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Stephanie.
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June 29, 2017 at 7:05 am #155526
PearceHawkParticipantThe other day I decided to escape my thinking about the world with all it’s problems like I quite frequently do, and think about the cosmos, again, like I quite frequently do. That is not to say I could have diverted my thoughts to what this planet has to offer in terms of amazing places and what I believe is a minority among the 7.5+ billion residents, truly amazing people. When I step back and think about the cosmos, I imagine looking at our planet and the people inhabiting it. When I dusted off some of the obscure files of my memory, I remember a speech that the late great Carl Sagan gave, I believe it was at Cornell U in ’94 if memory serves me correct. (I invite you to look at A Pale Blue Dot on The Planetary Society web site.) I want to share this with you as a segue to ask my 2 questions…
“We succeeded in taking that picture, and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there – on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.”
“The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.”
“To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”
Every time I recall this speech it never fails to blow my mind because although his speech was given over 23 years ago, it is still relevant today. That speech continues to challenge me to ask myself the two questions I have for all…
What do you think that we, as a human race, want from life? What do YOU want from life? For me my answers are not absolute nor are they static because the world is in a constant state of flux with it’s myriad of events. In essence, the more my perspective changes although they (my perspective) seem to remain a relative constant, if that makes sense. (all too often I have a hard time expressing my thoughts) I think it is fair to share my thoughts, after all I DID ask you and so it is only courteous for me to answer. I think that what we, as a human race, want out of life, is more time. More time to do more things, more time to accomplish things, to fill our bucket list, the opportunity to go back in time and say I’m sorry when we didn’t but should have, more time to forgive, more time to advance our individual and collective agendas etc etc. For me, personally, what I want from life, is to be fully connected with understanding my relationship with what the Lakota refer to as Wâkân Tâkân, (pronounced woo kahn too kahn), translated as The Great Mystery, or as most people associate themselves with, God, a sense of purpose with that understanding. I guess I could call that understanding and sense of purpose Enlightenment.
What do you think?
Pearce
June 29, 2017 at 10:13 am #155560
CraigParticipantHi Pearce,
I have enjoyed your posts, including this one.
My thinking around your question has changed a lot over the years. I used to have layers upon layers of complicated thoughts, and now, well not so much.
I simply want connection. I suppose that could be described in terms of connecting with myself, or connecting with Other (The Great Mystery). But for me, it comes down to the very concrete desire of wanting to connect with humans. When I am “in relationship” with healthy people, my connection with myself and with Other takes care of itself. I think this happens because we are social creatures, and in my opinion, we grow and learn best in the space of other caring human beings.
Taking it one step further, I want connection with a woman who wants, and is able to do her part to nurture connection. I have met several “nice” women over the last few months, but I am astounded at how they simultaneously want connection and do things to sabotage their desire (lying, not talking, disappearing, multidating). Part of this is that the dating pool in middle age is disproportionately populated with avoiders, people who deal with their internal attachment anxieties by avoiding attachment.
But that’s just me. Still searching for what *I* want.
June 29, 2017 at 11:01 am #155578PearceHawkParticipantCraig thank you for reading my post and offering your visions. Your perspective on the relationships as well as your experiences resonates with my experiences and wants. I like to think that the way I choose to learn, to live life, for lack of a better term, is a holistic approach. I would like to be involved, deeply involved, with a woman where my efforts to be a better person in many ways, is in line with hers. To me that would mean “we found each other” where we both can nurture each other’s desire to think and be in a better pace. It is not the antiquated proverbial my way or the highway. It would be our way. There is one thing that is 100% certain. I will not settle for less just because I have not found that person. I remain patient in quest for finding this person. Even that has a caveat in that it has been said many times in many different ways, that patience is not as passive as people think. It is active. It is concentrated strength, even though we do like to see it as a passive gesture. I think that people do exhaust their efforts to find that special person and settle for less than what they want to pacify their insecurities because they are lonely. For many, to settle for less is the answer for them and I guess that too is also fine for them. Doing so has no value to me. For many this feeling of being lonely chips away at their self worth. I used to doubt myself and question my self worth because I was lonely. A long time ago I realized that the feeling of being lonely is really a chance for me to question, what the hell is going on. Even that turns into an invitation, an opportunity, for me to find a quiet place, quiet my mind, be at peace and mental clarity, and clear the attic so to speak. When I do that, the feeling/experience that I get I cannot describe to someone that would comprehend what I am feeling. That is not to say that the person I would describe that experience/feeling to is not capable of comprehending. It is just my level of experience in describing what I feel is limited by finding words coherent enough to put the listener in the same realm to fully appreciate it.
I think for many people they do not want to change. They are comfortable in the narrow margins of their comfort zone. For them that may be just fine. For me, that’s just like eating broccoli-I refuse to do it. Not going to happen. I often tell people that learning has no value if change is no longer necessary. But for me, life is about learning, it’s about making the necessary changes for a much better quality of life, it’s about connecting with the elements that effect change for the better and being able to nurture that knowledge.
Like you, I am still searching for what it is that I want. For me, looking for I want is not singular. Maybe by the end of the book of my life and I am about to go into the next “room”, as I call it when my body dies, I will be able to say that indeed, I did find what I want. Until then, I keep learning, and I learn and I learn…
Thank you for sharing a personal side of your life. I appreciate learning from you…
June 29, 2017 at 11:53 am #155612CraigParticipantThanks for your thoughts, Pearce!
“It is not the antiquated proverbial my way or the highway.” Antiquated, yes, but oh so popular! My opinion is that “my way or the highway” thinking devours about 90% of the energy required for dating. People walking around with their lists of what they think will make them happy. For fun, here are some real life “issues” women have worried about with me: “I use salt on food, and you don’t.” “I like movies, you like being outside.” “I’m international, and you’re not (whatever that means).”
I believe that I can co-create the kind of connection I want with a partner. The raw materials are mutual attraction, some mental energy, and the desire to grow and learn together (as you so articulately said). It has nothing to do with salt, or movies, or what country we’re from.
I was also thinking about your remarks about people not wanting to change. I think there’s a lot of fear “out there.” That’s okay, probably fear has kept people alive for millions of years. But (here goes my opining again), often fear erupts out of the reptilian brain when in fact, there’s no threat in the present. So I sometimes behave as if there is a present danger, when there’s not. And this is life-diminishing. It’s an ongoing lesson for me.
July 10, 2017 at 11:21 am #157334
StephanieParticipantPearce, Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’ speech gets me every time. Goose bumps…
I think you are on to something when you said your answers weren’t static. I think everything we want out of life changes with the situations we find ourselves in at that point in time.
As for me in this particular moment, I am looking for acceptance and true connection with another person. Obviously with Craig’s response, I am not alone in this. In my thinking, you are unable to have a true connection with someone without total acceptance of who that person is, whether or not they like salt or if they are an outdoor or indoor person…but in the end opening up to another person is scary and uncomfortable and most people come up with their own rules (read: excuses) to dating (and life) to avoid being uncomfortable…
Maybe this is what the human race is striving for – continuously searching for a place they belong but the fear of vulnerability keeps us at arms length or in this day and age at keyboards-length.
Our always connected society has diminished what it means to be connected. And it is lonely…but like you said Pearce, I would rather take the ‘loneliness’ than settling for something less than what I want.
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