Chapter 20.2: Standing Up, Standing Out, & Standing Tall

 

The masses are all resplendent and rejoicing, as if feasting on the fatted calf,

as if climbing a pagoda in spring to enjoy the scenery.

I alone am anchored in the water, without showing any signs of divine favor,

Innocent as a newborn babe, who has yet to sneer or cheer;

Tired from hard work, but with seemingly no home to return to.

The masses all have their surplus things,

I alone am not leaving behind a legacy of loss and loose ends.

How foolish is my heart – like a monkey holding a snake!

The common folk are brilliant, I alone am unenlightened.

The common folk are insightful, I alone am close-minded.

Rolling waves, they are as the sea; blown about on the wind, seemingly without footing.

The masses all have their means and undertakings, I alone am unyielding and lowly.

I alone am different from people, and value feeding from the Mother. 

In a rare shift to first-person narrative, this passage describes the feelings and sentiments that we feel as we seek to promote ourselves, put ourselves on display, show off, and try and enhance our worth in the world with external adornments.  They are resplendently and radiantly dressed in their finest threads, made up and adorned with exquisite jewelry, as if going to a red-carpet, by invitation only, high society banquet, go big or go home vacations, high visibility photo ops with social media tags, or for a night on the town.  In contrast sagely, or wise people, anchored in stillness amidst the wild party, don’t need to show off, showcase, display our good life, or virtue signal our “#blessed” status for all to see.  Wise people don’t need to be in the limelight, seek to go viral, or be right in the middle of what is trending now. 

Instead, we can need to return a holistic state of childlike innocence before we inherited subjective social stereotypes and formed our strong opinions about this or that – like young children who will play with anyone who haven’t yet been taught that they can’t play with this person or that because of the color of their skin, the way they talk, or their family’s political or religious views.  Choosing such a life is not easy.  It can be lonely and exhausting.  So many of us feel like we don’t belong so we try to fit into to society and find our tribe through one endeavor or another. 

We all have our interests, pastimes, and hobbies, the things we collect and amass, whether it be tangible commodities or experiences.  The world teaches us that the more we can get of these things the better – even if we have to go into debt to get them.  This rampant consumerism, driven by manipulative marketing preys on our chronic dissatisfaction and desperate, unmet needs in our lives.  The average American family has over $90,000 of consumer debt and the fiscal health of the nation is even worse!  Decades of overspending, imbalanced budgets (the U.S. budget currently has an annual $3 trillion dollar deficit), and political pork barrel spending, kickbacks, and pet projects has saddled the U.S. with a staggering and unsustainable $30 trillion dollar national debt, which grows exponentially every hour.  We cannot keep kicking this legacy of loss and loose ends down the road for future generations to resolve. 

The world and society often pressures us to conform but we can choose to sever the peer pressure to be seen a certain way, the anxiety of acceptance, and the craze of conditional culture that could cancel us at any moment if we raise a voice of concern or dissent from the mainstream.  Yet, part of us still wants to belong and be accepted by this sycophantic society.  How foolish and dangerous this is!  Like a venomous viper, cancel culture can turn on us at any time!  Why do we insist on picking up and playing with such constricting cultural anacondas and poisonous political party mambas (originally this read poisonous pythons and constricting cobras but my young sons pointed out that pythons are technically constrictors and are not poisonous and cobras are not constrictors ... so I had to set hyperbole aside for animal accuracy :p)?  It is not easy standing up and standing out.  We run the risk of being (mis)judged, misunderstood, and maligned by the mainstream, of offending a vocal minority, and being targeted by the vitriolic voices of social media.  The popularity project is fundamentally misguided and if we do not ground and anchor ourselves from the tumult of opinions and the typhoon of toxic trends, we run the risk of being carried away by our contemporary culture.  In the words of Dr. Seuss (recently cancelled for some of his views): “Why fit in when you were born to stand out?”

We can choose to be true to ourselves, embrace our place in the universe, and not compromise our own values, even if other people think less of us.  So stand up, stand out, and stand tall.  Or as poet, writer, philosopher, and visionary Suzy Kassem put it: “Stand up for what’s right even if you stand alone” and “stand up for truth, regardless of who steps on it.” While the world rolls along, looking for something out there, trying to find some miracle cure to what ails us, wisdom lies in returning to the Mother of all things – to that which gave us birth –and to those things inside of each of us that bring us to life and nurture our souls and the souls of those around us. We can experience a homecoming of self, return to the wellspring of our souls, strengthen our core, and nourish our root system and give everyone else around us permission to do the same.  ~ DCB 

Etymology Notes: The character 遺 (yí), meaning “to lose” or “to leave behind” is a compound ideogram originally comprised of a road and foot 辵 (now simplified to the 辶 “motion” radical) on the left and 貴 (guì) meaning “precious” on the right, the older form is written as 䝿 and is comprised of two hands holding onto things on top of a cowry shell 貝. Taken together the character refers to those precious things we, as people, try and hold on to with both hands 𦥑 but often lose along the path of life.  The character also conveys a sense of “loose” or “to loosen” and refers to the loose articles that we tie up in a bundle when we travel.  When not tied up, these loose ends and unsecured articles are lost along the road.  The character also conveys the idea of bequeathing or leaving behind a legacy for others.  I have drawn upon all these meanings in rendering 遺 as “a legacy of loss and loose ends.”