Perhaps this is a bit too apolitical and 12-steppy for Daily Kos, but I have been thinking a lot about what we all share no matter who we are, and find myself coming to the realization that expressions of boundless Unity in times of utmost polarization can be Revolutionary acts in their own right. Hence, this:
I am the 100%.
I was born into this mess of a world naked and with nothing, and I shall leave it in the very same manner. What happens in between depends on the degree to which I am able to acknowledge this overarching reality as it inhabits the lives of others, and to act accordingly and with appropriate Compassion and restraint.
Whether I know it or not, the true measure of me and what I can be lies neither in the quantity of the challenges I face or in the gravity of the trespasses I may perceive others perpetrate against me, but in the quality of my responses and reactions to those challenges and trespasses. The outcome of situations I face almost always boils down to the choices I make between thoughtful, reasonable response and immediate, unmindful reaction.
My internal, unconscious biases limit me, in that they supply an engine of expectation of situations that can turn all too easily into a prison constructed of my own preconceptions. Only when I can release these expectations of what I think I want from the world can all of those things and more become truly free to approach me. When what I want places the actual needs of others – and not those needs of mine that I project onto them -- before my perception of my own peripheral needs, my desires become even more available to make their approach toward me.
I am composed of carbon atoms that are literally as old and as ancient as the Universe itself, yet if you cut me, I will bleed. My finiteness is infinite, and my infiniteness finite. However, my mortality -- when I recognize that my time is limited and I am able to let go of the imprinted fear of it -- makes me immortal in the positive, lasting impact I can have in my own life and upon the lives of others I both know and whom I may never know, and all who will come after I am gone.
I will be able to show true Compassion towards the lives of others only to the degree to which I can show true Compassion towards myself in my own life. All my hatred of and antipathy towards others comes from my own hatred of and antipathy towards myself, just as all my love for and capacity for acceptance of them stems directly from my ability, even in my darkest hour, to show acceptance of and love for myself amid my many struggles.
If I am truly to know, I must first be able to accept that much of what I think I know, I do not know at all. If I am to be truly prescient, I must acknowledge in all things that the most comprehensive answers to the most difficult questions only ask a million more pertinent and essential questions themselves. The degree to which I can accept this determines my ability to succeed in transcending my ephemeral circumstances and can enable me to break through to the creation of mutual and informed benefit for myself and everyone with whom I come into contact.
I am unique in my similarity to others, just as I am similar to them in my uniqueness. When I can balance these two aspects appropriately, the capacity for lasting acceptance and peace within myself can begin to take root, and only then can it begin to manifest as a positive influence in the lives of those around me both seen and unseen, known and unknown.
The only real permanence in my existence lies in my ability to acknowledge its temporary nature, and to accept that the only undeniable absolute is that there are, indeed, precious few absolutes. My only true constant is Change itself, even when I resist it with all of my conscious might.
I always will find my Destiny on the very road out of town that I thought I was trying to take in the hope of escaping it. That’s what makes it my Destiny.
My life in this world can seem interminable and often insufferably tedious, yet within the blink of an eye -- represented by my lifetime in the context of the eternal forever -- I am here, and gone.
I am the 100%.
I thank you so much for reading and welcome your feedback below. Obviously anyone who wishes to reproduce this for their own use or for the use of others has my permission to do so. -EN