"I choose all!"

Why cannot one do everything?  I would if I could.  I suppose that is why I call myself a jack-of-all-trades.

I have quite a full life right now.  I have more jobs and projects and ideas than I can possibly handle with my current energy levels and mental stamina.  Yet somehow I cannot help but want to do more.  My heart is restless and desires to encompass all that is good.

These thoughts were sparked by an email I received from my former professor.  She passed along a job opportunity to be a drama teacher across the country.  Realistically I have absolutely no reason to consider it as I prefer the left coast and, as I mentioned, I already have more than sufficient demands upon my time and energy.  Of course reason did not stop me.  I considered it.  Perhaps I might say rather I envied it.  I was not content with what I had, but wanted more.  I want everything.

This idea reminds me of a story.  Leonie felt she had outgrown her toys so she brought a basket full of them to offer to her younger sisters, Celine and Therese.  Celine chose a nice ball.  Therese, however, took the whole basket, saying, "I choose all!"

I feel like that.  I want to choose all.  That is why I find choices so overwhelming.  How can one choose a single good thing and not all the good things?

Metaphor on the Human Condition

The other day I had a conversation with my sister about that consuming fear of burdening other people that we human creatures seem to have.  It is foolish really.  I know that on an intellectual level.  I mean I am always honored when people share with me their deepest struggles because I know that they trust me and that they are giving me a part of themselves that reveals them on a more profound level.  In other words, vulnerability is lovable.

Yet somehow, despite my head's evident wisdom, my heart refuses to believe it.  I still fear that others do not want to hear about my struggles, that they will think less of me for it, or will not take my struggles seriously, and so on.  You know how it goes.

Well in the context of my conversation with my sister, a metaphor leaped to mind and I let it burst out.  In the sharing of that metaphor, we met more deeply in our agreement.

What is the metaphor, you may ask?

A jack-in-the-box.

Perhaps I need not explain, but I am oft known for being too subtle.  Hence I will provide some words of explanation.

We are all hiding in our boxes, afraid of popping out, but secretly hoping that someone will wind us up enough to let our true selves.  We cannot come out of our own volition.  We must wait for someone who cares enough what lies inside.

Proof that I am not Ebenezer Scrooge

Google tells me that I can make money from my blog.  That sounds great.  Isn't that what every writer wants after all—to have a way to earn a living from writing?

There is of course a catch.  After all, there is no such thing as a free lunch, as someone said sometime and everyone else repeats until it becomes a ridiculous cliche.  But I digress.  The catch is this: in order to earn money I have to allow ads to display on this blog.

Is that a significant problem?  In our culture we see ads everywhere.  Every time you read a magazine, do an Internet search, look on Facebook, listen to the radio, and so on, you find yourself unwillingly—or willingly—subjected to some version of this-is-the-best-thing-ever-and-you-should-totally-spend-your-hardearned-money-on-it.  We experience these things so much we mostly ignore them, unless they are funny in which case we laugh and later can't remember what was being sold to us.

Probably if I had told Google yes I wanted ads on this blog so I could make money from it, you would not even have noticed.  You would have assumed that Google had yet again found a way to make money to keep a free service going.  Yet I prefer to be more honest.

Maybe I am being dramatic, but it seems to come down to whether I want to buy into commercial society.  I can give in to the advertising industry's ubiquitous presence and promote it because of what I get from the exchange, or I can stand on a lone island lifting up the flag of unspoiled artistic endeavor and high ideals, watching as I float farther from the mainland....

Which would you do?

“Those who surrender freedom for security....”

The day before yesterday I had a conversation with an artist-friend that left me wondering whether I could honestly refer to myself as an artist.  I have never questioned that before.  In fact, I have never had the least doubt that I am an artist.  It turns my world a little topsy-turvy to face the bald assertion that I may in fact have fooled myself into thinking so.

What would you do in the face of such a crisis?

I face this crisis because I found myself completely incapable of expressing coherently the reasons for frustration with my efforts at art thus far.  Now lack of ability in communication need not necessarily warrant believing that I am not what I say I am.  Yet for the second time I experienced an encounter with a dedicated artist.  She had taken a path furthering her art and was thinking deeply not just about what art means but also about her individual contribution as an artist—her individual approach.  Last time another artist-friend of mine had surprised me with deep thoughts on the connection between art and monasticism.  I had nothing to contribute either time except appreciation of their ponderings.  The deep thoughts I expected myself to have in response were entirely lacking.

While at university, I took a theory of theatre class and there also faced a gaping hole.  I was supposed to write about what made good drama in my exam for that class.  I went in without sufficient preparation because I did not realize how far I was from knowing what made good art, let alone good theatre.  I pride myself on being able to recognize good art.  Yet to define and defend a reasonable description?  It was impossible.

I excused my failure then as the result of having too much on my plate with work and theatre classes each demanding my full attention.  It seemed a reasonable excuse.

Now I am home with plenty of time to spare and nothing has changed.  I do have two jobs and several other projects to balance while trying to spend time with my family and have something of a social life so I feel a little fragmented.  I could use that as an excuse.  I could pretend that my recent revelation means nothing and settle back into my comfortable routine of learning how to juggle everything except my juggling balls.

Yet I prefer honesty to illusion.  I would rather choose vulnerability than security.  I prefer truth to comfort.  At least that is what I believe in the ideal; we need not discuss at present how much (or how little) my ideals manifest in my daily life.

Security, I mentioned.  That is an important word.  Perhaps the important word.  The founding fathers of the United States of America fought for freedom and upheld it as the principle ideal guiding their actions.  Today, we care more for security than freedom.  In fact, when most people say freedom these days they do not actually mean freedom but rather security.  We want the security to be able to live a comfortable life and choose to do whatever we want; we do not want freedom to choose the good, the true, and the beautiful at the expense of comfort and a feeling of security.  We want our rights and our privileges, not the responsibilities of freedom.

I have fallen into that trap.  Even though I have not sought out a high-paying job, purchased a nice new car, and treated myself to the latest electronic devices, I have still settled for security and comfort.  I tell myself it is reasonable.  After all, I had to pay off my loans and become financially independent; one cannot rely on one's parents forever.  So I get up, say my prayers, do my work, try to keep up with my correspondence, take care of my health, and fulfill each duty of the day in a steadily-rolling repetitive cycle.  I might say I have a good routine.

Yet when I look at this cycle of must-be-dones and should-be-dones, I am reminded of a disconcerting quotation from one of my favorite books, Manalive by G.K. Chesterton:

"All habits are bad habits," said Michael with deadly calm.  "Madness does not come by breaking out, but by giving in; by settling down in some dirty, little, self-repeating circles of ideas; by being tamed."

I have been tamed.  I have bought into the pragmatic viewpoint of the modern world.  I plan ways to keep myself comfortable and secure without debt to worry about or uncertainty regarding how I shall bring in money in future.

I do not mean to devalue virtues such as responsibility, nor do I wish to cast mud upon the idea of the duty of the moment; yet I cannot help but feel that these values are less bound to comfort and security than I would make them.  They must be shiny and living things.  They cannot be so far from the ideas of risk and abandonment to Divine Providence as the practical mind would place them.

Perhaps my intuition applies more to artists than to the general populace, but I rather doubt it.  I think it far likelier that we are all addicted to the false goods of security and comfort in an unhealthy manner.  These idols will not save us.  They will not make us happy, although they may make us content.  I might say that I am content with my life.  By this I would mean that by attending to the duty in front of me and seeking to obtain my comfort and security I am feeling less pain and experiencing fewer extremes: I no longer ache with the pain of the dark empty void within.

Today seems to be a day to quote Chesterton.  In his play The Surprise, the characters of the Princess and the Poet give a piercingly illuminative take on being content as opposed to receiving our deepest desire:

PRINCESS (after a silence). I do my best. I think I do some good. Nearly all the people round here own their own land, and all those that cannot have good regular wages. They seem contented. There are few complaints. Every man is secure of finding ale in the ale-cask; every man has a pig at the pig-trough. But as for dancing—well, perhaps they are not a dancing sort. Perhaps they are not a singing sort. And as for thanking God in the street...no, I won't say they are not a thanking sort. They are—well, they are contented and I am content.
POET. You are a little sad. People generally are when they say they are content.
PRINCESS. Oh, no, no—
POET. Oh, my God, what am I? Mud out of the highway soiling your carpets; a rag blown over the wall. But will you let me speak one moment for all the ragged people on the road, the truth that your officers do not tell you; what I know out of the very mouths of the poor of God?
PRINCESS. What in the world do they want?
POET. They want surprise. They do not want sufficiency or security. They want surprise. They do not want regular wages. They want irregular wealth. You say they can always find a pig at the pig-trough and ale in the ale-cask. If ever, one fine morning, they found the pig in the ale-cask and could drink ale out of the pig-trough—they would think they were in a fairy tale.

I hesitate to agree wholly with the poet and yet my heart knows he is right.  I act as if I want regular wages to support myself and expect to find everything where it belongs because I like to have it all within my control.  Yet it does not make me truly happy; at best it makes me content, which the Poet points out usually involves at least a little sadness.

Here my mind returns to Anathan Theatre where I learned the importance of taking a risk.  Our drama professor told us that vulnerability was lovable.  Yet these ideas are the exact opposite of the modern values of security and comfort.  Which is the truth?

My heart tells me that risk and vulnerability are more satisfying, more deeply rooted in being human, and more likely to transform me into the person I was created to be.  I want to live in radical self-abandonment.  I want to fling aside the cares of security and comfort to pursue the ideas that come to my artist mind.  I want to be free to forget the world for a week because I am creating a beautiful work of art.  I want to be free to take that creation out into the world to share with people I have never met and not to fear what they might think of this baring of my soul.

So I ask myself: will I dare to set aside my efforts to control and seek instead a path that leads to the heights?  Would you?

I must close with some further words of Chesterton that somehow send a thrilling charge through my heart, urging me to face the coming storm by standing tall rather than crouching in the safety of some sturdy basement.  From The Ballad of the White Horse:

"I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher."