I woke up at 2 am; my body was tense. I had no idea why. It was either anger or fear. Fear certainly makes sense in light of all that is going on, the coronavirus, the schools closed, the masses canceled, yoga studio closed, all the restaurants shut down, only 50 people at a time allowed into Costco’s, etc., etc., etc. Fear surrounds me now. I will be confined to my home until this clears, only seeing people when I go for walks. Yvette even won’t come in, afraid that she might infect me. I’m going to think of it as an extended meditation retreat.
I got up at 7:30 and did the long walk up Kukuna into the fancy development. I ran into Terry, who asked if I had people looking after me and offered me his telephone number if I needed anything. Next, there was David. It was a brief hello goodbye today as we passed each other, both coming and going. This was the second day in a row I ran into Dude and Mary Ann. Yesterday she was walking with a mainland visitor; today, she walked with her usual walking buddy, Paulette.
I asked them if they had noticed the Easter Island statues in one of the yards. They laughed and told me the yard looked like the owners had bought out Disneyland displays. The owner, they told me, lives in California. He’s a doctor. Mary Ann and Paulette told me to check out the property and see all the statues. There was a team of landscapers working on the upper forty of their property. I ducked in. There was one gentleman who didn’t look like a landscaper. He identified himself as the owner of the property. I asked him where he got the Easter Island statues from. He told me they were imported from China. They were fiberglass covered with cement. I stood for a minute, looking at the face of the statue. It had a calming effect. I would like to visit them more often.
Returning home, I was walking down the hill/mountain, looking at the view of the ocean and the western morning sky. One of my undergraduate teachers asked me once, who do you thank for a gorgeous view if you don’t believe in God. My answer at the time was that my appreciation of a view was based on my own ability to see it in the first place. But now, from the perspective of fifty-plus years, I realized that the question isn’t who do I credit for my ability to appreciate the view, but to whom do I express gratitude for the view. The beauty was awe-inspiring; I needed to express gratitude or choke.
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Musings:
I’m reading David Brook’s The Social Animal. I love his writing. I don’t agree with everything he says, but many of his insights and his sense of humor are always engaging. I started reading the book and realized that I had already read the opening chapters before. He wrote about how we become the people we are. He says we don’t become ourselves in isolation; we become the people we are because of the life circumstances surrounding us. We become who we are in response to our environment. This does not preclude the impact of chromosomal inheritance.
This turned me to thinking about who I am. I am a different person in each social context, but I am always myself. I believe being ourselves is unavoidable. Even if we try to become someone else or put out a fake front, it is always the one only we could possibly create. We are always stuck being ourselves, maybe not our best selves, and sometimes our worst selves, but always ourselves. Everything we do is touched, changed by the impact of our individuality.
I remember when I was younger, I heard some people talking about how everyone was the same. I couldn’t figure out what they were talking about. I still can’t quite understand what they were seeing and not seeing. Everyone is so distinct while being exactly like every other human being at the same time. The paradox, the mystery of it all. If every snowflake is different from every other snowflake, how is it possible to think we are all the same, boringly the same?
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