Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 215
“The self is always in danger of being submerged in anonymity, of becoming a thing. To celebrate is to contemplate the singularity of the moment and to enhance the singularity of the self. What was shall not be again”. (Who is Man pg. 115)
Another way of “being submerged in anonymity” is the way we talk about, view our daily existence. So many people see life as a sort of ‘groundhog’ day. Get up, go to work, come home, go to sleep, wake up the next day and do it over again. We look forward to the weekend to be free and do what we want to, only finding we have chores to do, obligations to meet and feeling exhausted from our days off. Many people find themselves stuck in routines not of their making and feel forced to be enslaved to ‘making ends meet’. Still others, when asked what’s happening respond with “Same stuff, different day”. All of these ways can be defended and are real life experiences, we are forced into routines to make ends meet, we are repeating our routines daily, weekly, monthly, we are working for paychecks and not fulfillment. We are living a ‘groundhog’ experience. However, this experience is true for all the economic classes, the 1% is as stuck in their routines as our the rest of us, the celebrities are as stuck in being submerged in anonymity as anyone else. Because anonymity is not about the headlines, it is about the loss of self. It is about “becoming a thing” where we lose/surrender our core sense of beingness to the societal ‘norms’ and to an outer locus of control. Anonymity is the loss of our inner being, our uniqueness to the conventional notions of the society around us.
Being one’s unique self is not always pretty, it is not always fun and it is not always accepted by the masses. While we celebrate the unique inventions of people, like Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Alan Turing, Steve Jobs, etc, we do not know them and have come to identify them by their inventions rather than by their essence. For many of these people, they may have cme to identify themselves with their inventions and with their success’ not with their independence of spirit, their inner lives possibly were submerged by their outer protective shells of success and brilliance. I have counseled numerous people who have had this issue and found solace in different escapes and experienced a myriad of psychological traumas that could not be ‘fixed’ by a pill. While each person was unique and different, they/we shared a common problem: Believing we only mattered based on what our last/next great action was/is. We/they did not believe they mattered just because they exist, just because they live and their fear of being not being known was as great as our fear of being known.
We become “submerged in anonymity” because of our fear of not being seen and, at the same time, of being seen as imperfect, unpolished and needy. Our fears manifest themselves by going through life, either not making waves, trying to make ourselves very small, or by being loud, gregarious, puffing ourselves up. Both have the same effect-keeping people at bay so they will not see the messy inner lives we lead. Both have the same effect-keeping us stuck in anonymity and sorrow. Both have the same effect-separation and worthlessness, fear of being ‘found out’ and more and more hiding.
The antidote to our anonymity is to live truthfully. To accept that all of us suffer from the same dilemma and everyone wants to know they matter! Telling our kids that our lives are better because they are in them, taking actions of gratitude towards people who help us and we are connected to, no longer using someone for our gain rather recognizing their worth and contribution to our lives, our shared mission/job, etc. Living life in full view of everyone, without shame nor blame, overcoming the fear of being seen for the joy of knowing we are seen, growing and deepening our connections to our inner lives, to the people around us, to the community we live in, to God and living a life of belonging, of including rather than pushing away those who love us, embracing our imperfections as well as our brilliance, all our paths to getting out of anonymity, living the truth of YOU MATTER! This, is the surest path to never “becoming a thing”!
In recovery, we are constantly seeking to improve our connection to and turn over control to our inner lives. We have lived with an outer locus of control forever, we wanted an inner locus of control and did not know how to achieve it, we mistakenly thought escaping the outer controls was enough. We have learned to grow our inner lives so they can have the control over us and in this way we throw off the yoke of ‘do as I say’ societal norms and conformity. In our rebellion, we found a new master and it wasn’t us nor God. Our recovery is based in spiritual principles.
Being immersed in this teaching helps me to see the error of my ways and the lies I told myself. It is also helping me see how I have strengthen my sense of being, how I have left the lake/ocean of anonymity by strengthening my inner core sense of self, offering my self to help another(s) and connecting with people by overcoming my fear of not being liked, not being seen, being scorned, rejected, etc. I am committed to not treating myself as a “thing” anymore and not going along with another treating my like a “thing anymore as well. I have the power and control to stay free. This independence, this freedom is precious and I pray I can stay free and not fall back into anonymity and “becoming a thing”. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark