Focus

There are a lot of ways to be a person.

I asked AI what percentage of the world is considered left-brained and what is considered right-brained. It gave me this “well, actually” answer that there’s no scientific data to support those dichotomies and I said oh shut up you dummy you know what I’m asking. Just ballpark it. “Well, actually…”

It turns out the future is annoying.

As an emotive, perceptive, and maybe just the smallest bit compulsive man who has to work diligently at remaining grounded, there have been days where I wished I was born with a more analytical bent to my makeup. Why couldn’t I have been an accountant? Or an engineer? Or stable? I went on a date once with an accountant and I kept waiting for her to laugh at my jokes. She’d just grin. Maybe she didn’t hear me ‘cause that one was gold. I tried again. Louder, unfortunately. Nothing. Well obviously something is very wrong with you and not at all wrong with me.

Call me, Beth. I’ve been working on some new material that you will love to ignore.

A couple of my pals are more analytically-oriented. They’ve got kids, careers, mortgages, are able to proceed from one task to the next over the course of years and as far as I know aren’t on any daily pills. How wild the things we envy. Those were not the cards I was dealt. While they appear to be holding a very decent hand, I’m holding a 7 of diamonds, a 2 of spades, an UNO card, a Pokémon card with a very low attack value, and a gas station postcard from Florida. I’m an easy mark. Just look for the guy wearing a green translucent visor and a discounted Tommy Bahama shirt. No offense, Mr. Bahama.

Those are the cards I’m holding by means of genetics and environments and traumas and gifts. Make no mistake – I won the lottery. I was born into love and presence. Most people in the world are born into some sort of scarcity or absence. And I’m a white dude to top it off. If Jesus had been a white dude there’s no way they’d have nailed him up there naked. No wonder the catholics have such a hard time getting people to mass. Walk into a church and see a white dude on a cross you’d say, “Well obviously this is all a bunch of bullshit; white dudes don’t get in trouble.”

Sadly, so often I have hated them, those metaphorical cards of personality and situation, and hated myself, at times claiming victim status, but mostly there’s been a harsh self-accusation that I’ve done something to substantially and thoroughly ruin everything. It hurts to write that out but it is true. As far as I’m able to discern I am not hunting for pity in articulating these difficult realities nor am I begging for support, of which I am the recipient of more than I can tell you. A friend told me this week to make sure I tell these stories because it’s helps others who live with similar images of themselves to know they are not alone, neither in the negative self-perception nor in the hard work it takes to wait and to heal.

I’ve been told it is possible to fall in love with ourselves. We can hold those parts close, the bent UNO cards and Florida postcards, and come to see them for what they are as unique contributions to the human conversation, qualities that no one else has in their particular combination, gifts that only they can bring to the world. This, I am sad to report, demands of us the hard work and an endless road of letting go and letting in — releasing everything that is not of service and accepting the truths that we are loved and wanted.

This releasing and accepting has this present-active tense, never ceasing, never completed. It’s a practice. It’s showing up again and again. It’s interminably frustrating.

There is no fix, and maybe there is no fix because there is actually nothing to fix. The Buddhists say that we are all born with the potential for enlightenment. The Christians say that God comes to us with grace and love. Hare Krishna says that people are inherently divine and in the 80s they said here’s a little flower for you on your way to your airplane. Most traditions begin with a narrative of goodness and then us humans go hey thanks that’s great and all but we’re going to light it all on fire.

Rather than a fix, maybe it’s closer to a turning and returning to the ways of being that were meant to bring us life in the first place. Because this body of mine feels so deeply and has trouble discerning one direction from another, I have to remain focused on what I know to be true. It’s true for me that if I show up to that yoga studio and get all comically sweaty as often as I can, then something calms in me slowly over the course of weeks and months. If I sit in silence in the morning and allow things to be as they are then I am just the smallest bit more capable of letting go of the resentments and self-loathing. If I turn away from the apps and shows and media that is designed to take me out of my body, and if I turn towards the running trail and the phone calls with good friends, then I am without a doubt a better father to my boys, a father who is slower to anger, quicker to love.

Maybe this all has nothing to do with left-brained and right-brained ways of engaging the world, or any kind of appearance of having it all together or appearance of barely holding it together. Maybe it’s just about being a person, doing the next right thing we know to do, to let go of control, to make it a practice of focusing our attention and efforts on what is good and giving no energy or time to a single thing that tears us down.

Please remind me of all of this tomorrow when I forget.