I hate them, I said.
Why?
Because they’re beautiful and rich and talented.
I was joking, truly, but was I? What does it mean that such a “joke” should arise?
The true meaning of the word “sin” is to “miss the mark.” (I learned that from Jordan Peterson’s Biblical lecture series, which is fascinating). Most of my life, I believed that it meant to be broken, to be failed. But that’s not what it is to be fallen.
We are imperfect, and that’s a gift, because we have the capacity to be good and we must choose it, consciously. We have the opportunity to aspire to be more than we have been; to be a better version of ourselves.
When the jest works, the joke is both true and not. To acknowledge the thought is to declare the choice.
.
“I forget to wash my hands. Actually, I don’t like to wash my hands.”
Comedian Dusty Slay opened a joke with that line. I was reminded of a reel I saw on Instagram the other day of a guy rubbing two fingers together under the faucet in between cooking tasks.
When the comic approaches the edge, he or she says the thing that we’ve thought, or thought of thinking, and that’s homeopathic. It’s a similar state.
Laughter relieves tension, and true, spontaneous, laughter, resolves, for a moment, the conflict between the need to face the truth about ourselves and our fear of doing so.
Humorless scolds who can’t take a joke are enshrining the darkness it reveals, making it sacred and un-explorable. To send your soul to re-education camp is to become the agent of the very evil you would wish to see eradicated. Something that is sclerosed and calcified cannot dissolve.
It is when I admit to myself what lies beneath that I let it be a reminder of both my motivation and aspiration, rather than an imprisoned demon goading me to violence in an effort to silence it. Then I am free.
Then we laugh.
Am I envious? Am I jealous? Oh, yes. Having hung out a shingle, I am now at the mercy of Imposter Syndrome and Fear of Missing Out and all the things that you get when you put yourself on social media, with the views and the likes and the clicks. The greatest temptation is to run away from it, to not have to see all the beautiful people, all the successful people, all the talented people.
But that wouldn’t make them go away. No, in fact, it would make that illusion more powerful. The better action is to challenge myself to stay with that pain without getting bitter, without victimhood and self-pity, and to hone my skill at self-worth AND self-improvement.
Can I aspire, and laugh when I miss the mark?
.
There are many things I am good at, but in none of them am I the best. And some of my favorite activities, banjo, singing, skiing, lifting, are things that I do not possess talent for and must claw forward in by inches, with tremendous effort.
(A couple days ago I was skiing some of my best runs, when one of my “other” kids – part of the posse that weaves in and out of my house and my car but doesn’t technically belong to me – said, meant kindly, “you have that mom-style of skiing that’s almost pizza sometimes, with a wide stance, and your poles out.” The mouths of babes...)
I do those things, not because I will master them, but because I enjoy them, and because I must surpass the me of yesterday, make no excuses for the me of the tomorrow, and practice for the me of today humility, self-acceptance, and joy.
So do I hate them?
Not really.
A little.
Just kidding.
.
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