look in the mirror and behold your enemy

I'd like to think I don't have many enemies in life, but I'm pretty sure most of the worst ones are the ones I carry around inside. Probably the worst is my friend/nemesis, Mr. Cynicism.

I'm not sure where it comes from in my life, but it's there. In the Nouwen book I'm reading now, Nouwen writes a brief chapter about how his personality exists in two parts - child Nouwen and the adult Nouwen. Of course the analogy probably doesn't apply perfectly to me, but the paradoxical nature of personality sorta allows the idea to fit.

Child Gar likes toys (especially robots), candy, playing video games, and drawing cool pictures with pencils and pens. Child Gar likes meeting new people, making new friends, and helping others. Child Gar is compassion, creative, vulnerable, a dreamer, a believer, and hopeful person.

Old Gar likes books, movies, music, whiskey, bourbon, and scotch. Old Gar likes to be alone, is suspicious of other people, wants to travel alone, and nurtures a several vendettas of varying intensity against people, places, and cosmic powers. Old Gar is cynicism, always cautious, extremely stubborn, stoic, a doubter, and pessimistic person.

The tale of two Gars is difficult for me to trace, but I attribute it to the fact that Child Gar got his ass kicked so many times by the world, circumstances, and people he trusted that Old Gar is now almost always the dominant personality. Sometimes Child Gar gets to sneak out and play, but Old Gar constantly monitors the world around him, and when the threat threshold rises too high, Child Gar is instantly withdrawn to Old Gar.

Nouwen writes that it is God's intention that people live as holistic beings and that we need to be at peace with ourselves in order for us to combine the two selves into the person that God wants us to be - not just our strengths, but our weaknesses as well. The interesting note that Nouwen makes is that God empowers people through their weaknesses, and its at our most sensitive vulnerability that we become most powerful. Humanity has to embrace its vulnerability, its neediness to find God.

Therein lies the problem for much of my life.

I hate being weak.
I hate being powerless.
I hate being vulnerable.
I hate being wounded.
I hate feeling betrayed by the things I invest in.
I hate feeling betrayed by those I care about.

All feelings of hurt, pain, and betrayal follow the line back to my father's death. The event crashed into my life with all the grace of thermonuclear MIRV raining down over a country village. The utter feeling of powerlessness made me loathe to experience the same thing again.

Losing several uncles and both grandmothers in subsequent years haven't added to my understanding of the experience. Post-university life wasn't a shining star either.

The calling now is that I must accept things. But to grasp circumstances with a happy smile and warm hug while repeating "Things as they are is how they were meant to be..."

I can't do that yet... I'm not sure if I'll ever be strong to do it. And Child Gar still gets his ass kicked on the regular.

The kid needs to get some protection.


.:.


Old Gar: "I'm telling you, kid... do you like being pounded like a piece of new meat in prison? What, this is like the 48745 time you got beat down?!?"
Child Gar: *whimper* but... but...
Old Gar: "Stop your whining. Sheesh, I shoulda given this to you years ago."

(Old Gar hands Child Gar something)

Child Gar: "What's this?"
Old Gar: "Just read the side. And point it that way, at WORLD."
Child Gar: "Desert Eagle point five-oh?"

(Old Gar slaps in clip, cocks the pistol and gives it back to Child Gar)

Old Gar: "That cold-hearted biznitch is gonna get it now... heh."
posted by G at 6:59 AM   |

in?scrip?tion (n-skrip-shun)n.
1. The act or an instance of inscribing.
2. Something, such as the wording on a coin, medal, monument, or seal, that is inscribed.
3. A short, signed message in a book or on a photograph given as a gift.
4. The usually informal dedication of an artistic work.
5. Jeremiah 31:33