There's a point in my life when transformation occurred. There are my
actions after transformation. There are my actions before
transformation. I'm responsible for my actions after transformation.
That's good news. I'm also, however, responsible for my actions
before transformation, whether I want to be or not.
That's not always good news.
Before transformation I had no distinction of and no accountability for
my base nature. From time to time it ran wild. Those are the
times of my life I'm least proud of. Those times of my life are hardest
to confront.
I'm watching the movie of my life. There's me acting from
my base nature. I'm mortified, withered, shocked at myself. Yet I'm
riveted, transfixed. I can't look away. There's me up
there on the silver screen really doing what I'm doing, really saying
what I'm saying. That's hard to confront. Base nature is hard to
confront. It's even harder to own.
I'll never have not done what I've done. I'll never have
not said what I've said. Transformation can't and doesn't
save me from my deeds nor from my speech before transformation. What
transformation can do and does do is reach back into my past and
recontextualize
what I did and what I said before transformation. Transformation can't
and doesn't change my base nature. What transformation can do and does
do is
recontextualize
my base nature.
In the olio of human behavior, cruelty epitomizes base
nature to me. The cruelty in my own base nature is my hardest past to
live with. Whether it was distinguished at the time or not, it's hard
to confront. And especially if it was distinguished at the
time, it's even harder to confront. It doesn't make any difference
whether or not my base nature was directed at animals or at human
beings although for the most part it's been easiest to clean it
up afterwards when it was directed at human beings.
I'm confronting instances of cruelty in my life before transformation
when I was barely a teenager, and earlier. I'm not confronting them to
wallow in them nor to make myself wrong for what I did.
I'm confronting them to experience them fully without judgement, to be
accountable for what I did, to take responsibility for what I did, and
to be complete with what I did. I'm responsible for what I
did before transformation not because of this reason nor
because of that reason, not because I'm to
blame for what I did before transformation nor because I
should take responsibility for what I did before
transformation. I'm responsible for what I did before transformation
because I say I'm responsible for what I did before
transformation.
I'm confronting instances in my life when I was cruel to animals. I
poke a chameleon with a sharp stick. It dies. I shoot frogs in a pond
with a BB gun. Many die. I hurt a puppy, my pet cocker
spaniel Sancho given to me by
my parents.
I loved that puppy. I named him Sancho after Sancho Panza, Don
Quixote's companion in the 1602 novel "Don Quixote" by Spanish author
Don Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. I was sad (but it was my own doing)
when
my parents,
concerned, then gave Sancho to my uncle Lenny who promptly renamed him
Tweeger. Tweeger lived a long and happy life with uncle Lenny
and his family.
Don't ask me why I was cruel in those instances. I
don't know.
Many years later in my life, now transformed, I clean it up with
the chameleon, with the frogs, and with Sancho. I go into my own space
where they still live as me. I say I've no explanation for my cruelty
to them. I say I've got a base nature as do, I suspect, all human
beings although I'm careful not to use it as an excuse.
I apologize to the chameleon. I apologize to the frogs. I apologize to
Sancho. I ask their forgiveness. An amazing thing happens. A miracle
occurs right there and then when transformation reaches back and
recontextualizes
my past. I get the chameleon loves me. I get the frogs love
me. I get Sancho loves me. I get they've forgiven me. I'm so
moved my eyes mist over then spill tears onto my face. I cry softly -
with relief, with release. I get I love them. I get I always
loved them. But back then in my life before transformation I loved them
with no accountability coming from my base nature. Today I
love them coming from transformation.
I'm confronting instances in my life when I was cruel to human beings.
There's an old adage which says "Sticks and stones can break my
bones but words can never hurt me". I see how dead
wrong it is. It's verbal cruelty (saying something or
not saying something) which can cause the deepest hurt.
It's arduous looking into this. First I see my own base
nature. That's hard enough to confront. Then I see men's
(not man's:
men's)
base nature. Don't ask me if men's base nature is crueler than women's.
I don't know that either. I suspect it is although I'm careful, again,
not to use it as an excuse. It's an awful realization:
"man's inhumanity to man" is a self-serving myth, a
lie in fact. It's "men's inhumanity to man" whether
we, the boys of summer, like it or not. It's our base nature.
Even as I give space to my own base nature, even as I let it
be and simply observe it without making it wrong, as a
man I stand ashamed for the repercussions of
men's base nature in the world, for the possibility killer
it is, totally disproportionate to women's.
The way I complete instances in my life when I was cruel to human
beings (those times when I said something or didn't say
something which caused hurt) is like this:
I make a list of anyone and everyone, dead or alive, I
know I've hurt. Then, over a period of almost a year I
systematically set out to contact each of them and complete with them.
There are a couple of hundred people on this list.
My parents
are on this list. All the people who love me and whom I love yet am
inconsiderate of and unkind to are also on this list. With some of
them I haven't had any contact in decades. Part of the process is to
locate them, wherever they are on the planet. I do this through
telephone calls (local and international - I spend a small
fortune on international telephone calls), making inquires,
writing letters (e-mail has not yet arrived on the scene).
Eventually I contact almost everyone on the list. I 'fess up. I
apologize. I ask for forgiveness, and I say I'm OK if they don't grant
it. The thing is, I say, I know what I did, I know what it
cost me, and I invent a new possibility of being honest, open, and
respectful. People are very, very generous. They get it. They forgive
me. There's nothing left.
I also complete with those who've died, and with those I can't trace,
like this: I go into my own space where they still live as me. I say
I've no explanation for my cruelty to them. I say I've got a base
nature as do, I suspect, all human beings although I'm
careful, as before, not to use it as an excuse. I apologize. I ask for
forgiveness. It works - just as it works with Sancho. I am, after all,
the keeper of the cruelty of my own base nature whenever it showed up
directed to animals or to human beings.
My
completion with my Mom
Andee
and hers with me transforms what's possible for us as family. My
completion with my father
Asher Manfred
and his with me takes our transformation as family to breakthrough
levels, totally completing my base nature by taking full responsibility
for it.