Friday, October 03, 2008

Jigsaw Puzzle


Have you ever noticed how people who are trying to improve the world have a tendency to advocate conformity? They might be trying to win you over to a religion, a political persuasion, a life-style. Others, realising that this sort of endeavour is futile, express the belief that the human race can’t be saved from self-destruction.

We all want to be accepted. All the more so when we find it hard to accept ourselves. Sometimes we change ourselves in order to win the acceptance of others. But this isn’t real acceptance as we are being accepted for who we pretend to be and not for who we really are.

Often we tend to prefer the company of people who either think similarly to ourselves or have had similar experiences. The challenge comes in our relationships with those who are different. But, if we can feel secure in who we are, then we needn’t see difference as a threat.

Think of a jigsaw puzzle. No two pieces are the same. And yet they are capable of fitting together seamlessly into a meaningful whole.

Is it not possible that most of the problems of the world come from our attempts to force ourselves or others into places we don’t fit - either not letting others be their true selves, or not letting ourselves be ours. Think of how much money and potential for joy we can expend on “keeping up with the Jones’s”

You might argue that some people want to do violent things and so need to have their real selves curtailed. But at the heart of violence lies a profound lack of acceptance of oneself or others. The root cause of much violence is the inherent insecurity of a rigid character structure. This is particularly common with men who repress their “softer” emotions and rigidly control their behaviour and what they will express of themselves. Since the emotions they are trying to deny still exist within them and are always threatening to come to the surface, they become paranoid and see the expression of such emotions, or the behaviours they associate with them, in others as a threat. So they may become violent towards women or homosexuals. Of course the inherent insecurity of this kind of character structure also leads to competition, sometimes violent, with other men in the same situation. Another example of this kind of volatile personality is that of the fundamentalist whose sometimes violent opposition to the “sinfulness” he sees around him is driven by the fact that the same lusts he sees (or at times imagines) in others are also welling up threateningly within him.

When we try to force change, whether on ourselves or others, we usually find that it isn’t sustainable because it engenders resentment. So I suppose what I am saying is that, instead of looking around at the mess the world is in and getting depressed or trying to force others to change, why don’t we simply pay relaxed attention to the way we interact with others, open to the connections which form where there is space for them. If, as Keith Johnston says, our capacity for gentleness and tenderness that is most repressed in our society, then perhaps in trying to learn to accept ourselves and each other and express this exceptance in our relationships with each other we will find that that the love we need to save the world has been there all along waiting only to be set free.

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