Monthly Archives: October 2020

‘Middle of the road’. ‘Stuck in the middle’. ‘Caught in the middle’. For most people, the word ‘middle’ does not conjure up any excitement. Middle school, middle class, middle management, mid-range, and whatever fits that description – for most people it just translates into not-there-yet. Surely the ‘middle’ is not something to aspire to. Up or down, left or right – anything but the middle! The ‘middle’ is so vanilla, so boring, so mediocre.

But how wrong can we be?

Never was there a time as good as this one to rediscover the importance and the wisdom of seeking the middle ground. The middle ground seems to have given way to the extremes: you are either black or white, politically left or right. There is no tolerance for fence-sitters and middle-of-the-road citizens. No, you have to choose a side, take a stand, dig yourself in, and defend your view as if your life depended on it, even if you hurt others. We just need to watch the news or read the newspapers to see how that approach is serving us at the moment. It borders on craziness. With fanatic zeal, we point fingers at each other and call each other names because we are so convinced and so certain that we are right and that the others are wrong. It is these claims of rightness and wrongness that tear nations, societies and communities apart.

We need a space, a place we can step back into, and that is what the middle ground can offer us. It allows us to compromise, concede, arbitrate, collaborate, conciliate, negotiate, settle, bargain, make a deal, and agree. But nothing of that will happen as long as we dig in our heels because we are so convinced that we are right and the others are wrong. We need to tread carefully when speaking about right and wrong. There is no such thing. We all know this to be true from our own experience. When we look back at our lives, we can all identify and remember certain things we felt very strongly about, and that we fiercely pushed against at the time, because we felt it was wrong. Once we find ourselves in this mode of self-righteousness, there are no limits to our behaviour and we often hurt others in the process of taking a stand. But now, with the wisdom of hindsight, we may feel bad, even embarrassed, because we can’t believe what we did and how strongly we felt about it. However, we should not beat ourselves up about our behaviour in the past; instead, we should realize and acknowledge that it is simply because our perceptions have changed. We think differently about it now. Part of the maturing process is to seek the middle ground from where we can see both sides, and to have the wisdom to realize that we don’t necessarily have to take sides, because we know from our own experience that what is right today could be wrong tomorrow, and vice versa. So, by standing firm in the middle, we can become the observer, rather than being swept away by the views and opinions of others. From that solid place, we can then take action for the greater good of all.

We need to tread carefully in these volatile times. Either or, right and wrong, are not our only options. There is a far better solution, there is a field between the two where we can meet as suggested by the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.

Let’s find that field in every relationship we are in. Let’s meet each other there and allow our soul to take us beyond the things of this world and then, perhaps for the first time, we may see and hear each other because we start speaking from the heart, which so fluently speaks the love language of the soul.

Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides, and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

What normally comes to mind when someone is called a freak are images of an oddball, a hippie, a drug addict, or someone displaying some displeasing social or sexual behaviour.  It is not something we want to be called. However, it is a pity that we typecast such people as freaks because we owe much to the freaks of this world. They are the odd ones out, the outliers, the unusual and unpredictable ones who are brave enough to stay true to themselves and add some colour to our world.

In a way, we were all born as freaks in the positive sense of being unique and unusual. The sad truth, though, is that society, for the most part, cannot handle unique freaks. It starts with our parents, who with the best of intentions, jump right in and do their best to make sure that we fit in just nicely and not cause them any embarrassment. Then we are handed over to the other two main partners, the school and the church, to further ensure that we fit the mould and that we proudly carry the label as an upright and respectable citizen. Often, by the time that society has put us through its paces, there is not much left of our uniqueness. All the colour has been washed out. We are now exemplary conformists. We don’t stir up trouble; we do as we are told, and everybody is happy apart from us. They can now relax in the belief that they have done their part to ensure we stay in line and follow the rest of the sheeple.

How sad.

And yet, some got away. They are the rebels, the freaks, and the outliers who managed to escape this levelling and sanitizing program, and who stayed true to themselves, often at the great personal price of being ridiculed, rejected, and side-lined. Bravely, they fly their freak flags and hang onto their uniqueness for dear life. They travel the road less travelled, they question and challenge rules and beliefs, and they stay clear of the shackles of conformity. They don’t play according to the playbook of their culture, but design their own. They explore. They fail and then try again. They have no desire to impress or seek approval. What other people think of them is none of their business. They are free.

In 1969, during the so-called hippie era, Jimmy Hendrix, an American musician, singer, and songwriter and a non-conformist by nature, wrote a song called “If 6 was 9”. A few lines from that song say it all:

I got my own world to live through and I ain’t gonna copy you

White-collared conservative flashing down the street

Pointing their plastic finger at me,

They’re hoping soon my kind will drop and die

But I’m gonna wave my freak flag high

Let us fly our freak flags high. Wear that purple hat or those silly shoes! Be goofy, laugh from your belly and cry like a baby! Think for yourself, do your own thing, and proudly show your true colours! It is only then that we add colour to a world that is so desperately in need of honesty, integrity and uniqueness. Let’s embrace our uniqueness, and love ourselves for who we are. Let’s be brave and start removing the layers of old paint and discovering our true colours. No one should die with their song still playing silently inside them. It is never too late to start living. It took me a few decades to remove the layers of old paint to get closer to the core of my own true self. But thanks to going through this process, it is now my life’s calling to help others do the same, to find their own true north and proudly be the beautiful freaks they were originally meant to be.

Let them freak out. Be who you are. It is your birthright.

“Nothing can be more hurtful to your heart than betraying yourself.”

― Roy T. Bennett

“Go to your room and stay there!”  This is a scene from our childhood that many of us will be quite familiar with. When we were naughty or misbehaved, we were told to isolate ourselves in our room and to use the time to reflect on our misdeeds. The lockdown that started in March was a bit like that. Things on the planet were getting out of hand. We had become arrogant and unruly. In our pursuit of material gain, we have been mindlessly exploiting the earth and destroying our natural resources, not to mention how we treat each other. So ‘Mother’ sent us to our room to think and do some introspection. However, much like a rebellious child, in such a situation our first reaction was not to engage in introspection but rather to slam the door and kick the cupboard and feel sorry for ourselves because it was so unfair. That was the yelling phase. Angry, shocked and upset, we tried to find someone to blame for the mess we found ourselves in. Since misery loves company, we then tended to revert to social media in search of others who agreed with our view, and in that happy huddle, we fuelled the fires of anger and upset. Cozy in our echo chambers, we slammed our fists and kicked the door.

But as the weeks became months, we went into a second phase. We started getting bored with all the chatter. Social media started to irritate us, and one can only watch so many movies and series. That is the yawning phase. During that stage, we just wanted to get on with our lives again. We want to get out of our room and do what we used to do, since we were bored stiff. “Enough is enough” is a phrase we often heard during that phase. But since our movements were still restricted, we entered the next phase: the yearning phase. We started dreaming about all the things we wanted to do once we were permitted to leave our room again. We dreamt about going shopping again, or having friends over, or having coffee with a friend at our favourite spot, or joining our friends for a beer. We even told ourselves how great it would be to be back at work again.

And then, from a certain date, we were allowed to roam free again. A sense of normality returned. For some it was great. Things were back to normal. They could return to work, go shopping, visit friends and family, have friends over – they loved it. For others, not so much. They noticed a difference in themselves. It was still the same friends, the same coffee shop, the same shops in the same mall, the same office, and the same colleagues – but somehow on a deeper level, something had changed. It was as if they were looking at life with new eyes. They now had a deeper yearning. Their yearning was not to have the old world back. They were yearning for a different world – a world in which principles like respect, honesty, kindness, compassion and love dictate our behaviour. They were done with pretence and superficialness. They were yearning for genuineness. They were dreaming of a world free from judgment and greed, a world in which the main mission is not to survive but to thrive.

How come our dreams and yearnings are so different? It must be the result of how we chose to spend our time in isolation. The options were to be angry, mad and upset all the time, or to focus on how bored we were, or to use the time to take stock, do some introspection and start dreaming a new dream. To yearn for something better. To be better. To do better. Surely you will have noticed that all three words – yelling, yawning and yearning – start with a `Y`. This letter of the alphabet is pronounced as ‘wye’ or ‘wy’, but it also sounds like ‘why’ – and perhaps that was the question that should have kept us occupied while we were locked up in our room. Why? Why am I here? Why am I not happy? Why am I still in this relationship? Why am I hanging onto a job I hate? Why am I spending so much time and energy on things that bring me no joy?  Why am I still hanging on to some things? This is a very good time to ask some ‘why questions’. All these why questions may just lead us to what we have always yearned for. Be brave, and ask yourself a few ‘why’ questions. They could lead you to new beginnings.

Yearning for the seemingly impossible is the path to human progress.

Bryant H. McGill

“Her name is Lily”, my sister said when she called me to inform me of the arrival of her second grandchild. What an apt name for someone to be born at this hour, as we are going through these tumultuous times, I thought. We surely need more ‘Lilies’ to spread their fragrance and brighten up our lives.

In Christianity, the lily is linked with the Virgin Mary as a symbol of her purity and chastity, while the Easter lily is a symbol of Christ’s resurrection. The beautiful lotus flower is one of Buddhism’s and Hinduism’s most recognized symbols of enlightenment. The Tiger lily, in Buddhism, represents mercy and compassion. Lilies are colourful, unique, and fragrant; they come in all shapes and sizes and are one of the most popular flowers in the world. Lilies come in almost all colours, except for blue. These beautiful blooms are full of wonders and come in over 90 different species. Lilies embody purity, fertility, beauty, royalty, sophistication, grace, and rebirth.

Humanity is currently going through a huge rebirth. Our lives will never be the same again. We are in the birth canal, metaphorically speaking, and there is no turning back. The only way now is forward. Like any birthing process, this one too is rather painful and messy, and we may at times feel like giving up but that, of course, is not an option. We just need to keep bravely ‘pushing forward’. So what do lilies have to do with giving birth? Any woman giving birth will tell you that lilies are the last thing on her mind during that time. Point taken, but the ‘lilies’ are those who help us to get through the process. Their compassion and kindness are like lilies spreading their fragrance of love and care, as they go out of their way to help deliver that beautiful new baby.

What a difference it would make if we, for just a moment, could view what we are all going through as a birthing process. How wonderful it would be if we could be less harsh and judgemental, less self-centered and opinionated, and more tolerant and forgiving. Millions are going through this process in sheer agony. Their suffering is real, be it physically, emotionally, or spiritually. One can almost hear them screaming, as they push forward. Although everyone has to do their own pushing, we can in some way or another show some care and compassion for each other. We too can become lilies of forgiveness, care, and love. We too can show grace and encourage each other, as we go through this. Imagine that every kind word, every kind gesture, every act of kindness, every time we forgive someone, is like handing them a beautiful lily. Imagine eight billion people arriving on the other side of this, each holding a beautiful lily. We need not go through this on our own.

A KIND REQUEST

Since it is important for me to know how best I can serve you during these times, please could you spare 2 minutes and complete this questionnaire below? It consists of only 4 simple questions and would really not take up much of your time.

It would mean so much to me.

Thank you very much,

Rudi

https://rb.gy/kofiq7