Meaning and Purpose

I have often heard the most famous of Viktor Frankl's quotes from Man's Search for Meaning: 
"...everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." This is a profound thought, often repeated, but difficult to implement. It is a quote that I often cling to in difficult times.

I am currently reading Man's Search for Meaning and today I came across the quote. I read it with surprised joy, to come across it in it's original context. What surprised me more was the quote on the exact opposite page. It is not a single sentence that can be easily picked out of the paragraph and quoted alone, which is why I'm certain it's not as frequently recited. It had as profound an effect on me though. So I quote it here. To best understand it, I am adding the context of the quote above, with the emphasis added:

"...everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.... It is this spiritual freedom - which cannot be taken away - that makes life meaningful and purposeful."

This is the further action. The action that does not require difficult circumstances before we show our best. This is the part of his thesis which compels us to make a purposeful life even absent suffering. So appropriate for this time of year and for those of us to whom fortune has been more attentive this year!

Wedding Thoughts

Officiated another wedding last night! It was fun, beautiful and sweet. This morning I woke up thinking about how much weddings are about community. Just the whole idea that when things go wrong, our friends and family can really be there to help us. Not everyone can for every need, but we rely on our peeps for their different strengths right? I had the notion though, as I lie there thinking, that when we share celebrations and happy times with our friends, they share in our sorrows and difficult times.

I am reminded of the poem "Solitude" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox that I used to fixate on as a morose young adult. There is a line in the poem that goes something like this, "...laugh and the whole world laughs with you, weep and you weep alone...."

Well, I think she is wrong. I think that if all you do is project and look for others to share in your sorrow you will find yourself alone. Turn that around though and if you actively seek to share your joy, to invite others to celebrate with you, they will weep with you when the occasion calls for it.

Ella, share your joy with others first and they will share your sorrows.

Meow

I am going to be EXHAUSTED today. I am working the overnight Friday to Saturday shift at work and I could not sleep last night! It's been a while since I've only had 5 hours of toss and turn sleep. I stayed up watching "Howl" last night. It was so motivating to me that I had to update one of my blogs midway through the movie.

I absolutely was pushed by the scenes in which James Franco, as Ginsberg, describes his writing process. I do not in any way wish to compare myself with Ginsberg, but I've never heard a better description of what it feels like to produce prose.  "I saw windows and thought 'eyes' and I felt 'dun, da, dun, da.....' so that's the way it should be..." (Not an exact quote.) The push and abdominal need to spit out authenticity, through words, through descriptive auditory paintings  - I can feel this. I can feel a corporeal response to that - as if my body rather than my mind agrees with him. In a grunting, hands pushing a plough, feet digging in kind of way. A delicate at times, other times guttural, "unh" "this is me, this is my inside out." It is as if you are slowly, beautifully and grotesquely, inch by inch, from your toes up, pulling your insides up through your gut and out of your mouth to examine, to share, to both shed light on them and to protect them. To declare them safe, valid and real. As if the are not real until they are seen, the very solitary experience of them not enough.

That said, like "Leaves of Grass" I have a feeling that "Howl", if I read it, would feel overly masculine to me. Whitman, while the pure relishing of earth and form resonates with me, has always felt distantly male. I don't know a female voice for this same genre, for this same cry to be seen, to see ones self, to self-validate at the same time you are making an argument that you are valid without question and in prose. In a hazy, half poetic, half drunken or drugged, or elated lyrical way.

My little half asleep, sleep deprived, morning meow.

Another Blog?

Yes, it's true. I was thinking as I woke up this morning about starting yet another blog. This one I envision being a collaborative blog though. I have recently met several other gals who grew up on farms and have this shared experience with me of disconnection and yearning. I would call it "Once Upon a Farm." The three of us could post our thoughts, memories, and experiences of being from a farm family, but no longer living on the farm. All three of us have family still in farming, we just aren't a part of it for various reasons. It's such a unique experience I'm finding. As a young child I knew lots of others who were living on farms. Throughout the 70's and 80's there was a mass exodus from family farming operations though. Again, for various reasons. Each year, the number of other people I knew who were living on farms dwindle rapidly. Now it is such a unique way of having grown up that I would like to preserve the experience as much as possible. Even if just in a little blog. Here we go again!

Wordscapes

This is so, um, I don't know, brash? I am awakening this morning from thoughts about Georgia O'Keeffe and pregnant rivers. I want to do with words what Georgia did with paint. She invited us into the smallest of spaces and opened them to us as vast landscapes. She exploited the tension between what is and where it is. The non-existent boundary between an object and it's surroundings. A seductive touch of surface, object and the caress of our eyes. We are invited to stretch ourselves along the visual curve of a body, to see it at once as a flower, bone, hill. We are challenged to own the joy with Rumi-like passion that borders on sexual. To immerse ourselves in the world around us, to dive into it like warm water, and to experience that as a divine joy rather than a perversion. It is the ultimate invitation to be present in our body.

http://www.okeeffemuseum.org/index.html

The Meditation Tapes and Reading Pay Off!

This morning I woke up thinking about work. I am going through a slightly stressful time at work right now and yesterday was especially stressful. The day started with a volunteer, that I have grown to think of as family, telling me that her cancer is back. She had been diagnosed with cancer and had surgery shortly before my mom's cancer. Her surgery went extremely well and they were so optimistic that they did not give her chemo. Now it's back and she is scheduled for chemo right away. I care about her and don't want to see her go through this. It also brought up my biggest fear for my mom and that was hard to swallow yesterday. Then there are other personnel issues going on that took a turn for the worse yesterday that just sent the day down the toilet. It ended with finding out that a family lost one of their triplets.

As I was reflecting on these things, laying there in bed, I start spinning off into "what if" scenarios, worst case scenarios and "why" questions. What I didn't notice was that it wasn't just my mind that was wandering down this path. At one point I realized my entire body was tensed. Every muscle was poised for action or braced for impact.

A light bulb went off just as soon as I noticed this and with each breath I allowed my body to relax. I envisioned my muscles unfurling and the thoughts about work vanished. I was able to bring my mind back into the present warmth of the bed and the comfort of Jovi's body next to me. I instantly felt better. It made me wonder how many times I have sunk into this whirlpool of negative/worrying thoughts without noticing what it was doing to my body. This made me grateful that I noticed it this time.

Attachments

Have I told you yet that I am attachment disordered? Yeah, yoga is perfect for me. Eastern philosophies are good for me. Not in the avoid attachment sense but rather the learn to be in the present with our attachments. I mean, everyone has some sort of disorder or such right? As a cultural anthropologist I also feel like it is less that we are dysfunctional as individuals as it is our culture has not figured out how to deal with our individual gifts.