My Aim Is To Be True, Not Great

To be held in all my ordinary humanity and to swoon for this world

There is an ongoing tension we each face between giving attention and getting attention. Giving attention steers us back to Center. It opens the vitality of the Universe and brings us back into the stream of Oneness. Giving attention is connective...Getting attention is deceptively isolating. It ultimately leads to being seen but not held...

...The confusion between giving attention and getting attention is so great that we often want to be well known rather than well knowing. We often want to be great rather than true. We often long for celebrity while secretly aching for something to celebrate. 
-Mark Nepo

I have a successful business friend who tells me I shouldn’t use the word ordinary to describe my way of living—because the word ordinary doesn’t sell; it’s not exciting or transformative enough he tells me again and again. 

But all I crave is ordinary—waking with the sun, a slow cup of coffee, the dance of sun and shadow from trees outside the window, making meals and washing dishes, casual walks on the mountain. All I crave is giving attention rather than receiving it. All I want is to be true and to be held. 

Greatness, purpose, and transformation have become quite boring ideals for me. Somehow, it is the ordinary, mundane, and domestic activities that have brought me the most wonder, the most joy, the most freedom. 

I grew up with a social-climbing father. He was raised poor, and was ashamed all his life because of it. He became consumed by his own hunger for grandeur—to prove himself the best of the best. He is the most fragile of men I know—quick to be a martyr when he doesn’t get what he wants, blaming others for not accepting his greatness, and belittling anyone who shows any sign of being human or simply for making him feel small and...ordinary. He wanted to be seen, to be praised, to have all the attention.

As children biologically do, we seek the approval of our parents. So I, too, tried to be great, and it drove me crazy trying to figure out what qualified as great. No matter how much I achieved, the love did not follow. I was still made to feel small, especially for feeling rather than being cool and logical. 

Over the years, I finally received the gift of exhaustion. I became tired of trying to prove to the whole world that I was great, to receive praise and attention for my achievements. All I wanted was to be true, to be real, to be human—to be ordinary. What’s so wrong with ordinary? The rising sun is ordinary—it happens every day, all the time. The trees blossom every spring. Ordinary. I laugh when I am happy; cry when I am sad or angry; long to be outside all day, every day. All of it so beautifully ordinary that I am filled with awe.

I want ordinary work, tending to the earth and the people around me. I want to create beauty and sweet moments. And I hope I always have a roof over my head and company to keep. Most of all, I want to be true. To be a human who does not want to disconnect from my nature, to “rise above” my nature—I want to claim my nature, to come down to earth and never seek any version of heaven, enlightenment, or greatness. 

Sometimes it seems that our hunger for greatness stems, no surprise, from a scarcity and unworthiness mentality. We believe we cannot have enough or be enough without being great. I want to be true, to be ordinary, and see how life unfolds for me, providing exactly what and who I need in the very moment it is needed. 

To be true is to trust. Trust the earth, trust life, trust death, and trust ourselves. The truth is:

~I adore walking, with trees and with friends

~I don’t care if I get everything done on a checklist

~I cannot think of anything better than simply being in the same room as my lover

~I prefer listening to trees rather than experts

~Morning coffee reminds me that it doesn’t take much to feel grounded and free

~I have no patience for performance—the need to look good at all times at all ages

~I want to be terrifying as I age

~I distrust anyone with answers, and love a conversation full of questions

~Poetry takes my breath away, makes me laugh, brings me to awe

~I prefer real people over clever people

~I prefer rhythm over metrics

~I love singing and dancing and cannot help myself

~I’ll never be cool because I’d rather be excited

~I’m not atheist or agnostic—I’m a Druid, devoted to all living things, an earthly cosmology of vitalism

~I’m fascinated by death and how it is the sweetener of life

~I believe in doing less, accepting my human limitations as gifts of vitality

~I don’t care for certainty, and thrive on day-to-day living

~I don’t mind if I’m boring to most people; it’s not my job to entertain you

~I am learning the ways of clay, fire, and water—I hope someday to make true vessels

~I am a romantic, I swoon easily for the beauty of this world

Rather than becoming great, I prefer to be true. Ordinary. Happy with staying close to home with an adventure here and there if it arises. Happy to run into friends and neighbors when I venture beyond the house. Happy to walk the same trail every day. Happy to be an ordinary human doing ordinary things. This is my freedom. This is my truth.