Before I start on today's post, I would like to clarify my religious views. Periodically as I write these posts I will paraphrase something from the Bible which I grew up with. I make mention of them only because something in my life has clarified, in the present moment, these remembered nuggets. I grew up with the New Testament, as listed by the Council of Nicea a very long time ago, and what I know as the Old Testament. I am aware of some of the other gospels that have been discovered. I do not understand the Bible literally; I believe in the concepts it teaches. I accept the validity of all religions and philosophies. Man has a great need which religions and/or philosophy try to answer. Different religions exist because they emerged at different times in different cultures. That incidentally is a very important point. To fully understand what is being said in any religion, it is very necessary to understand the culture and the times associated with said religion. It is also necessary to adapt them to your current time and culture. My current belief has gone far beyond what was taught to me when I was young and incorporates much more. I do not belong to any specific church right now. Jesus does happen to be one of my heroes. I greatly admire his consummate ability to deliver his message. Marshall Mcluhan once said, "the medium is the message". Of course my interpretation of the word medium is no doubt very different from Mr. McLuhan's. As I watch the world we live in, it sometimes seems that the content has disappeared completely. We all can remember certain ads but how many can remember what the ad is supposedly selling us.
Which brings me to my post for today. Recently I watched Disney's version of The Lorax and Frozen back to back. Put them together and you notice similarities. The theme song for The Lorax is Let It Grow. The theme song for Frozen is Let it Go. For those of you who have managed to escape these films, The Lorax, based on the book by Dr. Seuss, is about how trees were destroyed and how one boy started the process of bringing them back. Frozen is about a girl who must freeze herself to exist, discovers a place where that is not so and eventually discovers how to unfreeze herself. Below are excerpts from the two songs.
Frozen - Let It Go
Couldn't keep it in, Heaven knows I tried.
Don't let them in, don't let them see.
Be the good girl you always have to be.
Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know.
Well, now they know!
Let it go, let it go!
Can't hold it back any more.
Let it go, let it go!
It's funny how some distance,
makes everything seem small.
And the fears that once controlled me, can't get to me at all
It's time to see what I can do,
to test the limits and break through.
Let it go, let it go.
The Lorax - Let It Grow
It don't matter how you got it
It's yours now, don't you hide it
Let it grow, Let it grow
Let the love inside you show it
Just one way to know you're worth it
Let it grow, Let it grow
In the first song, the singer is tired of always pretending to be something else. She is no longer going to be afraid of who she is. She is going to be who she is and that is enough. When I read that it sounds like Facebook, thousands of words of self help or the mantras which have dominated some decades and some sectors of our society, "Do Your Own Thing" and "Be Happy." Certainly there is a need for the concept. The problem is, as they found out in The Lorax, if you only do your own thing it can affect many others. None of us exist on an island of one person. We all are affected by and affect others; in fact what we do impacts far further than we will ever know. The answer is that once you have found the courage to Let it Go, it is necessary to keep going and Let it Grow. It being the opposite of fear which is love. I have heard tell that if you let the fear go, the love which is supposed to be our natural state will automatically come in.
Have any of you heard the statement that if you ask the right question, you will know the answer? My variation of that is the solution and the problem are the same thing. What differs is the way you look at the issue. If I have x amount of anything, it is true that somewhere there are people who would think me fortunate beyond words, people who would give everything they have and more just to have what I have. It is equally true that there are people who think that what I have is a pittance, who would look down on me for having so little or alternatively think they are better than I am for choosing a different way of living. This statement applies no matter what your x is. Those people by the way are not necessarily in a far off part of the world. Therefore the thing that bothers you most is not the issue. How you feel about it is. It often is not possible to change a thing but it is possible to change how you feel about it. In a book I read quite awhile ago, a man complained to his friend about how terribly his father had treated him. The friend asked the man if he enjoyed his current life. In this case the answer was yes. The friend then said if it wasn't for your father you wouldn't be here. He was referring to both the man's physical birth but also the strength the man was required to develop to survive. That strength had propelled the man to his current enjoyable state. The problem had turned into a gift and the gift was the solution.
Another thought which I find prevalent is that you should give up your past. Live for the future, forget what happened in the past. I'm sorry I don't like this concept. If you have survived for even a few years on this planet, there are probably some things that you would like to forget. However, there are many things that were wonderful too. Don't stop there. Go further into your personal past and the past of your society, culture or the world; much can be learned. I was thinking about this today. I started with a particular individual. As an adult, he is a genealogist, computer security expert, major supporter of an important musical company, photographer and involved in the education of children. As a teenager he was a very able mathematician and extremely sensitive to people. He got those particular abilities from both sides of his family. Without too much work I can see the trail going back to his great grandparents. Even more interesting, my son exhibits many similar traits while expressing them completely differently. This knowledge reminds you that you are not alone, gives you an insight into how a person thinks which affects how to talk to them, the best way to educate them and most importantly how they are likely to impact their world. It also may explain difficulties with other individuals (the individuals are too similar). Take it a step further. People who have similar mental characteristics clump together. How many times have you mentioned a country in the same breath as their common characteristic? People who are philosophers simply don't think the same way as people who like building machines. A mathematician, musician and computer expert, on the other hand, all speak the same language. Knowing what type of person an individual or a country is will smooth out a great many relationships. For that you need to make an effort to understand where they were and where they are. Finally, whether we want to admit it or not, our memories of our experiences define us for us. I don't think that throwing away ourselves is going to help much. We have to have some place to start.
These are three thoughts that I suspect will strongly contribute to my new tapestry.
1. It is not enough to let a fear go, it must be replaced with something positive. Otherwise another fear steps in to fill the void. I overcome the difficulty of getting a new doctor and immediately start to worry about whether I will like the way the doctor treats me!
2. It is time to change my perspective. Look at the positive that arose at the same time as the negative. When I was a young child I moved across half the country. I felt devastated. All my friends were gone, I had no idea how I could make more. I have repeated that particular scene every time I have moved as an adult. There was another side that I completely ignored. I did make friends then and every time. That simple little fact came as a complete surprise to me. I had been to busy being scared. If I have done it before, then I can probably do it again.
3. My past is a vital part of who I am; all parts of it. That statement can be generalized to pretty much everybody and everything. Understanding that past goes a long way to explaining why certain actions are taken. Canada and the United States share a great deal today (especially media) yet we are now and always will be very different countries. The two countries have very different pasts; even the reasons for arriving and settling in the countries are radically different.
The final words from The Lorax are:
Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's Not! - The Lorax
Let's decide to care a whole awful lot about who we are and who the best possible version of ourselves is. It's time to get better. Start by patting yourself on the back. I know you did something great today. Honour yourself!
And the fears that once controlled me, can't get to me at all
It's time to see what I can do,
to test the limits and break through.
Let it go, let it go.
The Lorax - Let It Grow
It don't matter how you got it
It's yours now, don't you hide it
Let it grow, Let it grow
Let the love inside you show it
Just one way to know you're worth it
Let it grow, Let it grow
In the first song, the singer is tired of always pretending to be something else. She is no longer going to be afraid of who she is. She is going to be who she is and that is enough. When I read that it sounds like Facebook, thousands of words of self help or the mantras which have dominated some decades and some sectors of our society, "Do Your Own Thing" and "Be Happy." Certainly there is a need for the concept. The problem is, as they found out in The Lorax, if you only do your own thing it can affect many others. None of us exist on an island of one person. We all are affected by and affect others; in fact what we do impacts far further than we will ever know. The answer is that once you have found the courage to Let it Go, it is necessary to keep going and Let it Grow. It being the opposite of fear which is love. I have heard tell that if you let the fear go, the love which is supposed to be our natural state will automatically come in.
Have any of you heard the statement that if you ask the right question, you will know the answer? My variation of that is the solution and the problem are the same thing. What differs is the way you look at the issue. If I have x amount of anything, it is true that somewhere there are people who would think me fortunate beyond words, people who would give everything they have and more just to have what I have. It is equally true that there are people who think that what I have is a pittance, who would look down on me for having so little or alternatively think they are better than I am for choosing a different way of living. This statement applies no matter what your x is. Those people by the way are not necessarily in a far off part of the world. Therefore the thing that bothers you most is not the issue. How you feel about it is. It often is not possible to change a thing but it is possible to change how you feel about it. In a book I read quite awhile ago, a man complained to his friend about how terribly his father had treated him. The friend asked the man if he enjoyed his current life. In this case the answer was yes. The friend then said if it wasn't for your father you wouldn't be here. He was referring to both the man's physical birth but also the strength the man was required to develop to survive. That strength had propelled the man to his current enjoyable state. The problem had turned into a gift and the gift was the solution.
Another thought which I find prevalent is that you should give up your past. Live for the future, forget what happened in the past. I'm sorry I don't like this concept. If you have survived for even a few years on this planet, there are probably some things that you would like to forget. However, there are many things that were wonderful too. Don't stop there. Go further into your personal past and the past of your society, culture or the world; much can be learned. I was thinking about this today. I started with a particular individual. As an adult, he is a genealogist, computer security expert, major supporter of an important musical company, photographer and involved in the education of children. As a teenager he was a very able mathematician and extremely sensitive to people. He got those particular abilities from both sides of his family. Without too much work I can see the trail going back to his great grandparents. Even more interesting, my son exhibits many similar traits while expressing them completely differently. This knowledge reminds you that you are not alone, gives you an insight into how a person thinks which affects how to talk to them, the best way to educate them and most importantly how they are likely to impact their world. It also may explain difficulties with other individuals (the individuals are too similar). Take it a step further. People who have similar mental characteristics clump together. How many times have you mentioned a country in the same breath as their common characteristic? People who are philosophers simply don't think the same way as people who like building machines. A mathematician, musician and computer expert, on the other hand, all speak the same language. Knowing what type of person an individual or a country is will smooth out a great many relationships. For that you need to make an effort to understand where they were and where they are. Finally, whether we want to admit it or not, our memories of our experiences define us for us. I don't think that throwing away ourselves is going to help much. We have to have some place to start.
These are three thoughts that I suspect will strongly contribute to my new tapestry.
1. It is not enough to let a fear go, it must be replaced with something positive. Otherwise another fear steps in to fill the void. I overcome the difficulty of getting a new doctor and immediately start to worry about whether I will like the way the doctor treats me!
2. It is time to change my perspective. Look at the positive that arose at the same time as the negative. When I was a young child I moved across half the country. I felt devastated. All my friends were gone, I had no idea how I could make more. I have repeated that particular scene every time I have moved as an adult. There was another side that I completely ignored. I did make friends then and every time. That simple little fact came as a complete surprise to me. I had been to busy being scared. If I have done it before, then I can probably do it again.
3. My past is a vital part of who I am; all parts of it. That statement can be generalized to pretty much everybody and everything. Understanding that past goes a long way to explaining why certain actions are taken. Canada and the United States share a great deal today (especially media) yet we are now and always will be very different countries. The two countries have very different pasts; even the reasons for arriving and settling in the countries are radically different.
The final words from The Lorax are:
Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's Not! - The Lorax
Let's decide to care a whole awful lot about who we are and who the best possible version of ourselves is. It's time to get better. Start by patting yourself on the back. I know you did something great today. Honour yourself!
