How do we reconcile the difference between who we are and who we want to be. How are we supposed to know that who we want to be is even achievable or that if we got there to who we want to be, we wouldn't just want to run back to who we were? I never can quite be sure where I am supposed to be at any given moment, in terms of what the best response would be to whatever situation that I am in, but I am often aware that the response that I am currently given is nearly completely unacceptable by whatever measure. How do we know what it means to be whole, when all we have is our entire life on unwholeness behind us. Is wholeness a worthy goal, or is it, in its impossibility or boringness when achieved really a disqualifying factor.
I was just about to spell check unwholeness, which I know is not a word, when I saw it's replacement "unholiness." There does seem to be something about the idea of holiness that really appeals to me, even though I am not sure what it means. Wholeness seems to be too vague and self-centered to be the ultimate goal in life, sometimes. But holiness, a wholeness achieved through harmony with something bigger than ourselves, seems to have a great appeal to me. I've met people who seem to be "whole," who seem to be exactly what they want to be and are "meant" to be, whatever that means, and they are complete jerks. I think that is probably the main problem for me, then, that wholeness is too temporal, that there seems to be something about it so concerned with this kind of psychological, temporal, carnal mental health, that it leaves untouched that inner desire to be something so much bigger than even our earthly potential would deem the ultimate end of our existence.
How to achieve holiness without it being a competition seems to be another vital factor. What is the right word for holiness when it is simply a comparison to other people who are deemed, in that terrible cliche, "less holy than thou." Probably religiosity. This idea that living a religion is a replacement for living a faith. I know that I've been through times where religion has often replaced faith. And even though those terms had a lot more definite meaning for me a year ago, I think they still hold meaning now. What does it mean to have a faith in something that you are not really sure even what it is? I think maybe that kind of faith could be even more powerful, perhaps. The idea that faith is not believing in this pre-defined deity, but an active search for an understanding of a bigness somewhere out there that is bigger than can be comprehended. Maybe that bigness is the Tao, maybe it's God, maybe it's just the peace and tranquility that appears to be available to everyone in this life who is willing to make an effort to get there.
That kind of faith seems to be, in some way, more connected to that idea of bringing myself to a place where I feel that I have reached a more acceptable state of being me. I don't have a great idea of what the perfect me would be like, but I have a belief that in trying my best to find that me, that the journey will be worth it, and that, somehow, even if there is nothing to find, searching will do me more good than settling.
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