What Is Your Profession?

It seems that recently, I am running into more and more people who are tired of the “rat race” that is American life.  More people seem to be getting disillusioned with the idea that for the rest of their lives they are going to have to sell their time for money often doing things that they have little to no interest in.  Some of them are responding by starting their own businesses. Some are responding by taking more time off to be with their loved one and cultivating a que sera sera mindset. And some are spending more time doing creative endeavors in order to cultivate their talents.  The happiest people I know are people who have somehow managed to do all three at once. And the saddest are those people who have already given up and are just burying their heads until they get laid off or die. Then there are people like me who are stumbling their way through this life picking up clues as I go and shifting as necessary. Then of course there are also those people who just love making money for money’s sake.  They’ll be fine no matter what because frankly they aren’t thinking about any of this stuff I am talking about anyway, so there’s no conflict and they will always do whatever they have to do to survive–by hook or by crook.

Click for more images

So, If you watched the video, you know that the point I am trying to make in this post is that we become what we profess. While many of us think of our “profession” as our job, it more accurately has to do with the vows we make in life with our words, work, deeds, and our very being.  Even though most of us Americans seem to define ourselves by our jobs, very few of us give much thought to the fact that often we cease to be people, and rather, become extensions of our jobs. In essence we are slaves. Sure, you could say that we are free, but if we were really free we would know that we have a choice about whether or not or at least how we would like to participate in this people project that is our country.  But really how many of us feel free?  If we were free, we would profess that above other things.  And more of us would allow ourselves to cultivate the God given talents and gifts that each of us have.  But instead, most of us just do what we are advised to do by external sources.  We become such a big part of the production line that even our desires are manufactured.  I’m convinced that most of us don’t even really want the things we think we want or even like the things we say we like.  We have just been professing the status quo so much that we can’t tell what we really feel or desire. Maybe I’m wrong, but if I’m not and you want to shift, what can we do about it?  Well I think it all starts with imagination. Creating a world from within and then professing it without.

Recently I got to learn more about one of the parents from the bus stop where I drop off my daughter in the morning.  She happens to be an artist.  In our brief conversations, I was able to learn a little about the different types of art she does.  Her art is very eclectic and very thought provoking.  What really amazed me was that her work invited me into spaces I had never seen, because she created art that I would have never conceived of like the one above.  When I saw this picture and some of her other work, I felt this sense of relief.  I was just happy to see so many out of the box works.  It reminded me that within each of us is this infinite resource of creativity and imagination.  I look at my daughter and hr friends and remember that it is something that we are all born with and as youths we profess the limitless nature of our being.  But then one day we start professing that we are this or that and then the more we say it the more we become it.  After a while we forget how much more we are.  We profess, “I am a teacher, a parent, a divorcee, a home owner, a vacationer, a Pats Fan… yadda yadda yadda.”  And that’s it.  That’s all we seem to be.  But that’s not all we are. We are so much more.

Because I choose to experience myself as more, I am professing it to others that they are more.  I’m at the point where I don’t even care if anyone is listening. I am just going to profess it because I know that I will become whatever I profess–that is I will become the vows I make through my words, works, deeds, and very being.  I also know that if I hang out with other who are professing that they are more than the work they do or the roles they play, then this awareness will be even more established in me.  Does that make sense?  Well if so, reach out.  With all these forms of communication, there’s no excuse for more people willing to make this profession not connecting.

You May Say I’m Not A Dreamer

For in the multitude of dreams and many words there is also vanity.–Ecclesiastes 5:7

I remember when I was a child and my brothers and my cousins would always look out the windows on a drive and point out to nice cars saying, “That’s my car! That’s my car!”  I never really participated.  When they would try to get me to play along I would just say, “I’m too young for a car and so are all of you.  Those are not your cars.”  Of course they thought I was being boring and maybe they were right.  But to me I was just being with the present reality.  I was too young for a car and really had no interest in pretending that those cars were mine.  I knew that one day I would have a car and when that time came, I’d start paying more attention to them. I was the same way with females.  When my male family and friends were lusting over girls and women and trying to get girlfriends at an early age, I had little interest.  I liked girls, but I had no interest in pretending like we were in a full blown relationship when I didn’t even have a driver’s license.  I enjoyed the company of females, but I didn’t project a future onto them.  I just wanted to be where we were and just see how the mystery unfolded.  Of course, this didn’t go over with the females well either.  Like my brothers and cousins, with few exceptions they thought I was being boring at best and I was frequently accused of not caring.  But just like with the cars, I just was more inclined to be in the moment.

As I said in the video, I was like that for most of my life.  I’m pretty sure when I said to my soon to be mother in law that I had no hopes and dreams she probably thought her daughter was dating a complete fool.  Aren’t hopes and dreams what it’s all about?  Maybe. Maybe not.  The way I see it, we are all already dreaming.  Haven’t you noticed? How many times have you gone through a day and before you know it it’s gone.  You’re wondering what the heck happened to the time. Or you look back on your younger days when you were a kid and now here you are middle aged or a senior citizen. Where did the time go?  Is it possible you dreamed it away?  I think so.  So from my vantage point, dreaming is more of a problem than a solution. Maybe for some others, dreaming is just what the doctor ordered.  For me staying awake is where it’s at.  If I am awake, then I will know what is going on and how to best respond to what is happening.  If I’m dreaming, I take the chance of being suddenly awakened only to find that I have no clue what is going on.

Still, trying to stay awake doesn’t mean I can’t look forward to some things or enjoy the thought of possibilities.  It just means that I keep these projections in their proper perspective and don’t get too attached to outcomes. Besides, I have this feeling that whatever unfolds out of this mystery called life will be a lot more interesting if I surrender to God’s vision for me than if I rely on what  I can come up with out of my own limited imagination.

C.S. Lewis On time [From The Screwtape Letters]

[The demon Screwtape writes:] The humans live in time but our Enemy destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which our Enemy has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them. He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present—either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.

Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present. With this in view, we sometimes tempt a human (say a widow or a scholar) to live in the Past. But this is of limited value, for they have some real knowledge of the past and it has a determinate nature and, to that extent, resembles eternity. It is far better to make them live in the Future. Biological necessity makes all their passions point in that direction already, so that thought about the Future inflames hope and fear. Also, it is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it we make them think of unrealities. In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time —for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays.

I’m About To Go Hoff

Oooh. Tastes so good.

You know who I appreciate right now?  David Hasselhoff.  Back in the day we just called him Knight Rider.  I can hear the theme song in my head right now.  Sing it with me.  Dun dada dun.  Dun dada dun.  Dun dada dun dun dun.  I don’t know if it was the car that made him so cool or if it was just him.  Maybe it was his relationship with the car.  Who knows? I just thought he was cool.  But then he did Baywatch.  I don’t know how I felt about that, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt because of Knight Rider, but I still couldn’t get into the show.  I just didn’t want to watch Knight Rider running around in swim trunks and carrying that orange thing. Then he did Baywatch Nights with the black dude from Baywatch.  He was playing a detective. I didn’t even try to get into that show.  He may have done some other stuff, but I didn’t know anything about it.  Then one day, I saw this weird video on Youtube or something with him singing this song called  Jump In My Car (see below).  In the video, he was driving a KITT car with the steering wheel on the Euro side.  It was a really bizarre video.  He even wore his Baywatch gear and in one scene he turned into some weird devil dude when he decided to kick out of his car the very girl he begged to get into it. Ultimately he ejected her using the famous ejector seat feature.

When I first saw the video I was like, “What are you doing Knight Rider?  Stop.  Don’t destroy the 80s with this cheesy a** video. You are Michael Effin Knight!!!  Michael Effin Knight!!!”  Then it got worse.  I clicked on another video of his where he was singing that song Hooked On A Feeling. I am adding that video for your viewing pleasure as well.  What you will see is The Hoff flying through the air like The Greatest American Hero, sort of snowboarding down a mountain on a sled dressed like an Eskimo, as well as somehow riding a motorcycle by standing on the seat.  Another video to which I was like “What is happening?”  I would not have been surprised if Mr. T showed up in the video pitying fools who “hassled the Hoff”.

As you can probably tell, I was not particularly fond of The Hoff’s post Knight Rider career choices.  I mean imagine if you saw someone like Luke Skywalker–if you’re into Star Wars–singing I will Be Your Father Figure while battling Darth Vader. Wouldn’t you be slightly disturbed at first?  I think it’s that whole, “How the mighty have fallen” sort of thing that none of us wants to experience.  That’s how I felt at first and then something strange happened.  I started drinking iced coffee at my local Cumberland Farms and everything changed.  One day, I was surprised to see a huge poster of no one other than the Hoff himself rocking a gold chain with  a big 99¢ on it and his shirt wide open with the caption, “Enjoy an iced Hoffee”.  I laughed and said to Ryan, the super customer service dude, “that guy just doesn’t give up.”  Ryan agreed and then told me that actually the campaign was so popular that people kept stealing their posters and signs forcing them to keep ordering more. Apparently people were snatching them up and then taking pictures with the posters in various places like weddings and vacations.  The thought made me laugh and then it made me think.  What was it about the Hoff that made people want to steal his posters?  Was it their awesome cheesiness or was it the fact that deep down inside we love the Hoff because the The Hoff won’t quit.  He won’t go away.  He could have disappeared in the 80s.  He could have stayed in Germany where apparently he is a huge pop singer.  But no, he didn’t fade away like the stars of Airwolf and Riptide.  This man stuck around and threw the 80s back at us with some signature cheesy videos and exposed chest hair and made at least me laugh as he did the serious business of not taking himself too seriously.

As a person trying to create something original with my life, I look for inspiration where I can find it.  Today I find it in the Hoff.  He showed me that no matter what, you have to keep creating and be able to laugh at yourself.  When you fall down drunk on the floor and all you want is a cheeseburger (him not me), you get up and you keep going.  When people want to look at you as the person you once were, you can just recreate yourself.  There’s nothing to stop us but the limits of our imagination. Those are just some of the master keys to longevity and aliveness that I got from the Hoff that I think we all can benefit from.  That and drinking a whole lot of iced Hoffee.

Everything Has A Purpose

Sometime ago, I adopted the mindset that absolutely everything has a purpose.  I determined that there is nothing that is that “should not be” in and of itself.  I accepted that context and usefulness determine the value of things to people.  From that point of view, it is possible to live a life of constant discovery.  Upon this platform our minds can create a use for almost everything.  The banana bread is a perfect example.  When I looked in the fridge and saw bananas that looked like this:

Heartburn waiting to happen

my first thought was how it was just another symbol of the wastefulness I was feeling after getting sucked into a Steven Seagal-thon for 6 hours.  I just felt dirty.  No offense Steven.  But then I remembered that I could change my mind about what these bananas symbolized.  They were still good for something.  They did not have to go to waste if I was willing to put in the work.  And so even though the laziness factor was trying to talk me out of it by telling me how late it was, I made use of my resonant Steven Seagal vibrations to psychically karate chop that weakness in me and turned those mushy bananas into this:

Deliciousness wins the day

As I pushed myself to grab all of the ingredients and look online for a recipe, I felt myself getting energized.  My mind engaged and it became a holistic experience.  As I loosely followed two different recipes, I began thinking of how much my daughter would enjoy the banana bread.  She loves it when my wife makes it and I figured I could do just as well. Mashing the bananas, I thought about all of the brown bananas my grandma gave me as a child and laughed.  Why didn’t she ever make banana bread I wondered.  Flour, eggs, milk, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and melted butter joined the bananas in the mixing bowl.  I stir and stir until I feel like I have the right consistency. Cooking is chemistry I realize.  I buttered the loaf pan and poured in  the mixture.  I become consciously aware of how amazing it is that we can bake in glass cookware.  The process that makes glass strong enough to cook with is called tempering. I think of how interesting that is and look up the process and discover that it is created by negotiating a balance of internal stresses.  Hmmm.  Very interesting.  By balancing internal stresses, glass that was once weak, becomes stronger.  I wonder if the same process works on people. The heat is on.  Heat and time are the final contributions to the banana bread. Two hours later, we’re eating it. It’s as delicious as it looks. The purpose of my work is fulfilled.  But not only that,  I’m fulfilled.  I’m stronger.  Maybe I’ve been tempered.  Prior to taking action on baking the bread, my internal stresses were all out of balance.  But when I let go of my disappointment in how I spent the greater part of my day and decided to use the negative energy for good, the creative nature of the Universe was able to fill in the space and use every part of the day to make something both useful and delicious.  New context, new insights.

The Right Way to Get to the Wrong Place

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it is that we all live with the tendency to tell ourselves stories about who we are and who other people are.  The stories are defense mechanisms designed to protect us from getting hurt and to control our environment in order to get out of it what we think we need.  As a result, when we come into contact with others, it is rarely an authentic encounter, but rather an interaction with a thought or idea in our head.  The people we meet just become characters in our fictions. Depending on how unsafe we feel is the degree to which our parents, significant others, our children, pets, etc. all become characters that we write and rewrite in our minds.  If they are characters in our minds that we are creating, then we can anticipate their actions, create reasonable expectations, and bolster our own sense of safety.  But the fact is that none of us ever meet the same person twice.  Crazier still, none of us are the same person from moment to moment.  The story we tell ourselves about ourselves that makes us look like a consistent being is also fiction.  In reality we are all over the place (in more ways than you might be able to willing to comprehend right now).  The way we create the illusion of consistency is by retelling the stories we created about ourselves and others.  It is similar to following directions to get to a place.  Directions are nothing more than a story of how to get from one place to another.  The first few you go to a place you’ve never been, you might fully engage in the story, because your fear of getting lost overcomes your desire to control the story. But once you know how to get there, do you really keep paying attention to the details?  Most of us don’t.  What matters is getting to the destination.  When the risk of getting lost is minimized, that part of us that pays attention to details tends to follow suit.

Here’s a way to put it in perspective. Would you ever use your GPS (if you have one) or take down directions to get to a place you’ve been to before?  Why would you?  Well the only reasons I would still use it would be if I had not been to the place enough times to be certain I knew where it was; if the route was so complicated that I wanted a little insurance that I would get there; or if the route I usually took was congested and I needed a detour.  Otherwise, I would just trust myself that I knew how to get there based on past experience.  If I was confident enough in my knowledge, I’d probably use the part of my brain normally used for navigation to listen to an audiobook, talk on the phone, daydream, etc.  For example when I’m driving home from work or church or something, I’m so used to the route that it almost feels like I just appear at the house.  I rarely have any recollection of the drive at all.  Scary huh?  But do you remember all your drives home from work?  Of course not.  Our brains are designed that way.  Once it master’s something it becomes as easy as breathing for most people and then we don’t really think about them anymore.  Blah blah blah.  But that’s not my point.  My main point is that when you know something you no longer need directions.  It’s a great thing, but then again, it can be a dangerous thing too because we have a tendency to make assumptions based on our limited pool of knowledge. And that, in my opinion, is what leads us to getting lost in so many other areas in our lives.  We stop paying attention as soon as we think we don’t have to.

For example, I was in the car on my way to an area I thought I had been to before.  The other person in the car also thought that they had been to the same place.  However, unbeknownst to us we were thinking of two different places.  As a result, we also thought the quickest route to the place was different. So we used the GPS to settle it.  Because the two places we were thinking of were close to each other, when the GPS told us to take one route over the other we just assumed that the route times were so similar that the GPS couldn’t tell the miniscule difference.  It wasn’t until we go to the general area and the GPS told us to take a right where one of us was thinking a left that any confusion started.  Now what we could have done in this instance was to trust the GPS and go where it led.  But instead we went the way that the other person was certain was right and I didn’t really protest because I figured they must know something that I didn’t because I had never been to the actual place; only the area where the place was supposed to be.  So after taking the left, the GPS proceeded to tell us to make a U-turn.  Instead of listening to the GPS, we just assumed the GPS was wrong and kept going on the guidance of the other person’s prior experience.  Fortunately when the GPS kept protesting, we were wise enough to call someone who was already at the destination.  That person then proceeded to give us the same directions as the GPS.  It was then that the person I was with realized that they had made an honest mistake.  They were going the right way to the wrong place.  They did not assume that two so similar establishments would be so close to each other that they never really looked closely at the address.

Obviously, this situation was no big deal.  All we had to do was trust the person who was already there and we were back on track.  That’s real easy to do for something as simple as directions, but what do we do in other areas of our lives when we think we have it figured out based on past experience.  Do we zombie out like I do on the way home from a familiar place?  Do we cultivate the ability to be able to discern when we need guidance from elsewhere as well as the humility to receive and apply that guidance?  Do we subject ourselves to the instruction of one who is already there and go where they lead?  Ultimately the decision is ours alone.  Each decision has its merits depending on the situation.  Just be mindful that while it might be safe to assume in many situations, it is not always the wisest or most direct route to where we hope to be.