Clearing, by Martha Postlewaite
Do not try to save
the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself
to this world
so worth of rescue.
When a scholar publishes a paper, it is a letter sent to unknown recipients. If the job has been well done, then with luck it may be found and read, perhaps years later, by people who may take it into their lives and let it change their understanding of the world.
Roger B. Myerson, in “Learning Game Theory from John Harsanyi,” August 31, 2000
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.
-Theodore Roosevelt
The brilliant lessons I learned
back then
have washed away.
Now there’s room for more.
The frontier of vulnerability
is immediate
I wrote this down after listening to David Whyte’s Midlife and the Great Unknown.
Usually I write little things like that and the blog post ends, but I think that this one needs clarification.
So, what is this post about? It’s about the fact that I used to think that to become a fully open and vulnerable person one had to take a tremendous leap from where one stood.
But this is not correct.
All it takes is a very small step: the step of lowering one’s guards. And this will appear to be difficult, but there is always a gentle way to take this step. For example, if I resist making myself vulnerable in front of my Dad, if it feels too steep, I can say to him: I sometimes think about opening up to you and I don’t because I fear you will not know what to do with it, I fear I will put myself out there and not be understood, and that scares me.
See what I mean? The first step feels too steep, I acknowledge this, and this acknowledgement becomes the step I take. Still too steep? Say: Sometimes I want to tell you how I really feel and I notice I stop myself. Too steep, still? Say: I want to get closer to you, but I don’t know how. Do you have any suggestions? Too steep, still? Sit next to him, in silence, even if only for a few moments, and appreciate his company, the sweetness of his presence, just that moment. Still too steep? Do this, from the distance, for a briefer moment still. We all start somewhere.
Most importantly, this is not a consolation prize to true intimacy. This is true intimacy, because it is growing out of the moment where I’m at, rather than from some mental/emotional state I think I’m supposed to be in for such intimacy to take place.
What I’m trying to say is that the edge of where I have to be to grow in love is not somewhere out-there where I take visibly heroic actions but rather somewhere in-here, nearer than near, where I show something authentic about myself to the person in front of me, and to myself.
All other frontiers of vulnerability are imagined
And writing this makes me very emotional because, well, this is not theoretical. I fear telling my Dad how I feel almost all the time, and I haven’t told him this yet. It feels too steep. So I’m telling you instead. That’s the step I could take today. And it is bringing me to tears.
We all start somewhere.
When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice it is small, but we do not criticize it as “rootless and stemless.” We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed.
When it first shoots up out of the earth, we don’t condemn it as “immature and underdeveloped,” nor do we criticize the buds for not being open when they appear. We stand in wonder at the process taking place, and give the plant the care it needs at each stage of its development.
A flower is not better when it blooms than when it is merely a bud; at each stage it is the same thing — a flower in the process of fully expressing itself.
-W. Timothy Gallway, quoted by Coelho
Fuístes cayendo en mi planeta como la cola de un cometa.
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