This, from a year and a half ago, seems as important to day as it did then. What’s the use of allowing our past attitudes to dictate the limits of our present and future?
Friday, February 12, 2021
5:05 a.m. (Dad’s 106th, Mr. Lincoln’s 212th.) Gentlemen? Anything for us on this white morning?
We trust you aren’t asking for a snow shovel.
Anything you have.
We merely say, don’t assume a stance toward “external” affairs that makes a distinction between external and internal that is not real. We don’t care what you choose, whether activism, isolation, intelligent following of the news, specialization, “sinfully strolling from book to book,” whatever – only, whatever your stance toward the world around you, know that it is also the world within you. This is (to anticipate you) so easily said, and is understood only with such difficulty. And even when understood, it may be very difficult for you to make it real to yourself; very difficult to live.
The good news, though, is: It may not. There’s no telling, till you get to the “living it” part.
Well, I think of “living in faith,” how impossible that seems (when seen abstractly) and yet how easy it proves to be once you pass through a certain door – if you can find the door; if you can bring yourself to pass through it.
A reasonable analogy. One cannot quite choose an attitude, so in that sense one cannot choose the gift of faith, the gift of seeing the world whole. And yet, at the same time, it is true that one can choose a set of values to live, and living those values can bring one to a place in which the sought-for door becomes obvious, and attainable, and even in a sense inevitable.
That is where your freedom to choose lies: your choice of what values you are going to live. It is true, your background will limit your choices initially; it is up to you to move from that background in a chosen direction.
It is also true that some people’s background will make it impossible that they should ever get to a place that is easy for another, but to say this is merely to say that everyone’s path is different. We would say, don’t allow intellectual and theoretical objections to get in the way of your recognizing that you always have all the freedom you need, indeed all the freedom you can handle. Many actors play victims as a role, just as many play villains. But there is a difference between actor and role, and we would say it is a difference in reality. An actor is realer than the role s/he plays. You may hark back to our explanations in what was to be a book, Only Somewhat Real. Your objective could be stated: Become the realest “you” possible. To say that is the same as to say, encompass as many of your possibilities as possible, or to say, become fully conscious, or to say, live in faith and without fear, or to say reduce your barriers within yourselves and between yourself and others. It’s all the same process, all the same progress.
It is so simple conceptually.
Now you say, but it isn’t easy. And to that we say, What would you do with “easy”? Easy would be boring, would it not? A grown-up person doesn’t usually get any great thrill from sliding on a child’s sliding board.
Name any skill you enjoy employing and we will tell you two things about it: It took work to learn it (and there’s always more to learn), and, the harder the task the greater the inherent satisfaction.
And life itself is such a skill.
Inherently. Of course, nobody can force you to practice; nobody can convince you (should you need convincing) that the effort to learn will return great satisfaction by and by.
If you will take on faith our statement that external and internal are integrally, inseparably, linked, then you will see that life makes sense and cannot not make sense, only, it requires that you recognize what you’re seeing. Just as you are largely mysteries to yourselves, so the world is largely mystery to you, and for the same reason. Just as the external seems intractable, so your own internal struggles may seem endless and unresolvable. Yet, internal and external, life goes on. It always goes on.
This is a short statement, but enough for the moment, lest we blur the point.
Okay, thanks as always. Till next time.