Self-reliance in an age of gross dependency

"You only grow when you are alone."

              - Paul Newman
                 1925-2008

     Did you know that Paul Newman played the piano? I didn't either, until I saw him on Inside the Actors' Studio, and at the end of his interview, he wandered over to the piano and began playing.

     He also made salad dressing. And raced cars. And gave a ton of money to charity, and devoted lots of time to good causes, and stayed married to his wife all those years, and was such a beautiful expression of the life force because everything he did he put his heart into. He didn't become over-identified with his fame, or movies or anything else. He just lived.

    Becoming over-identified with anything is to kill the life force.

     Like Diahann Carrol in her autobiography called THE LEGS ARE THE LAST TO GO with a picture of her on the cover of the book over-identifying with her legs. As if there were any way we ourselves could care any less about how her legs looked. This is a grotesque age of juvenile narcissism. Especially from adults. There's an exaggerated neurotic focus on what other people think. Extreme and gross dependence.

     Why not spend some time alone?

     Solitude is where character, creativity and courage all grow strong.

     "The honest truth is that it's sad to be over sixty," concludes Nora Ephron in her book, I FEEL BAD ABOUT MY NECK. If you are over-identified with the body, it WOULD be sad to be over sixty. But how narcissistically juvenile are we willing to be?

     So much so that we buy things we can't even afford? Or that we over-eat for pleasure and emotional stuffing? Would a whole nation do that? Wouldn't it collapse economically if it did?

     There is a cure for the obesity epidemic in the United States. It was expressed long ago by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his wonderful essay on self-reliance. He wrote, "Instead of the gong for dinner, let us hear a whistle from a Spartan fife."

     Tom Wolfe studied the life of the novelist Balzac because he wanted to know how Balzac was so productive. How he wrote so much! Wolfe said of Balzac, "I am convinced that the reason this genius was so productive - he published at least sixty books between the ages thirty and fifty-one - was that he enjoyed no time- or labor-saving devices whatsoever, not even a typewriter. He dropped nothing and went nowhere at a moment's notice."

     We are victims of our own self-created, labor-saving abundance in America. We can entertain (in my case "distract from my mission") ourselves with countless delights. TV. Movies. Plays. Galleries. Etc. Ben Folds has a great song about this called "All U Can Eat." In the song he sings about overweight American people in SUVs driving around buying absolutely unnecessary things. His song's conclusion is:

     "God made us number one because he loves us the best

      Well maybe He should go bless someone else for a while, give us a rest" 

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    A reader of this blog writes, "I would love to hear your take on our collective economy. Any ideas on how to be with this individually? Individually and collectively. I am aware of the paradox here. Werner Erhard said that paradox and confusion are the 2 dragons that guard the door of truth, or words to the effect. I am being with that the grass roots concept will be the way. And a collective grass roots movement-whatever that could be. Any ideas?"

     Here's my idea. Things are changing dramatically. Sick systems are getting cleaned out so that we can build back stronger. Fat and rot are being blown from the corridors of the financial complex. It scares people to become this healthy this fast. Hold on! Let me languish in the false sense of security I used to have!

     But change is a good thing. It allows us to develop self-reliance in an age of codependence. No longer do we ride the bubble, or look for parental companies to care for us. We grow.

     And as Andrew Cohen said, "It seems to be the human tendency to want to resist change, to want to create the illusion of security in an insecure universe, and to avoid at all costs facing into the awesome and unlimited nature of life itself."

     Hard times allow us to see that we ourselves have awesome and unlimited natures that we haven't even begun to call upon. 

     I will start a club that will teach people not to join clubs. Club paradox. A club for individuals who are willing to learn self reliance and become fearless. Club fearless. A club for people who want to express their awesome and unlimited natures without waiting for permission to do so.

Comments

[Mike Collins]

Hi Steve - great perspective on taking responsibility. One of the best examples of grass roots responsibility and reorganisation I have come across has been initiated by a guy - who was originally a client and later a friend of mine - called Rob Hopkins. His website is at www.transitionculture.org He started what has become known as the "Transition Towns" movement. It works on the basis of "lets assume that depleting oil will result in a deflation of globalisation and lets get inter-dependent on a community level again". Not as armageddon-like as I am making it sound - more like a very positive response to an uncertain future. The movement has now really snowballed and now has about 400 communities around the world involved. Worth a look!
Best Regards - Mike Collins.