Conversations For Transformation:
Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard
Conversations For Transformation
Essays By Laurence Platt
Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard
And More
Temples Of Gray
New Jersey Turnpike, New Jersey, USA
May 26, 2011
This essay,
Temples Of Gray,
is the companion piece to
Love And Kindness.
I'm driving north on the New Jersey Turnpike - an iconic
American freeway. I've got the radio on. And the air conditioner. I'm
just another motorist in just another car surrounded by vehicles of all
kinds
imaginable
on just another road in just another state in just another country. Oh
... and in thirteen days I'll be sixty one years old.
This essay isn't about my birthday. It isn't even about birth
days - plural - in general. Beyond the era of
childhood innocence, it seems so arbitrary to celebrate a life (and
Life itself) a paltry once a year. It seems to me there's
such illusionary scarcity in celebrating a life and Life
itself just once a year. Every hour, all twenty four of them in fact,
of every day is imbued with the possibility of celebrating Life. Every
hour is a new opportunity to celebrate the honor and the
privilege
and the
miracle
it is to be alive.
Neither is this essay a commiseration of aging. It's not a
dirge if you will. If you're expecting this, you've come
to the wrong place. Really!
This essay shares the way I've regarded my now nearly sixty one year
old body over time, and particularly what happens when I regard it
these days with
love and kindness
(as
Werner Erhard may have
said).
I watch my diet carefully. There's no fanaticism in the
way I eat. I wouldn't put sugar water in the gas tank of my Toyota
Yaris in lieu of gasoline. Similarly I watch what I put into
my mouth. It's pragmatic. It's not an "ism". It's just what
works.
I take vitamin supplements. I don't smoke. I drink
red wine
occasionally - on the advice of my physician. I exercise. I stay fit.
My goal is to exercise daily - and I don't always make this goal
although mostly I do. When I do, I either run five miles on an
elliptical or I
swim
two miles. I'm not big on weight training although the worm is
turning slowly in this direction. I prefer the aerobic
wash which comes with running and
swimming.
The daily healthy five mile aerobic wash trumps the looking
good yet health benefit questionable "six pack abs".
My exercise regimen today is a matter of maintaining optimal vitality.
There's almost nothing left of my exercise regimen from an earlier time
which was staying in shape ie staying tight in order to
look good. What's interesting is when exercise was a
matter of staying in shape / staying tight in order to look good, it
was also more of a chore and more of an effort than it is
today. Now that it's simply a matter of maintaining optimal vitality,
it's no more of a chore and no more of an effort than brushing my
teeth.
My body is changing, and with it what I do when I look in the
mirror
is changing too. There came a day when I noticed one or three gray
hairs in both my temples, a beer bulge in my belly (even
though I drink beer very occasionally) which refused to disappear no
matter what muscle toning exercises I threatened it with, and my arms
not long enough to hold reading material far away enough
from my eyes to be legible without reading glasses.
If I tell the truth about it, I didn't exactly welcome these changes. I
resented them. I tried to get rid of them - hence exercising in order
to look good. When I looked in the
mirror,
if I wasn't avoiding looking at them directly, I was pretending they
weren't there. But they are here. And they're not going away. In fact
in the future they're inevitably going to be more of the rule than the
exception.
What I've noticed is the resolution of this state of affairs isn't to
grin and bear the changes. It's certainly not to
resent them (what good does that do?). And
while I can always write it off to good health practice, going
to the gym and exercising in order to try to change my
body,
works
the same way as trying to change anything else: in trying to change my
body I'm simply locking my dissatisfaction with it, in place.
Gee! I hope you get that ...
Now, here's the thing: I did eventually change my body. But the change
didn't come from changing my body! The change didn't come
from changing the one or three gray hairs in both my temples. The
change didn't come from changing the beer bulge in my belly. The change
didn't come from making my arms long enough to hold reading material
far away enough from my eyes to be legible without reading glasses.
The change came from looking at the gray hairs in my temples and the
beer bulge in my belly and the blurred everything I tried
to read, with
love and kindness.
The change came from looking to see whether I could love my body's
changes. The change came from giving up making my body
unattractive because of its changes. The change came from
not avoiding looking at and not avoiding confronting my
body's changes in the
mirror.
The change came from looking to see if I could bring
love and kindness
to my body's changes. I saw I can love what I see in the
mirror.
And when I love what I see in the
mirror,
it feels as if an old
friend
whom I've not seen in a long, long time has come back into my life
again. It feels as if an old, trusted, deepfriendship
is instantly renewed, as if there's been no interim years of separation
at all. I can love my body and celebrate all its changes, just as I
celebrate all the accomplishments over time of a good and trusted and
loyal
friend.
It's been said many times by various oracles "Your body is your
temple". If it weren't for the fact that saying it this way adds
more significance than I think is useful, I may agree with
it as an idea - but only given the following proviso:
Saying "My body is a temple" may sound like it's a place I go
into to worship. I say it's simply not useful to make
any distinctions which suggest I'm somehow
"inside" my
body
(or even "outside" my body for that matter):
who I really am
as my
word
isn't quite so linear. But if we can agree a temple is a house
worthy of bringing
love and kindness
to, then I can say "My body is a temple worthy of bringing
love and kindness
to.".
It's all very basic and pragmatic and simple when I look
at it this way. Here, driving north on the New Jersey Turnpike, it's
the most basic, it's the most pragmatic, it's the simplest Life gets.
Briefly glancing away from the traffic, I see my body's
reflection
in the rear view
mirror.
And I see with a new inspiredlove and kindness
there's not one but rather two temples in the
reflection.