This essay,
The Wolf Who Cried Boy,
is the companion piece to
Base Nature.
It's a great idea in theory: to strive to be a better
person. There's
nothing wrong
with striving to be a better person ... in theory. In actuality,
striving to be a better person is like a new year's resolution.
New year's resolutions are notorious for not
working.
Or at least they're notorious for
workingfor a while then ceasing
working
entirely. The
half-life
of a new year's resolution is short.
When I look closely at
why
striving to be a better person doesn't
work
(or
why
it
works
for a short while and then stops
working),
I discover
why
in the
Zen
of its expression. Implicit in the very
languaging
which calls forth striving to be a better person, is the
dud I'm striving to be better than - "better person" /
"dud" being the two sides of the same
coin.
The
Zen
of it ensures striving to be a better person only serves to reinforce
the presence of the dud.
There's no escaping it. It's pernicious.
It's sobering to confront how that which originates in the very best of
me (the desire to be better, the wish to improve), in
other words that which springs from the essential goodness
of my nature isn't necessarily powerful ie it doesn't
necessarily make any difference. It's a good idea in theory to strive
to be a better person. But in practice, striving to be a better person
doesn't make any difference.
It's not enough to strive to be a better person, it's not
enough to try to be a kinder person, it's not enough to
decide to be a cooler person - because if I'm striving,
trying, and deciding on top of a foundation of
unconfronted automaticity, they're superficial endeavors at best
... and hopelessly inadequate at worst.
The unconfronted automaticity is my nature as a creature. It's
not merely what I was born with. It's what I was born
into. True choice in the matter of my own life only
starts once I'm willing to take responsibility for my
language as an implement of
creation.
I wasn't born with true choice. No one is. True choice isn't our
birthright. If I never take responsibility for my
language as an implement of
creation
I'll never have access to true choice in my life. Until I do, I'm not
living what's possible for being for human being. Until I do, I'm
nothing more than a two legged creature - a mere biped one
rung above an ape perhaps, but nothing more than a two legged creature
nonetheless, a beast with the possibility of (but not yet
embodying)
language as an implement of
creation.
There's nothing I can do to avoid being the beast I am. Until I can
first be the beast I am, I can't really create. Until I
can be the beast I am, all my ventures are slaves to survival.
The
machinery
of survival is such that when all my ventures are slaves to survival,
I'm avoiding being. Until I can be the beast I am, if I attempt
to step outside the mold of survival of the beast and be creative, all
my creative ventures are predicated on ie are mired in avoiding being.
It's really hard for me to be really creative when I'm avoiding being.
If I'm striving to be a better, kinder, cooler person without first
being willing to confront the beast I am, without first being willing
to be the beast I am, then I'm like the wolf who cried
boy: if I attempt it often enough without
demonstrating
any grounded authenticity, the end result invariably is nobody will
believe I am
who I say I am.