"Wish You Were Here"
So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell, blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.
These lyrics took on more meaning for me as I reflect on the fifth suicide of the year of people within one degree of separation. Most close to my age and wealthy professionals with earned esteem by society's standards.
We lay our ladder up against a wall, not knowing for certain if it is the right one, and we start climbing. Without knowing how to come back down or try a different way, sometimes people jump. In a vice, isolated in a world mostly of our own creation, with debt, expectations, toxic relationships and habits with no apparent way out. Well there might be a way out, but it is too radical, too humbling, to self-effacing of the image we have worked and contrived for ourselves that the ego will not allow for you to give it life.
So I want to scream out to everyone who is able to hear this, CHALLENGE IT. Where is LIFE eluding you? Do you see the trees, feel the breeze, shy away from change and growth and challenge and spontaneity for what is touted for security, the big house, the nice car, the bijoux and the malls? They are DEATH and they will tear any meaning out of your life only to tempt your ego to greater heights and illusions. Greed, manipulators who want to control every resource you might have for them to exploit, your time, your talent, your money, your family, your life.
Pause... think of yourself as a 10-year old child, lying in the grass, looking up at the trees, smelling the fresh air, completely secure in being apart from the complicated world of adults. What do you have to let go of? Who and what opportunities lie in front of you that would help to maximize those natural gifts of life and help you to live in the truth that is buried in the depths of your soul, beyond the reach of the threats that drive your current fears.
Please don't present your best self to me so I can applaud your awards and your fashion, your perfect house and large income. I want to see deeper, I want you to tell me what gives you meaning in life, where you struggle, and then I can call you friend. We all have our wounds, and if you try to show me otherwise I will call you a charlatan and know that darker days lie ahead for you, my would-be friend. You can't hide it forever, it will eat away at you and then you will find yourself with thoughts and decisions that such an increasing number of people are having to make, for the worse.
What brings me life, and how do I choose life in the face of immeasurable odds at times, times when I feel alone:
broken heart: is a signal to work on myself, to find myself, what makes me happy and brings me peace so I can fall asleep alone every night and wake up the same way to face my day (this is the friends, exercise, faith, family already talked about in VECTORS).
broken wallet: is a signal to cut back on spending and return to living within my means. fortunately I have never had a hard time with a spartan existence when it has been needed. Decent food and shelter are always affordable, maybe not to some people's standards, but certainly enough to be grateful for each day and not make you feel like you are fighting a losing battle.
broken body: cutting back on some activity and increasing others, and facing change. Trying to do as much as I can, when I can, for as long as I can, as appropriately as I can and healthy eating.
I am thankful for the security I have now, but I am also wary of it. I have seen the personal cost of letting it take priority over all other things. So I will keep my cut off jeans, my bike, my $14 haircut, I won't paint my nails with carcinogenic chemicals, I will embrace adventures that have me sweating and working in endorphine-filled discomfort to reach far and distant places still off the beaten path, and i will continue to challenge my mind. I will have real friends with whom we can bare our burdens and souls, and I will call you to the same.
We are all created to be our unique selves, not some product to be determined by the market.
Luke 12: "29 And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. 30 For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. 31 But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well."
Stay the course, keep upright, fight the good fight, whatever it takes, and know there is a good way, but it needs to be given attention if it is to be realized. Let us all try to be the Ezra's of our times and not allow for the lack of focus on deeper truths to derail us from who we were created to be and the paths we were meant to take that lead us to triumph in life, rather than have its shortcomings defeat us. Know yourself, your weaknesses, your strengths, maintain perspective and an environment that allows you to thrive. It is not easy with so many rules and expectations in the world, but it is necessary for survival, and to keep that bullet from blowing your brains out. Peace.
