Month: February 2019

To give without remembering.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

give

How many gifts come with strings? The anonymous giver is a rarity. People want attention for doing good things, sometimes more than just attention. Sometimes they want people to feel indebted….forever.

The humble taker is as rare a unicorn as the anonymous giver. The myth of the self-made man is much more palatable than the humility of a man who realizes that all he has, is, and will ever be is founded on the generosity of others, many others, who have helped.

And yet generosity without self-interest and abundant gratitude are two qualities that lead to happiness, to community, to joy. We would do well to remember these things.

For more on Anonymous Giving by this author, go here.

 

Mind the gap.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

certainty

How lovely things would be if the way we picture ourselves doing something in our heads is the way it plays out in real life. The beautiful prose, perfect plotting, and subtle characterization all laying themselves down on the page when pen is lifted rather than being cruelly translated into the awkward phrasing, cliched plots, and stilted characters plaguing a first draft. If perfect leaps, spins, and arabesques just happen rather than the more likely falls on the bum. If we were already perfect rather than striving. If there were no gap between where we are and where we would like to be.

With all the armchair quarterbacks and critics out there on virtually every issue, you’d almost think effort and expertise don’t count for anything. And yet, mastery is always the result of effort. Full stop. Every master painter, skater, dancer, author, was once a novice. In fact, that journey from novice to master is the important thing, and those hacks on the sidelines are missing the point. As Theodore Roosevelt said:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

So this gap, between where we want to be and where we are, is where we focus our efforts and attention. Not on the critic, because everyone stumbles. But we press on. For to be great at anything takes practice and effort, and our attempt is awkward and halting, ungainly and bumbling at first. But it gets better. And those sitting on the sidelines, afraid or busy criticizing others, aren’t moving forward unless they, too, mind the gap and try.

 

What are the things you know for sure?

Posted on by Shari Swanson

change

What is it that we can hold fast and know for sure? So much changes. Earth isn’t flat and isn’t the center of the universe although generations came and went believing that to be true. Gravity kept the planets in orbit and people from floating off long before anyone noticed and named it. Atoms existed before anyone discovered they could be split.

What is it that may be discovered in the future that can make sense of the way we act and feel now? Is there a key to explaining human behavior? A force, perhaps, that pulls people apart despite a deep desire to connect? What if there is another sense more important than the five we rely on now?

One thing good about change is it keeps you humble. Or should. Knowing that what we know is a minuscule speck in the ocean of all that can be known helps us stay open and curious. Where would the adventure be if we ever knew it all anyway?

Don’t miss the joy.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

penguinjoy

We generally find what we look for. We are good at it, and that skill helps us to recognize that one face in a sea of faces, to ferret out clues at a crime scene, to heed the landmarks that lead us home. But when we are trying to process a barrage of information coming at us all at once and trying to make sense of it without being overcome, we need to look for the unexpected things, the startling things, the beautiful things. We need to seek joy.

In his Book of Delights, Ross Gay goes on a mission to write about something delightful, everyday. And, while he initially thought he would have to scrounge for delights, after a bit of practice, he learned to find them everywhere. The delightful things were abundant and overflowing. More important, those delights made him realize how interconnected we are and that we are caretakers, each for the other. In a world that can seem cold and callous, we are generally good to each other:

I suppose I could spend time theorizing how it is that people are not bad to each other. But that’s really not the point. The point is that in almost every instance of our social lives, we are, if we pay attention, in the midst of an almost constant, if subtle, caretaking – holding doors open, offering elbows at crosswalks, letting someone else go first, helping with the heavy bags, reaching what’s too high or what’s been dropped, pulling someone back to their feet, stopping at the car wreck – at the struck dog, the alternating merge, also known as the zipper. This caretaking is our default mode, and it’s always a lie that convinces us to act or believe otherwise – always.

As we scrounge for our delights, we begin to see them all around us–the groceries grown and harvested for us to enjoy, the clothes crafted and sewn, the traffic signs to keep us safe, the laughter of children, birdsong, smiles from neighbors, our dog eager for her morning walk. As we notice those delights, we metaphorically feel the embrace of a larger community and feel the joy from being lucky enough to be right here, right now, plop in the middle of the mystery of it all.