16/06/2024
Some words to make us think as we reflect on our life and legacy.
#3 A SURPRISING ANSWER TO ANXIETY
Thirty years ago I wrote a book called “Manhood, a book about setting men free”. It had a big effect on many men who read it, and I might draw on it a bit in these blogs from time to time. But today I want to focus on one message from it that has come back like a friendly boomerang to help me with my own life.
I am staying this weekend in a big country cottage with about fifteen people, young and old, and its a chaotic but beautiful interlude. Four of us have 70th birthdays so you can imagine the Decade of Farewell is visible in faces, the physical changes especially in the men. Though some are full of vigor, we are definitely on the downward curve!!
I was noticing though, as I lay awake last night, a kind of anxiety or vibration around my heart that was unpleasant, and that in fact I had been oddly unsettled most of the afternoon. It was something to do with just being with so many people. As I focussed on the physical sensations, I began to experience the miracle that happens when we let our right hemisphere - our silent animal mind - come out of the bushes and find its voice. I had a sudden memory, of a birthday party when I was about four, at which I was so overwhelmed by strange children and my lack of knowing how to converse or even just be chilled, that I ran away and wouldn’t go back in.
Ha! I thought. And then I remembered something really useful. In “Manhood”, I wrote about the work of Richard Rohr SJ, who pinpointed the critical five initiatory messages which make you a man (as opposed to a perennial boy, as many guys so tragically remain in our world today). It was the fifth and ultimate message of the five that came into my head.
The fifth secret of manhood - a criteria really, is realizing that “we are not in this world for ourselves”. That is a radical and life-changing idea, in a society that absolutely thinks the opposite. I found this stunningly helpful 30 years ago when I wrote about it, but especially at this age, where selfishness and self-focus could easily swallow us up (remind you of any old person you know?) it is needed again. It is summed up in that word that Buddhism has brought back into the dialogue - KINDNESS. Kindness is not some dewy sentiment, its an actual decision that other people matter, and a wish to be of help to them. And that in fact almost everyone we meet today is struggling, and in want of our attention and help.
As this came back to me, this substitution of "self-consciousness" to "other consciousness" my anxiety and unease simply evaporated, my heart eased. I felt the world all around us. How desperately it needed kindness, in urgent and immense quantity. It wasn’t to ignore the need for backside kicking - as the UK government is about to receive, or the fossil fuel industry has to be given, or just plain stupidity or bullying in so many domains of life. But by switching from fearfulness to kindness felt very freeing.
We work as young people to develop a sense of self. That is important. Boundaries and identity matter. But then our job is to give that up! Self is a terrible deluded concept. Life is a song. A choir. Our voice matters but only because it harmonizes and adds a tiny part to the glory of it all. Kindness is how we get into harmony. It is a very powerful force, in fact it is really what makes life possible.
