, a slippery slope.

What have you noticed as you gather experience (a.k.a. age)?

As for not living for SELF, hear what the Clod of Clay has to say in Wm Blake’s Thel:

“Then Thel astonish’d view’d the Worm upon its dewy bed:
‘Art thou a Worm? image of weakness, art thou but a Worm?
I see thee like an infant wrapped in the Lilly’s leaf.
Ah weep not, little voice, thou canst not speak, but thou can weep.
Is this a worm? I see thee lay helpless & naked, weeping,
And none to answer, none to cherish thee with mother’s smiles.’

The Clod of Clay heard the Worm’s voice, & rais’d her pitying head;
She bow’d over the weeping infant, and her life exhal’d
In milky fondness; then on Thel she fix’d her humble eyes;

‘O beauty of the vales of Har, we live not for ourselves.”

Second, to Joan: a great post and, for me, particularly poignant. Just got back from some camping; Friday was Karaoke night at the campground. After mangling some girl’s name, I see my eldest (only a bit older than your youngest) walk up on stage, where she proceeds to belt out Jailhouse Rock!

After, I asked her how she got the idea to join in. She said “I just felt like it.” I asked her how she knew Jailhouse Rock, she said “I didn’t, but I read the words off the screen.” I asked her why she chose it then, she replied, “I thought it was SCHOOLhouse Rock!”

‘Scuse me, I am going to go cry now.

PATRICIA
What does interest you?

JOE
I don’t know. Courage.
Courage interests me.

– Joe Vs. The Volcano

…Quite often I get caught up in myself, and that’s when I become “restless, irritable and discontent”. There is no appeasing self – self is like a bad mother in law; listening to it and trying to keep it happy doesn’t shut it up. It just makes more (and louder) demands.

I can either serve self, or I can serve God by serving others. If I try to serve self, I am telling myself that I am needy, and I feel deprived and become depraved.

If I try to serve God by serving and helping others, I am telling myself that I don’t need anything, that I am not lacking anything – and the abundance of my life becomes remarkably apparent to me.

All that awareness – and all of my experience – and I’m still able to fall for the lie of “self”, ten times a day!