I Like Trees

 

           “Each of us is whole, unique, and possessed of limitless potential, and our own quirks and limitations, responsible for the choices we make and the people we become.”

            How legible is your handwriting?

            Mine’s awful. And in admitting that, I am admitting that I’ve had thirty-three years on this earth, about twenty-eight of which I’ve been able to write, and that I haven’t put in the effort to make it truly great. It’s so small a thing that it escapes public notice most of the time, so I don’t improve it. Somehow, we’ve lost the will, as a society, to sit down in private and work on becoming better, through the normal things that we do.

            Maybe we’ve lost sight of the fact that the things we do are what create us; I’m not sure.  We’re responsible for who we become. I was talking with Tom last night. You’ll hear a lot of Tom, he’s one of my good friends. People need good friends, because we become like those we know. We gain and lose weight with them, we become happy or sad with them. The people we identify with alter us completely, whether those people validate the connection or not.

            I love my friends. They change me.

            We were talking about becoming, and how much choice people have. Everyone has a choice. As a society, we recognise that the most disadvantaged have the most choice, and we try hard to make life better for the youth most likely to break off into antisocial behaviours. We recognise that adults have more choice about who they are than kids do, and so we hold them to a higher standard.

            I have news for you. No one’s told you this, but it’s high time someone did: You are the system. You are the standard.

            If you aren’t part of the solution, you ARE the problem, and so am I. We’re what gets in the way of responsible, peaceful society. But it’s worth also mentioning that the problems we are and the problems we face aren’t as mighty and all-consuming as people make them appear. If the economy (which is not an entity or edifice, but a description of what we do with our money) “collapses,” you and I will still be muddling along in daily lives. Harder daily lives, but still the same lives. Understand that there is no dream life to move up into, there’s no yawning chasm to pull you down- these things are in you, not in the world. No matter what you do, you will always be only a human being. You will bring your story with you. The power to move up to happy or down to despair is yours, in you, in your daily choices and your daily work.

            It affects the outside world, too. As a human being, you ARE the force that moves the wheel. You’re the one who consumes, the one who watches advertisements. This whole mess is not your fault, but it is certainly your business, just as it’s my business. We’re in it now, together, and even if you pull the plug, you haven’t logged out of the system. You are the system, you take it with you where you go. There’s nothing you can do except be you, as well and as truly as you can.

            So here we are, knowing that there’s work to do, and my handwriting is terrible.

            It’s more relevant than you think.

            The thing is, in our society, we dream about having, not about getting or making.  People want to be famous, but not great. They want to be recognised- they don’t dream of making one perfect chair, or one perfect symphony. We want true love to happen to us; we don’t want to work day in and day out at loving ourselves and others. We want, but we don’t want to be.

            That’s backwards. That’s totally and completely backwards. It makes sense that we’d end up thinking this way. We’re responding to the waves that came before us, the waves of freethinging, freewheeling hope that didn’t work out. It turned into commercialism for the first waves and and slacker culture for the latest. Freegans and weekend warriors, people who really understand that things need to change but don’t know how to use our system to do it. They’re right; things are wrong with our system, and not little things. But it can’t be corrected at the system level; it has to be corrected small, in our own little lives, because we are the system. Living cleanly, clearly, simply, and committing ourselves to making it better, and to helping each other, is how to fix the system.

            What you do in your downtime- the stillness, the bored times, the nothingness of processing- matters. Every choice you make matters. You don’t have to always be in a state of pure, absolute presence, because no one can live like that and really live. Little things like handwriting, like washing dishes, done right, change you. Whatever you’re doing, do it. Do it with a will. Pay attention and make it right. It’s small, but it changes things. It changes everything.

            Change the focus. Bring it from the long view of fame and fortune to the real view of what’s on hand. As a society, we’ve lost sight of our hands, and our handwriting, and all of the million things that make up our days. Reining that in, even a little, changes who we are, and gives us greater power over ourselves and our actions. Forget, for now, about being famous. It may still happen. On the other hand, you could be one of the few people on earth to make something lasting, and enduring, and beautiful, in ordinary life. That’s worth more than fame. That’s greatness, and greatness can’t be bought.

            In our daily lives, as we go about ordinary daily things, we don’t always recognise that everything we do is a choice. Everything. Every time your hands touch something, it’s an opportunity to make something right, something better, something perfect or at least as good as can be made by our hands. The Shakers understood this. The point of doing it right isn’t just to do it right and improve the world; getting it right improves us, and that’s how we get the world we want. It’s the glorious consequence of action: action changes us. Exercise begets strength, work begets result, and we become altered according to how we’ve done our daily lives.

            Everyone in my generation remembers the Karate Kid, and how waxing a car and sanding a deck became the foundations of a martial artist. We remember, but we don’t do it. Only the great do that, we think. Only those who are called. But what’s a calling? Our lives are here now. It takes effort to be present, zen-master levels of presence, to turn real life into improvement. But if we can manage it… if we can only manage it… we change. Work changes us. Everything that we do with all our will is something that we’re learning, and mastery comes through effort. Very seldom do we try to master ourselves, but there’s nothing more worth it. Work is calling, all the time.

            Right now, I’ve had about twenty eight years to practice my handwriting. I’ve had fifteen to get better at algrebra. I have brushed my teeth three times a day or more for three decades.  I’ve had countless interactions with people. I go to work, I go home. I drive an hour each way. I have no excuse for not being a better driver, a better worker, a better singer, a better friend. I have these opportunities. I have these chances, every single day. But I’m not practicing, I’m not trying, and I need to change that. I need to start practicing, paying attention, so that when I do it, I get better at it. Trying is a vote; trying is a choice. And choice is change.

            Choice begets choice: the more you use your vote, that little decision about who you become, the more vote you get.