Allan G. Hunter's Blog, page 56

Be All You Can Be

That is the message of so many self-help gurus, and it’s not a bad one. The slight problem I have with it is that it contains an unexplained expectation that being all you can be will include public recognition and even wealth.

It’s true. Some people will achieve that. Many won’t, though, and that’s not a criticism.

Think of the cathedral Builders of Medieval Europe – we don’t know their names, but we can see they achieved something sublime. Think of Vincent Van Gogh, who died in poverty, unrecognized. Jane Austen was undervalued while she was alive. And so on.

Some people are able to change an era, and no one notices what’s happened until years later. Or perhaps no one ever takes notice of them, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t contributed a huge amount that is, in fact, the very best of themselves.

That’s a version of being all you can be, too.

Beowulf – Lessons we can use

Beowulf – that epic Anglo-Saxon saga no one likes to read – just won’t go away. Woody Allen famously said no one should ever sign up for anything if it includes reading Beowulf.

He was wrong about that.

I’ve taught the text a few times, now – and so I’ll share a brief insight from it. Beowulf lives in a chaotic world of dragons, monsters, and feuding tribes. Nothing is certain about his future, or anyone’s.

Yet he never fails to do his best, right up until that harrowing final fight that he wins, but which costs him his life.

And that is at least one of important aspects of the story. None of us knows the future, and the world is chaotic. But we must always strive to do our best in whatever way we see is possible. A disorderly world is no excuse for not doing the best we can. Don’t ever give up.

Republicans and kids

Last night Zoe taught me another useful lesson. We were watching TV for a few minutes and flicked channels only to stumble on the Republican candidates’ debate, just before her bath time. Zoe watched with interest and then turned to me and said, “Look at those kids”. She was bemused by what she was seeing, by the way they interacted.

I should point out that Zoe is eminently capable of telling the difference between kids and adults, especially on TV. But to her these politicos were kids, and no doubt about that.

So we watched a little longer. And the more I watched the more I began to see it her way. They were all behaving like kids. There wasn’t a single adult conversation going on.

So we went to get the bathwater ready.

More lessons from a very young child

Little Zoe (still not three) teaches me a huge amount.

A few weeks back I posted a couple of Facebook pictures of her hugging some life sized statues of children that had been placed around a statue of the Virgin Mary at the local church. The statues were concrete, plain white, and she spent about half an hour hugging them all in turn, even the sheep. This happened each time we went past that church.

I was bemused. She seemed to think they needed some love.

Yesterday we went out together to choose a Christmas tree. We then took it home, decorated it, and enjoyed its transformation. When it was time for Zoe to leave I said to her, “ Say goodbye to the tree”. I expected her to wave at it or say “goodbye tree” or something. Instead she walked towards it and hugged it. A few decorations were disarranged, but who cared.

When one is three, and innocent of the distinctions adults place on things, surprisingly beautiful things happen.

Kids and Guns

Yesterday I took Little Zoe (2 years and 10 months) to the toy shop. We have a lovely little local shop, and the neat thing is that Zoe goes in, takes a look a some of her favorite items, but then quite happily leaves them behind when we leave. She doesn’t feel she has to own them, with the exception of the stickers, of course.

In a couple of weeks from now an item or two she has admired may well be found under the tree, so I consider this to be research.

On the way out I congratulated the two women behind the counter because there were no toy guns, no soldier/fighting toys, and no beeping robotic electronic thingies with weapons. The manager smiled and admitted they did have some pirate items, but that was it.

Fair enough.

As we made our way home I had a sudden realization. No toy guns, no toy soldiers, no video shooting games – that means that the children who go to this shop are not being indoctrinated from infancy to think guns are something important, or that they should own one (even if only a toy).

How different that was from my childhood.

If we are to get the US to control this deadly love affair with automatic weaponry that we seem to be afflicted with, then it might be a good idea to start with the most impressionable of our citizens, children. They will assimilate the values they think we revere, because that’s what children do, and so if they see gun-like toys heaped in the stores there’s a good chance they’ll think this is what they have to like. We can change that.

The Art Market

$179 million for a Modigliani; Damien Hirst taking in $21 million at an auction; and so on. The Art Market is alive and speculative, with fortunes being made and spent on likely investment pieces. The art is now seen as The Artifact – the collector matters because he or she has a Rothko, a Rembrandt, or a Picasso.

And yet – is this the role of Art? Is it about money and success? Is it about the thing itself or the experience of observing the thing? Perhaps it has more to do with the experience of creating?

About 5000 years ago in Catal Huyuk, in Turkey, one of the last great matriarchal societies of the Earth flourished. Their chosen art form seems to have been pottery – although they may have had other arts we have no evidence for. Houses and temples seem to have been very similar, and the very finest of their astonishing pottery was not created for every day use. It was created as offerings to their gods.

When we make an offering to the gods, in whatever way we do it, we are saying, in effect – this is the result of my work as I operate within a space where I feel certain values, certain things, matter. This is my sense of holiness, my way of being at prayer. This product comes from that.

Something similar happened with the Cathedral builders in the great age of Gothic in Europe. None of those builders left much in the way of a name, or fame behind – let alone wealth.

So let’s not turn up our noses at art that is done humbly, devotedly, and offered to whatever gods we may have. Art like that is the product of an inward searching, a type of prayer. It may never make any money or hang in a museum. That doesn’t matter. What matters is what happens in the heart of the creator, humble before this strange and wonderful force we call creativity. That creativity we feel is just a small reflection of the same force that produced the universe, the planets, our world, and us. It deserves reverence.

Words to ponder

Attributed to Abd-er-Rahman III of Spain, 960AD

“I have now reigned about fifty years in victory or peace, beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. Riches and honors, power and pleasure have waited on my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear to be wanting. In this situation I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot: they amount to fourteen.”

The world’s busy-ness tends to get in the way of real joy, no matter how exhaled we may be.

Forgiveness

Plenty has been written about forgiveness, but honestly — it often feels a bit cerebral, technical even. If you want to learn what forgiveness is then you have to go to an expert. I’m lucky enough to know several. My grand daughter, aged 2 1/2 has been my great teacher in this respect, and her sister, aged 8 months, has been fairly impressive too.

In the course of being with these two I’ve done just about everything wrong. I’ve put on diapers back to front; I’ve offered food they really don’t like; I’ve failed to know the right way to stop them crying. These can be real crises for small children, don’t forget that. In every case my blunders caused tears and upset, but within minutes they’ve returned to being their usual serene selves.

They just let it go.

What has this taught me? That forgiveness is instinctual, immediate, and free. It doesn’t have to be asked or begged for. It’s our natural condition.

It’s also told me that not forgiving – holding a grudge, clinging to a resentment – is almost certainly a learned response. We have to teach ourselves to do it. And then we only do it because we imagine it will bring us a reward of some sort eventually. This is not true, of course — unless one considers pouting and blackmail to contain any rewards.

So we can only conclude that that is exactly what people believe when they fail to forgive.

The Christmas Season

This year the Christmas spirit seems to have taken a strange turn – my website has been flooded with robotically-generated messages that (presumably) are intended to get visitors to my site to buy genuine football jerseys, designer bags and such like merry clutter.

Why on earth would anyone think visitors here would want to buy such, ahem, merchandise?

Oh well, the posts are mostly gone now – but for the time being I’ve had to disable the comments function.

As The World Turns

Our world seems to be faced with some dreadful problems and daunting questions. How do we deal with gun violence? How do we deal with global warming? What should we do about Syria? How can we change gross economic inequality? How can we deal with pollution?

The “answers”, so far, have been less than adequate. We protest; we sign petitions; we pass legislation; and worst of all, we decide to bomb other countries.

Legislation is fine, but it isn’t the answer. Talking to people is. If you see people polluting, tell them you don’t approve. If you don’t like gun violence then go and talk to someone who you know who has a gun and try and persuade them to get rid of it. And so on. Talk to people directly and raise these issues with them. Don’t argue, don’t shout. Talk.

People don’t respond to legislation very well. People respond to people.