Inadequacy

They say that each person has a purpose on life that no one else can fulfill—a beautiful thought that seems so perfectly clear for some. For others, darkness and uncertainty and lack of confidence overshadow that hope.

Why is there this crippling sense of inadequacy?

As one looks around, it seems that everyone else has such confidence, such certainty, such skill in achieving whatever they set out to do. It seems that others can always do it better, whatever it might be. One's own efforts seem paltry by comparison. It seems that one is doomed to failure no matter how hard his efforts, or, if not failure, at least to falling short, not merely of perfection, but falling short of what anyone else might accomplish.

Crippling I described it and truly it is. If one listens to the voice of despair, his confidence evaporates like dew beneath the burning summer sun. His voice dies in his throat. He dares not reach out to others, thinking he could never mean anything to them. So it is that he sinks into the dark hole of his own fear, hiding from terrors made by his own imagination. He dares not strive and his creative energy withers.

Someone working in film whose name I cannot recall at present once spoke of how one can create only if he is free. There is much truth to that. It is freedom that gives boundless horizons to the artist to explore, freedom that opens his mind to the possibilities in the world about him, freedom that stirs in his heart the wonder that ponders how things might be if they were other than they are.

Thus, for an artist, few things could be worse than this crippling sense of inadequacy. It not only withers anything he strives to bring to birth through his work, but also turns to dust whatever he might have dared to accomplish, annihilating any desire to reach for the sublime, hindering any bold leaps of faith that constitute the risks an artist takes when he exposes himself through his work. For, if he himself is inadequate, how could he dare to be presumptuous enough to put himself into his work? How could he believe that others could be moved through the beauty that dwells within him?

Do all experience this phenomenon of inadequacy? Perhaps it is only that they know how to handle it better—how to accept their own weakness and brokenness and reach beyond it—how to put on a bold face that defies such inner turmoil.

Or is it only the sensitive soul that finds itself crippled by this feeling of being crushed beneath the weight of its own brokenness?  Is it only he who seeks a cloak of invisibility lest others should see his inadequacy?

Perhaps someday I shall better understand what I now ponder in uncertainty.  Until then, I hope to have the courage to delve deeper in this mystery that is life in this world.

I conclude with words from Shakespeare expressing the essence of my question:

"Our doubts are traitors,

And make us lose the good we oft might win,

By fearing to attempt."

-Measure for Measure

To What Point and Purpose?

Some days you just want to give up.  It just doesn't seem worth it to keep struggling on all by your lonesome.  Do you know what I mean?

I'm sure many people feel this way on account of some legitimate castastrophe such as losing everything in a hurricane or being torn from their homes and threatened with death if they won't give up their faith.  However, I seem able to feel this way from something insignificant, such as some slight disappointment or a feeling that I am going to fail at something or simply because I want more than what I have.

Today was one of those days for me.  It started out well with one of the greatest blessings bestowed upon mankind, but for some reason after spending hours trying to get ready for my senior year as a drama major I found I really didn't care very much anymore.  If I were someone else I would just say forget it and go watch some movie or television show for the fourth or fifth time and have a grand old time.  But I can't do that.  I seem to be overly responsible or something.  So I just plowed onward until I found I felt as if I hated it all.

Then it occurred to me that I didn't have to do it.  I was the only one making myself finish my degree as a drama major.  Why didn't I just choose to do something I enjoyed more?

When I couldn't stand it anymore I went for a long bike ride, seeing how far my stubbornness and rising anger at myself and my heap of work could carry me.  I am pretty stubborn, so I know it could have carried me a good distance, but that wouldn't have been enough to take me up and down all those hills...

As I forced myself up a ridiculously-steep hill and my legs began to ache and my breath came short, I wondered why I was doing this.  It seemed like a sort of analogy for the preparation for my senior year.  I could just as easily have given up on that.  After all, I was the only reason I was physically forcing myself up the hill with the heat forcing sweat from my pores.  Why didn't I give up?

Well, I'll tell you this: it wasn't for myself; it was for you, my friends or random strangers who come upon this blog.  This may sound silly unless you believe in the power of intercessory prayer, but there it is.

If I had someone with whom I could share all this I might never have broken my nearly two years of silence on this blog, but, feeling lonely, I decided to cast my words out, not knowing where they might touch.  It's not that I don't have friends—I have been extraordinarily blessed in that regard actually—but they all seem busy with their lives or something, or maybe I just don't want to risk myself in reaching out.  In any case, sometimes I am so much a writer that I just need to write something, even on the computer.

Anyway, this whole experience reminded me of how worthless life is if we live it for ourselves.  Our society tries to tell us that we should be looking out for our best interests, but if that's what we do somehow or other it seems to make us miserable.  It is those who live life for others who are truly happy.

It is a strange paradox—just like the cross.  That is what the cross was about after all: it was about Jesus Christ, the Son of God, offering up His excruciating suffering for us out of love, transforming something ugly into something beautiful because it was not for Himself; it was for us.  And we can do the same in some less dramatic fashion.

I hope you can see this as beautiful, whether or not you believe in Christ.  If you can't, I shall pray for the conversion of your heart....