When I taught high school oh-so-long-ago (an "accomplishment"), I'd write a quote on the chalkboard each day, and my students knew that I expected them to---at least---copy that quote in their journals (a ploy to maintain a semblance of order and quiet as I checked roll, that is---a way to tether them) and, if they cared to exert a bit more energy, to write something they thought about the quote. As a (somewhat reluctant) member of Facebook, I see how many persons mostly share quotes they pick up from here and there (for those of you who do not do FB, sites specialize in quotes on different topics with accompanying photos, and if you "like" them, they show up on your FB page), how the tendency is to grab a bit of "wisdom," pin it on our chests like a badge, and move on---sometimes with no deeper understanding or thought than a simple nod. FB encourages this sort of "pinning" (and pricking) tendency to share soundbites and lives, creating more complex webs of connections, and sometimes weighing a person down with their own self-designated "likes," creating an FB-personage.
Reading the Dalai Grandma's post today brought back my own thoughts from this morning as I sat---how, though I've experienced our essential oneness (and to experience versus to know, of course, is quite different), I also have experienced and acknowledge the apparent contrary: our simultaneous uniqueness. Though we all walk a path, it is our own, and---like that water I keep feeling myself drifting on---it branches off, tugs me under, tumbles me over, and takes me to places I'm not really in control of. (Once I believed I could stave off aging---or at least ignore it: don't look at it and it will pass you by. Really.) I also used to be highly judgmental and critical, especially of myself, and my choices in life---not to mention extraordinarily private: marks, I suppose, of a highly controlling person. . . especially in regard to my own life.
Through the constant sharing of quotes and photographs and various tidbits from life that people post on FB, I see others and myself enjoying the thought of being able to form, to control life, to make it consistently "beautiful" or "reasonable" or at least "orderly." But FB reminds me that I have no control over what others post there (e.g., that photo of me looking ridiculous at my daughter's wedding), to acknowledge that I do what I must on this path I walk---as others do on theirs---and to let go, let go, let go. Recognizing I no longer need to maintain an ego is a wonderful aspect of aging.
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| Peacock at an Austin Park |
