Enlightenment vs. Moral Superiority

A few days ago I was hanging out with a couple of friends and one of them asked a very good question:

"How does one become more enlightened and avoid being more judgmental or feeling superior to others?"

Just speaking for myself, this is a challenge I face in my own life and I have never found a way out of it.  The short answer?  I don't know but when I figure it out I'll let you know.  My opinion is that enlightenment and feelings of superiority are the opposite of each other.  As I learn and evolve and make decisions in my life that I feel make the world a better place, I also take on frustrations with others who don't seem to care about how their actions affect the world around them.  I lack patience.  I'm incredibly judgmental but I don't consider it a virtue.  I consider it to be one of my biggest flaws and one of the top most important things to overcome.  I want to be able to make choices that leave the world a better place without letting other people's actions dictate my emotions.

I brought up the discussion with another friend of mine I consider to be intelligent and wise in life, who stated one cannot be both empathetic and judgmental.  I disagree with this since I can and frequently have felt both, intensely, at the same time.  For instance, if a person is abusing an animal, I feel empathetic towards the animal and it also brings out a protector side to me that would be dangerous towards the abuser, if faced with it in person.  Who knows?  Perhaps potentially fatal.  It brings out that much emotion in me.

So with that subject matter, becoming acutely aware of the atrocities that humans are capable of  towards each other, towards other creatures or towards the environment as a whole, leaves some of us who have a protective and empathic side, to then feel depressed, anxious, angry and overwhelmed and it's frustrating knowing that things *could* change for the better, if only people were informed.  Surly people would take action to stop it if they only knew about it, right?  Wrong.  In spite of how unbelievable it is to just *know* that people would make the same decisions or come to the same conclusions of us, if we just make them aware, we are all still interpreting our reality through our own tiny little window.  Every single one of us has to make judgments based on what we are told, based on our experiences, based on what we see and feel... We are at different points in our lives and perhaps are basing our opinions on very specific instances that may sway a point of view one way or another.

The only tool I have that even comes close to avoiding the judgment of others actually has everything to do with how I interpret spirituality, which is also very unique to me.  I'm mainly a Humanist, so I believe in "doing the right thing", simply for the sake of making the world a better place.  That has to be based on my own judgment which may not match someone else's.  The other part of my personal belief system has to do with us having roles in each other's mortal lives in order to be challenged and grow.  I do think it's entirely plausible that some souls have the difficult mission of being antagonists in this life in order to challenge us and allow us opportunities to grow and learn.  Unfortunately, most of the best learning comes from pain and suffering.  Sometimes it's our own but we are all connected so it's going to also result in the suffering of others.  It's not a justification of poor behavior.  It's simply a way that I, personally, am able to view the world as an organism and all life on it as organisms who's purpose is to experience life in one form or another and create a story of billions of different points of view and billions of different versions of what's real, what's true, what's important.  I have to stand way back, like I'm on the moon looking at the Earth and seeing the whole thing all at once.  It's an understanding that we all have roles to play, warriors and peacekeepers alike, victims and abusers, hunters and the hunted... Whatever combination you can come up with, there's an agonist and an antagonist.

In certain schools of spiritual teachings, real "truth" is seen like a pie, with every person able to see only a sliver of the pie due to our limited view that can only be based on our own experiences in life.  My slice is truth, while someone else may have the opposite view point and also have truth.  I can allow for the possibility that the opposite of one truth can also be part of the whole truth, no matter how hard it is for me to fathom it.  Ego needs to be "right".  It needs pettings and worship and validation.  Enlightenment comes when one no longer needs that from others.  My "truth" of enlightenment is causing change in the world through change in myself, for allowing others to walk their path and find their own truth, whether it agrees with mine or not.  For allowing others to learn and grow at their own pace and not require all people to be at the same place I am, nor expecting myself to be at the same place as another.  There's a purpose for all of us.  Some of us have the difficult job of being the antagonists, while others get to be the saviors of the world and take the credit for the change.

I aspire to this.  I'm not there completely or even half the time, but I thank my friend for asking the question and challenging me to answer it.

Peace.

Reflections of a Year

I'm awake right now but I'm not supposed to be.  I let my husbutch talk me into going to bed hours before I normally do and woke up right about the time I normally go to sleep.  No matter.  I might as well make the best of it and post a blog.

At this point in my life, I try to make it a point to have the most uneventful life possible.  Until the last few years, my life was like living in a tornado.  It was just constant change, be it relationships, moving, jobs or whatever.  I've held my current job for 3 years.  I'm nearing my 4 year anniversary in my relationship.  I've lived in the same apartment for almost 2.5 years.  That's really good for me.  This new year will hopefully hold some changes in it that move us in a positive direction, like buying a house and dropping some weight.  I have an appointment tomorrow at Jenny Craig to get started.  I don't know if it will work, because nothing else has, but it has worked in the past so I'll give it a try.  I just have to ignore the ingredient list on the food because I'm sure I would be totally appalled if I read it.

In reflecting over 2013, I'd say it was a year of general stabilization.  That's the best word I can use.  My relationship feels more solid than it did before.  I did hit a difficult spot but it has to do with baggage from the past that needs a bit of attention.  I plan to try out an alternative type therapy that involves lights and colors and makes a physiological brain shift.  Sometimes we have experiences in life that have such a deep impression that it's like our brains get rewired.  My trust issues run that deep.  I have trusted a few individuals completely, as I should have been able to do, and was completely betrayed.  It just messed with my head to the point that I think everything I see, hear and experience is an illusion.  Some may argue that all of life is an illusion but I'm not talking about physics here.  I'm talking about the simplicity of being able to trust certain people to not tear your world apart without a backward glance, like spouses and parents.

This past summer, we went on a long road trip with the primary focus of attending a family reunion.  It was the first time of me taking a same-sex significant other to meet my WHOLE family.  It have to say, for a bunch of Idahoan rednecks, it went swimmingly.  No one made a big deal about it, at least not to my face.  Most went out of their way to be welcoming, which I very much appreciated.  Mostly I appreciate my parents for this since I can't say the same thing for my in-law family.  I now have nearly every person related to my spouse deleted and blocked, save for a few cousins who are always very supportive.  I avoid them like the plague.  I'll be grateful it isn't both of our families that put us through hell.  The level of disrespect on that side... It runs so deep and rampant, but they are only barely aware of themselves and the pain they cause.  They care only of their own whims and in the process they push us farther away every day.  If only they could actually put forth the tiniest bit of effort and humility, but the ego is in control so there isn't much one can do to change it unless they actually desired to see a world outside of their paper-thin view.  My brother is the only one on my side of the family that is a religious extremist.  I have no contact with him and haven't in... Maybe almost a decade by now.  I'm not sure.  It's my poor parents that have to endure that.  For all these people, I just wish inner peace and the ability to see outside of the tiny little brown box they exist in that they think is the world.

Speaking of which, Utah has same-sex marriage now!  I just can't get over that.  I am from there and never thought I'd see the day.  Well I think most of them are thinking that.  People are still reeling and I can't help but have a giggle over it because I know many are scrambling over there to put a stop to the whole thing.  It's so much better to view life as a series of movies going on around me.  I'm less emotionally involved in the world outside of myself that I have absolutely no control over.

Okay so... this year, drop 50 pounds, at least, and get in a house.  I guess that means we are deciding to stay living in Texas.  I would LOVE to be able to live in Portland so I can be closer to my family but it would cost so much and neither of us are looking forward to totally starting over with looking for jobs and a place to live.  I don't think I can count on my sister to give her adult children the boot to make room for us and not looking forward to dealing with her stairs anyway.

I'll try to be better about posting more introspections.  I have them in my mind but whenever I'm really thinking about them, I'm not in a place where I can just write the blog.