About You, Me and Us
Reading brings us unknown friends.
~Honoré de Balzac
***
I get a lot of junk email, as you all do I'm sure, and one of them is called about.me.com. I don't recall ever making a webpage or joining a site called about.me.com, so I'm confused how they got my email. Further, they told me that "people" were looking at my about.me profile. Well, I got curious. Did I join this site? No. Turns out, the only people looking were employees of about.me.com, hoping I'd get curious, log into their site so they can send me even more emails begging me to join. I am put off by the name of the site, that's the bottom line. About Me. As in it's all about me. And it just isn't.
Writer Tom Wolf dubbed the baby boomers born after WW2 as the "Me Generation." Well if they were the "Me Generation" then our generation should be called the "Me, Me, Me Generation."
Oh, I'm as much to blame as the next person. I found myself documenting the most banal trivia on Facebook last night, all because my granddaughter and I put up Halloween decorations. I assumed that people would care about this. I am slightly embarrassed that some people cared enough to take the time to look at the pictures of my Halloween-ified kitchen and livingroom. Me, me, me.
There's a special apparatus now that allows you to take a proper selfie from a few feet away. Me, me, me.
It's as if we all have a mirror in front of us and we're standing next to one another, but instead of looking to our right or left, we stare into the mirror and say "Can you see me?" "Can you hear me?" "Listen to me!" Watch me!" All that comes back to us is our own voices and our own images.
But I don't write for me, me, me. I write for you. I put down my mirror and I walk among you, trying to make eye contact. Yes, it's as much for me as it is for you, but once our eyes connect--we are aware of one another. We stop thinking of ourselves and start interacting. And once we interact, everything is altered.
I want to look at you right now. I want to tell you something. I know that sometimes you feel abandoned. I know sometimes you feel utterly alone. I know that pushing forward on autopilot is the only way you get through some days. In the deafening silence of night, right before you dream, your mind wanders to your biggest fear and you have to really concentrate to get it out of your head. You think of the next day and all you have to do. Then you drift off and allow your dreams to untangle the world.
I know you want acceptance. I know you want to feel happy, and so you do things that will net the best possible outcome for that. But happiness is transient; it can't last. What you need to be seeking is peace. Peace is not frenetic, peace is not something for which you scramble, day to day to day. Peace is quiet, in the present moment, and much of the time, solitary. Peace is knowing everything but your breathing can simply wait. Peace is sitting with yourself and saying, "This, right here, is enough."
In this world of "Me, me, me," I want you to know that I am looking for you. I am tapping into your joy, your sorrow, your suffering, your unease. I am a reflection of you that you don't hold in front of yourself. I am one of you, and you are a part of me. Take the time today. Look around you. Stop--you are alive. We are alive.
