On Being a Real Person

 


I had a very humbling dream last night. To make a long story short, it helped me see how trying to be a good person has often kept me from being emotionally present with others. It made me sad to see, but I’m glad I did. I’m going to work on simply trying to live my life and be present, before trying to be “good.”
 
When I awoke, this poem came very quickly (with gratitude to T.S. Eliot and The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock):
 
On Being a Real Person
 
How often have I met a real person? 
Not often it seems, 
Not at all.
For how can connection occur
When you've pinned yourself, 
Wriggling on the wall . . .
With whom would others be connected,
When you're categorized and self-dissected?
Better to get off the wall,
Be free, though you fall,
So there's someone there at all.
 
Interaction starts with the mode we’re in. The greatest opportunities of life are not about trying to be a “good person” or fulfilling this or that role. It’s about connection. It’s about being in love – with your “self,” with Life and with people in general as well as people in particular. It’s about finding our way back to being in love again and again like finding our way back to a river. That’s how we rediscover The River of Life and feel it’s beautiful flow again. I am so thankful for when that has happened (with many of you and people like you).
 
Thank you for sharing this journey together. What we’re going for here has made my life incredibly rich. 
 
Sincerely,
Scott

(P.S. Don't worry. I'm still going to try to be an almost decent person. But I'm going to work on really being present to my experience and feelings, and those of others as I go. Thanks!). 

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