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EQUALITY For some time now, there's been a misconception about equality, whether or not one man is as good as another. We are immediately reminded of that founding phrase, "That all men are created equal," and that, indeed, is true. Created to be, starting out, beginning the same.Man or woman, we are all blessed with the same potential. That's the core of it, the base of our equality. We presume too much upon that common ground, however, by extending that initial equality to those who have fallen behind, to those who have become less than that potential, less than equal. This is not to say a person can't have a bad day, now and then, a period of no growth. Whether it's a day, month, or ten years ... fallow periods are expected. We can't all grow, all of the time. We fall behind, once in a while. Sometimes we don't feel up to our potential. Granted. That's not the equality that matters, here. We're talking about a pattern -- the ingrained, inflexible and absolute state of mind that is evident in many people -- a paradigm that took many years of stubborn, self-serving focus to set in stone. Thoreau knew this when he mentioned those who live lives of "quiet desperation." For those are lives lived in fear, evidenced by a compulsion to pull in the wagons and prepare for attack. "Hold on to what you've got, before you lose any more." That's what many of us tell ourselves, the credo we live by. For most of us, life is a steady erosion of the spark of our youth. We've seen it happen, we've heard about it, we know about it and are prepared for it. We almost come to expect it and appoint ourselves to fulfill it -- you get older; you get weaker. In body, mind, and spirit. You consign yourself to the slag-heap of ineffective maturity. Waiting for the grave. We've been conditioned to expect less of ourselves, and to give less, after a certain point in our lives. And we don't want to disappoint that expectation. We feel it our traditional duty, and our right, to accomplish no growth and make no contribution after reaching a certain age or condition. We feel we've earned a vacation from all we've been through, that we deserve a period of uselessness after a lifetime of faithful service. 2 Upon close examination, however, we soon realize that it's been a lifetime of service to ourselves. Oh, sure, we go through the motions, make it seem we're the wonderful friend or co-worker, the faithful employee or visionary boss ... but we know we've rarely been true to that ideal. Thinking clearly about it, we can recognize the truth -- that we've taken Frost's well-trodden path, and eagerly shied away from breaking any new ground, facing any new challenges.Most of us give up. Life's a bitch, let's face it. We do what's easiest. We do the very least we can get away with. It's more comfortable that way, less hazardous to our health. And that is, arguably, all we ever expect. You get older, you die, and why shouldn't you be comfortable in between? If it's been a life spent largely for the sake of others, or at least a considerable time of selfless contribution to the general good, such respite would seem deserved. But we know better than that, too. Or we should. None of us deserves a permanent vacation. For what? So we can stop learning, stop discovering? A vacation from life? Then what does that leave? Some of us aren't even aware of the tunnel through which we view the world. We don't even realize how closed we are, how little we think of others, anyone outside our tight little world. We just don't know or care, and refuse to see, beyond our comfortable sphere. Einstein acknowledged it by saying that "This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us." For one of advanced years, whether self-oriented or not, this might be excusable. Age does equalize myopic barriers because of "time served." But it's a lot of time ... many, many years, that earns this exemption. Far too many attempt to claim it well before such time has been served. These early quitters would seek to qualify for non-involvement before such excusable inactivity is earned. We close our gates well before our time, many of us, hoping to be excused from any further confrontations, any further living. We hope to get away with it, we hope no one notices ... that we could actually still handle "it," if pushed. We hope no one pushes. We wouldn't like a shove. No touching at all, please. Let me just prop up this corpse without any bother, if you don't mind. A lifetime of resignation. Passive acceptance of whatever else we have to put up with. Oh, please, don't get me involved -- I couldn't bear it ... Don't try to interest me -- I'm sure I wouldn't be ... Don't try to care -- I have no feelings to spare. I'm just fine in my little shell. Go away, please. And we wade through our long remaining years, hoping no adverse current will pull us in too deep and prevent our painless extinction. We owe ourselves more than that. Secretly, we know it. We owe it to others, too ... and we sense that deficiency as well. It gnaws in the gut like an unacknowledged hunger. 3 For most, this condition will never improve. We've worked on it too long and hard to even think any differently. We're complacent, but so what? Our insouciance is a comfortable fit. A badge mislabeled "survival." It's all we've ever known. There's a nagging wisp of doubt somewhere in our deep self. No matter. It soon passes without a scar. But it's there, all the same. We feel its prodding reminder on those ever fewer occasions when the truth comes to heart.We ignore it, for its guilty embers are uncomfortable ... but they never quite go out. Somehow, we know that's appropriate. For, as long as there's still a glow, we know we're still alive. We just hope to keep that glow under control. Not too much life, please ... I'm enjoying the nap. For those of us in such a slumber, anyone awake is a threat. We can't be comfortable around the doers, the tryers, the effort-makers. Anyone moving faster than we, or making a difference, or really living -- any such busybody better just beat it, buster -- not welcome around here. The noise of their progress is deafening and the spectacle of their change is unbearable to witness, uncomfortable to acknowledge ... for it illustrates and reinforces what little we've managed to accomplish in our own meaningless lives. Their presence invites an unwelcome comparison with our own hollow selves and we fear the exposure of our deficiencies. We'd love to be like them, but hate them because we're not. For there's a special quality about them, a glorious nature so unlike our own dim selves. And we're jealous of that difference, so palpable, apparent. We seek the company of confederate spirits to justify and strengthen our weak foundations. We align ourselves with other hollow beings and seek to fill the vacuum of our lives with the vacuum of theirs. Misery, indeed, loves company, and we find other miserable souls of equal disenchantment who will accept our vacant selves without question or contest. And if they do notice our flaws, or we notice theirs, it doesn't really matter: we both know that neither of us will hold it against the other and insist upon a change. For that's the understood condition in this conspiracy of resignation: we expect nothing from them and they expect nothing from us. If they ever breach this silent contract and make too great a demand or insist too strongly that we change or complain too loud or too long of our less-ness, or threaten to expose the lie of our lives ... then we remove ourselves from the source of that discomfort, that unforgiving mirror ... we move away, or, more easily, remove them from our circle of "friends," our sphere of influence. We know it's an easy contract to fulfill. There will be many others who qualify: anyone will do, as long as they anticipate the same that we expect of them -- absolutely nothing. 4 And, of course, the object of our conspiracy is to acknowledge all those who have managed to do what we could not -- all those "special" people who've made a change in their lives or a change in the world ... the doers, the innovators, the difference-makers. We don't acknowledge them with pride, however, or respect, or appreciation, for that is only a tacit concession to what we already know -- that others have actually done something of substance; and we haven't, or couldn't. So, we don't clap too loudly for them, don't praise them too highly, for we feel that affirming such accomplishment somehow confirms our own lack of such capacity. We sense a ratio of inverse proportion: the louder we applaud them, the lower we feel.We're jealous of them. Our envy is bone deep ... because we know that we might once have done as well, if only we hadn't given up ... if only this, or that ... we woulda, coulda, shoulda. And we resent them because we abandoned our dreams and they did not. Why, they deserve to be as miserable as we are! And the only solace is the consensus of our fellow conspirators: we make light of such great accomplishments, make them less, bring them down to our size, or smaller. We diminish greatness in others, laugh at it, to make it less threatening. And our conspirators laugh along with us. For they are jealous, too, and equally hollow and unfulfilled. And they're also uneasy about their purpose, or function, in the scheme of things. It's a part of the contract in such conspiracy of resignation. For those lesser souls and their silent compatriots, all with suppressed spirits, blinkered eyes and cocoon lives ... for those who refuse to participate and yet condemn those who do ... and for all those too busy dying to be involved with the living ... there is no equality. |