I am…

A spirit, clothed in flesh.  It is so easy to forget this, to slip into the illusion that I “am” any number of the roles I play, or the aspects I represent.  In my meditations this morning, I found myself scanning the various small and large torments I inflicted during yesterday’s workouts, and felt grateful that today is a recovery day…yoga only…

Then I realized that that voice was just a voice, and, although today remains a recovery day, my body actually feels fine.

I am a man…

Arrgh.  Boy oh boy, do I hear, loud and clear, the rattle of the naked ape in the back of my head.  It wants out of responsibility.  It wants out of obligation.  It is tired of fidelity, and wants to go after everything female with the proper waist-to-hip ratio.  It seeks to justify its prospective transgressions on evolutionary grounds.  It would destroy my marriage, my career, my life for momentary gratification, and then grin at me and shrug.

I am black…

Yeah.  And also white.  And Asian.  But the socialization is mostly black, and that’s where my most vulnerable wiring is.  Recently, we had some posts dealing with slavery, and the damage done Africa by the institution.  Undeniable.  The only problem is that, (in my mind) people who go too far down that road bear the risk of becoming reverse racists.  After all, if Africa’s problems are all the fault of Europeans, does that not imply a rather grotesque moral failing on their part?  And what then differentiates such a thinker from the white racist who says that Africa’s problems are because of intrinsic flaws on the part of Africans?  Each racist, white and black, sits on opposite sides of a table yelling at each other.  The situation reminds me of male and female supremists blaming each other for the state of the world.

But what is the alternative?  To me, it is to seek answers in universal human traits.  Anyone who has read Lion’s Blood knows that, in my opinion, if the relative levels of social/technological development had been reversed, Africa would have screwed Europe over just as badly.  I can’t count the number of black folks who have objected to this idea, clinging  to the belief that Africans are somehow spiritually superior.  And not realizing that if they take that position, they have no right to complain about white racists who say blacks are inferior.  In fact, I suspect that if they were white, that’s the way they’d feel about it…after all, they see the world in absolutes, where one group is superior to another.  I can’t be a part of that.

And yet…I can’t begin to express the pain and loneliness I’ve felt navigating the waters of my career, the flat astonishment I’ve felt when I realized how few whites seemed to have any idea at all of the social advantages they enjoy.  It is so easy to identify with this aspect of my being.  I have every justification for doing so. 

And if I take that road, it will lead me away from my true self.
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In meditation, in certain aspects of martial or gymnastic or yogic motion, I can catch a glimpse of the true flow of my life.  In my son’s morning smile, in my wife’s warm embrace, in songs that trigger old and fond memories, I can escape my ego’s clutch and remember that I am not my history.  Not my wounds.  Not my scars, or my gender, or my skin color. 

Not that.  Not that.  Wow.  It’s astounding how hard it can be to hold onto that insight.  But really, it’s the only game in town…