1230blog
Search for Passion
How do you find out who your are and treasure it and how do you peel away all the layers of bullshit that you have been fed often by well-meaning but destructive people?
In other words, how do you turn on your inner light and then fertilize it and water it and give it everything it needs to grow, because as Carl Jung wrote, “As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.” It is the same challenge for everyone, to recognize and fulfill their highest individual potential and to be honest with ourselves because we can become lost in that which we pretend to be.
“The shoe that fits one person pinches another,” said Jung. “There is no universal recipe for living.”
Helping my children to find their true selves, their proper shoe sizes and helping them to recognize and nurture their passions seems to be my greatest calling. I do wish I had more help from the schools and that they were aware of the value and were better at identifying individual passions and abilities and feeding those passions in children.
Helping the children to realize their passions and their hearts is not done by words but rather through actions because children imitate what their parents do and not what they say and if we look closely we can see ourselves in their imitations. If we show love, our children will learn love and that is the basis for everything else. As Vincent van Gogh said, “The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others.”
Carl Sagan said many of the answers we seek are contained in books, those spiritual, beautiful creations of paper and ink that contains a series of odd, connected symbols that once translated can transport us to wisdom and thoughts that were first considered thousands of years ago and just by turning the paper pages.
I want to help my children to focus more on their hearts and their dreams than on their heads because dreams can be unbridled and passion lives in the heart and it is the one force that makes life worth living. You can have passion even if you don’t fully understand it in the same way that you know the universe has a secret even if you don’t know the secret.
In the same light, we should not be deterred because of the realization that we are wounded, after all, everyone is wounded, it is the nature of life. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote about the wounds and the assaults that we all face and the balms to nurture life.
“Out of damp and gloomy days, out of solitude, out of loveless words directed at us, conclusions grow up in us like fungus one morning they are there, we know not how, and they gaze upon us, morose and gray. Woe to the thinker who is not the gardener but only the soil of the plants that grow in him.”
We can’t let our lives and in turn, the lives of our children, to be clubbed into submission by the darkness but rather to be always on the look out for the light because there is always light though it may be hiding deep. Our job is to be ready and when the light shows itself to take it into our hearts.
The late, great poet, Charles Bukowski, said it well: “And the more often you learn to do it, the more light there will be. Your life is your life. Know it while you have it. You are marvelous. The gods wait to delight in you.”
And I am always inspired by the resounding words of the great poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen in his timeless song, “Anthem.”
“The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don’t dwell on what
Has passed away
Or what is yet to be.
Ah the wars they will
Be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
Bought and sold
And bought again
The dove is never free.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
We asked for signs
The signs were sent:
The birth betrayed
The marriage spent
Yeah the widowhood
Of every government
Signs for all to see.
I can run no more
With that lawless crowd
While the killers in high places
Say their prayers out loud.
But they’ve summoned, they’ve summoned up
A thundercloud
They’re gonna hear from me.
Ring ring ring ring ring
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
You can add up the parts
But you won’t have the sum
You can strike up the march,
There is no drum
Every heart, every heart
To love will come
But like a refugee.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
That’s how the light gets in.
That’s how the light gets in.”