Throwing the divine tantrum

Today, I feel tired of my own advice. I feel like I’m in the room with a very young yoga teacher who somehow believes that if I can just free my mind to accept the divine in all things, I’ll be able to arch my back a little farther, stretch my sides a little longer, plant my feet a little more firmly. But I want to say in return, “maybe the holy in me would rather say in bed, would rather not feel in balance within all four limbs, would rather not open its heart and shine.” Some days, after all, doesn’t the divine want us to feel frustrated, to feel inflexible, unspontaneous, uncreative? Some days, doesn’t God want us to lose it?

In so many peaceful philosophies, the overwhelming consternation that has always been a part of human life is simply not accounted for. Or, when it is, it’s seen as a distraction, an illusion, something to slough off, the source of our pain and a deterrent to enlightenment. We are told we need to get over these unfaithful, non-divine feelings. That we need to let go and let God.

So why, I ask, is this striking of forehead against wall so common a human experience?

Let’s say there’s a God. I’m comfortable with that supposition. Let’s also say, as the gurus of the ages tell us, that God is benevolent and kind, God is love, God is out there working for us. (If you’re a believer in the self-propagandizing The Secret, then you know that the “Universe” - a more salable word for God, the divine in all of us, Krishna, Alla, the great I-am-who-am - is basically a big Robin Williams-esque genie waiting for us to realize that all we have to do is ask for what we want and presto! The divine drive-up window.) If we suppose that God, by whatever brand-name you purchase it, wants us to be happy, and has made happiness and divinity not only available but attainable, then why does so much of human life at times feel like a stubbed toe?

This is not the paradoxical question of evil in the world. This is the question: “If our lives are meant to be divine, why doesn’t calm and serenity and wisdom come in equal measure with frustration and desire and - let’s face it - obtuse clumsiness?” I think the bone I have to pick is: are we favoring some human experiences over others? Are we shaping the divine based on what we rarely have, rather than what we know?

I am nervous as hell to go back to teaching. I want to whine about it and complain about the thanklessness of the job. And when some part of wedding planning goes awry, I want to cry or yell or tear into shreds the wickedly expensive estimate from the caterer. Now and then I want to just be a baby about things, to curl up my fists and pout and stomp around. I want these things, but the wise, non-judgmental, yoga-body me says tsk tsk before I even get a chance.

But there’s the thing. That I want to throw a tantrum or be jealous or feel resentment or tell someone off or say to someone “because I’m older and I know better, that’s why” makes me think that maybe there’s some validity to the impulse. And not just an impulse toward childish behavior, but the impulse to feel feelings that just aren’t so hot. Feelings you hide from your priest and fellow parishioners, feelings you grin through in yoga class.

What if these feelings and impulses are just exactly as divine as the happy-happy zen shoved in our faces by ten-cent gurus every day? (Something that amazes me is the willingness with which many Christians take Jesus’ own brattiness in stride. That boy could holler! But we have no trouble seeing his every action, his every step and misstep, as divinely aligned.)

So, how about a new philosophy? You are divinity. No matter what. When you eat too much, when you swear in front of children, when you can’t take your loved ones’ charming idiosyncracies any more, when you trip, when you poop, when you want to stay in bed, when your yoga shorts make your ass look big, when you don’t get your oil changed even though you know you should, when you get a speeding ticket, when you choke, when you fall. Every experience a divine experience. Every experience good and worthwhile. Even the gagging on your own good advice.

No responsibility to come upon death

It feels to me like time is moving too quickly. This is August and this is Sunday. Soon, it will be January and I’ll be forty and I don’t have enough time between now and then to accomplish much of anything. Soon, it will be Monday, too. The occupations of each day seem enough to drive life forward without a destination.

I am not ready to say “forty” and to have implied in that word a life half-lived, half-done. Again, because I am nowhere near as accomplished as I’d like to be.

I am reminded of Thoreau’s deadly words, the words I first read in high school, the words that in a moment became the theme for my years after: “…to find, when I came to die, that I had not lived” (from Walden - look for paragraph 16). Thoreau is speaking of his adventures at Walden Pond, and his retreat from the bustling life that seems to shed no tear over lost time; the zombie life of forward movement without a destination besides the next meal. He strove to extricate himself from that, believing that life is lived in quieter, more intentional ways.

In high school, I read those words and an imperative settled on me: do not live only to die with regret. And, in one manner or another, that imperative has driven my choices, ruled my days; and when they could not, when circumstance kept me in a job I found unrewarding or filled my days with triviality and unintentional, unchosen activity, those words and that imperative sat on my shoulders heavily and whispered. I have felt guilty for wasting my time in fruitless pursuits. I have felt ashamed for staying in employments that were not satisfying, against my better judgment and without a choice.

I am no where near ready to say “forty.” I have spent so much of my time enlisted to urgency, debt, and duty.

There is another side to all of this, though.

In season one of the X-files, a precognitive man who can foresee people’s deaths tells FBI Agent Dana Scully that she will not die. He says to her question “How do I die?”, “You don’t.” On watching this episode with my soon-to-be husband, I decided in play to declare the same about myself. I said, “I won’t die,” as if I have this choice. Instead, I told him, I will just disappear, or be abducted by aliens, or be lifted bodily into Heaven.

Obviously, this is only a joke. But the longer I’ve held to this joke, the more it has shifted to become a fledgling philosophy. “I won’t die” seems a perfect antidote to “to find, when I came to die, that I had not lived.” Without the pressing responsibility to one day come upon death, living becomes freer, and something more easily lived with patience and tolerance. If I won’t die, then I do not need to live so carefully, walking always on the broken glass of each passing moment, fearful of the irreversible damage of any single misstep. Instead, a person who will not die knows that he will have plenty of time to walk many different paths.

For me, this is a frightening and also beautiful new philosophy. The certainty of death, and the threat of feeling one has failed when those last breaths come, have sung their fret to me every day since I turned seventeen. In a grand irony, Thoreau’s words have made regret so imminent that I have not lived the quiet, untroubled life he advocated. My urgency to live life right has prevented me from living a life of peace and appreciation.

I have occupied myself with doing everything I could, shoving in joys beside duties, and not usually giving them equal time. For the pain it’s caused, though, I am accustomed to it.

I am both anxious, and loathe, to let go of my habit of urgency.

But I should start somewhere (maybe here). There is a saying so many people use to motivate themselves: “Live as though you might die tomorrow.” (I can only imagine the catatonic state of panic I’d have suffered if I’d heard that one in high school!) I would like to alter that: Live as though you will never die. Fill up your days because you can, not because you’re about to lose them. Be gentler, less urgent. Regret nothing, for there is time for everything.