What happens to those beautiful babies with innocent, loving natures who turn into angry old men? Is it nature or nurture? Perhaps it's a bit of both. Do we make ourselves this way, or does life mold us like the man on the right?
This transformation is a product of both time and culture. Time ravages our bodies, while culture ravages our souls . . . if we let it. We don't have much choice about time, but we do have a lot of choices about how we allow our culture to influence us.
There's a lot of time and culture between the pure soul of the baby and the dark soul of the old man. Without intentional effort, our default state will likely be more like the man on the right.
What do I mean by intentional effort? I mean the action that we take within ourselves to counteract the negative effects of our culture. It means making the effort to choose beauty over ugliness, joy over anger, and love over hate. Yes, it takes effort.
How can we grow up to be kind, loving, and thoughtful people when we're immersed in a culture of win-lose, ego-driven competition, and political hatred? A culture that implies that nothing below the satisfaction of the five senses is important, and is unmoored from any spiritual (not religious) center. There's a saying in the business world: "Culture eats strategy for breakfast." Our culture is eating us for breakfast.
With so much beauty in the world, why do so many people choose ugliness? In my opinion, it's because we've lost our spiritual center. I hasten to say that I'm not talking about religion because that stirs up all kinds of hostility and leads to the "My religion is better than yours" argument. Our spiritual center is our soul, something that we all have. In that soul is a place of love, compassion, and joy. It's wide open and on display in some and covered over by years of suffering in others.
The Buddha said that all life is suffering. It's how we deal with our suffering and the stories we tell others and ourselves about it that make the difference. Shakespeare said, "Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
There is a place in our souls that is love, compassion, and joy. Richard Rohr learned, during his work in hospice, that everybody finds it sooner or later - some in the last five minutes. He calls it enlightenment at gunpoint.
Let's not wait for the gun to be pointed at our heads to discover and nurture that place in our soul that is love.
FB!