Fighting the Good Fight
I just hated my previous post.
The more I read it and re-read it, the more it bugged me. I tried to figure out how to edit some sense into it, but never succeeded. It still reads as if I'm placing myself among great doers of good works, and that's the opposite of what I was trying to say.
As if to underscore the point, last night I was flipping through channels, and there on the Ontario parliamentary feed was a woman I hadn't seen since tree-planting days, a good friend of my ex-wife, about to make a presentation on community access to a police complaints system, for some sub-committee or other, in some un-named meeting room in some government building, presumably at Queen's Park.
I watched the entire half hour presentation on a subject I knew nothing about. Here was someone who had obviously done her homework. More than that: she had obviously devoted at least the last decade of her life to getting this thankless job done. She had grown into the poignant beauty of the concerned caregiver. She spoke capably, confidently, without anger or irritation, even when questions from MPPs were visibly self-serving and counterproductive. She represented 37 organizations, summarized a vast body of research, made a slew of sensible recommendations comprehensible even to the totally undeducated viewer, and happily, methodically did a job that few would ask for and none would envy.
The truth is that I am overwhelmed by these people who quietly and earnestly make their sacrifices for the greater good. I see in myself a fierce resistance. I have only recently learned what my time is worth, and I don't want to give it away. Me! I want more for ME! And when I do manage to do something decent, there's the tricky trap of feeling proud of it. Karma is karma, good or bad. It's all an attachment. You wind up carrying the weight either way.
I'd like to make it so that doing what I love is the right thing to do. I'd like to make it so that music and words could matter as much as unsung heroic beauracracy. I'd like to make it so that giving didn't mean giving up, that sincerity didn't mean being serious, that I could be free to be silly old me and still make a difference.
Right now, as I look at the effective people around me, measuring not just their public profile, not just their tangible results, but their focus and commitment to their own true causes, all I can see is that I have a lot of growing up to do.
And frankly, I resent it!
The more I read it and re-read it, the more it bugged me. I tried to figure out how to edit some sense into it, but never succeeded. It still reads as if I'm placing myself among great doers of good works, and that's the opposite of what I was trying to say.
As if to underscore the point, last night I was flipping through channels, and there on the Ontario parliamentary feed was a woman I hadn't seen since tree-planting days, a good friend of my ex-wife, about to make a presentation on community access to a police complaints system, for some sub-committee or other, in some un-named meeting room in some government building, presumably at Queen's Park.
I watched the entire half hour presentation on a subject I knew nothing about. Here was someone who had obviously done her homework. More than that: she had obviously devoted at least the last decade of her life to getting this thankless job done. She had grown into the poignant beauty of the concerned caregiver. She spoke capably, confidently, without anger or irritation, even when questions from MPPs were visibly self-serving and counterproductive. She represented 37 organizations, summarized a vast body of research, made a slew of sensible recommendations comprehensible even to the totally undeducated viewer, and happily, methodically did a job that few would ask for and none would envy.
The truth is that I am overwhelmed by these people who quietly and earnestly make their sacrifices for the greater good. I see in myself a fierce resistance. I have only recently learned what my time is worth, and I don't want to give it away. Me! I want more for ME! And when I do manage to do something decent, there's the tricky trap of feeling proud of it. Karma is karma, good or bad. It's all an attachment. You wind up carrying the weight either way.
I'd like to make it so that doing what I love is the right thing to do. I'd like to make it so that music and words could matter as much as unsung heroic beauracracy. I'd like to make it so that giving didn't mean giving up, that sincerity didn't mean being serious, that I could be free to be silly old me and still make a difference.
Right now, as I look at the effective people around me, measuring not just their public profile, not just their tangible results, but their focus and commitment to their own true causes, all I can see is that I have a lot of growing up to do.
And frankly, I resent it!
posted by David Newland at 1.2.07
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