Blindman & the Elephant

"Make me earn it," was Randy Pausch's response to a standing ovation at his "Last Lecture"—a tradition of the faculty at Carnegie Mellon—of 'if you had only one last lecture to give before dying…' that turned out to be the real deal for him, since he is dying of pancreatic cancer.

The timing could not have been better for me. After over a half a century on this planet, I recognized that I was in one of those rare phases known as moments of clarity. These are the times when the cataracts are ripped off of your inner eyes, all of your denial systems stop working, your own excuses sound too lame to repeat, and you can suddenly see the elephant from a new point of view… (You remember that old story about the Indian tale of the three blind men who were asked to describe an elephant? One, who stands at the tail, says, An elephant is like a long, horny snake… One, at the side of the elephant says, No, an elephant like a great leather wall… and the last one says… you get the drift, right?)

Moments of clarity are precious and rare. Some people never get them, ever. But most of us have them at pivotal times in our lives—those passages usually around birth and death. At least for me. They come right after a period of utter hopelessness. Usually I think about checking out. It's part of my mental defect. But that hopelessness I'm talking about is so back-breaking, so abysmally tiring that I all I can do is surrender. Wave the white flag. I don't mean—give up, although it might appear that way, but surrender.

What is the difference? One is a ceasing of an action—to give up, and the other is an action—to surrender. When you give up, you curl in on yourself so no one can touch the inner you—but you are still controlling the situation. When you surrender, your arms open, your mind opens, your body opens, and your heart opens with it. You are touchable. You can finally get out of your own way and accept help. Surrender is true humility. It is being teachable. It is the magical quality that radiates from the Dali Lama. It is what made Pope John Paul II so obviously holy. It is what makes children and dogs so playful… can you see it now?

Aside from being rare, moments of clarity have a limited shelf life. Clarity dulls after a while. Once it has done the job it was sent to do, and the new becomes the norm. It has, quoting Kathleen Norris, utterly '…changed you in ways you can't imagine…"

Why was Randy Pausch so influential to me right now? Well, I'm not dying of cancer, but there is a death of sorts in my life. I have fought for three years to keep my house, and lost all the battles and the war as well. Boy could I cry you a river… I don't seem to be able to find a job after a year of looking, and I have $28 in my bank account. My beautiful daughter is about to give birth to my first grandchild, and she really needs me now, and they want us out of our home on the day before her baby's due…

Did I reel you in with that sob story? Isn't all that unfair? AND, it's ALL true!! Boy, the old alcoholic in me, (who still lives after 11 years of sobriety—tenacious old bitch that she is) is whispering, "Honey, you can really milk this one for all it's worth…"

Well, back to my half of a century on this planet—experience has taught me that God answers our prayers three ways…and only three ways. I have seen this in others and experienced it in myself. He says,

• —Yes!
• —Yes, but not now…
• —No, I have something better in mind…

So, I did the math. For 3 years, I have lost on every count—even when I should have won! The crooks got away with it! Do you think, Stepher, I says to meself, I did, that God's might be trying to say something to you?...Do you?...DUH…. that he just might have a wee little something better in mind that you have for yourself? Okay. So, I'm a little slow. But eventually, I always get it.

Nothing's changed, granted, except my perspective. I'm just not one of the blind men anymore. I owe that, in part to Randy Pausch and his Last Lecture.

I owe it first though, to Viktor Frankl, whose book Man's Search for Meaning, I read at 15. He introduced me to existentialism and Nietzsche whom he said had defined it as,

That which does not kill me will make me stronger.

Frankl saw his whole family murdered. He lost everything. And at the end of the book, he describes what kept him alive. He realized that the Nazi's could take everything from him, everything, except one thing. They could take his family, and they did. They could take his possessions and they did. They could take his body even, and they did that too. But what they could not have, unless he gave it to them, was his attitude. His point of view. His response to them and the world. That, and that alone belonged to him, and he would never surrender that to them. So when he returned kindness for brutality, it was an act of rebellion. When he refused to become angry when goaded, but rather reacted with courtesy and respect, it was an act of rebellion. It was his revenge, although I doubt he would have used that word.

This book did more to shape me than all of my parent's years of parenting. I could face the future unafraid, because no matter how bad it got, if I lived through it, I'd be a stronger person for it. And I was in charge of my own attitude—no one could ever take that from me. This came at a time when I had some pretty rough years ahead to face, and they were tools I used again and again. I still use them to this day.

So, nothing has changed but my perspective. I don't do victim very well, and losing my house is fairly easy to put behind me. Material things come and go easily enough in this life, and I look forward to this next adventure. What is next is a deeper, longer question, because it has to do with my life's purpose, and my responsibility to the world. That's as much as I can say for now, because I don't know any more, except for this—all my life, I've been the person willing to stand up and point out the lie. I have suffered a lot for it. But I can't stop it. I can't live with lies. With the shifty. That doesn't mean that a good dose of fantasy isn't wonderful. Truly, I love living in my books and stories, legends and folk tales, and couldn't cope without them. But I mean the lies that really hurt us. The wool that's pulled over our eyes, the sleight of hand that they call economics, the double-speak that is the vernacular of government and institutions in order to keep 'outsiders' confused. The dulling of our senses by overusing words disingenuously… and I'm not the only one…

To be continued…someday.

Copyright © 2009 Stephanie Ericsson All Rights Reserved