You Are Nothing More Than A Pebble On The Beach

I admit that I probably am too much of a romantic, given my rough-and-tumble background.  But, walking along the beach near my cottage yesterday, I couldn’t help noticing, not the endless wave-driven layers of pebbles blanketing the sand, but the variety of pebbles in the collage.  Millions of pebbles.  No, more like hundreds of millions.

Our lake is unique.  Lake Winnipeg has been gouged out of the landscape by Ice Age Lake Agassiz.  It left a sizeable depression in the prairie, making it the third-largest Canadian freshwater lake, and the eleventh largest in the world. But Lake Winnipeg is found right along the dividing line between the limestone rubble and bedrock of Manitoba/Saskatchewan and the pre-Cambrian shield granite of Ontario.  Accordingly, on the sandy beaches of this lake, we find an eclectic mix of pure quartz, feldspar, mica, slate, shale, granite and limestone (fossils included).  Each rock type has a different density than the other, and different flaws, strengths, cracks or fissures.

I picked up stone after stone for nearly an hour, examining these rock fragments that had been buffeted by the same water, the same ice and the same wind and rain as every other pebble on the shore.  Not one was the same as the next.  Nor did I expect them to be the same.  Yet, I could not help marvel at two things:  1) How supposedly the same items, in the same environment could be so uniquely different and 2) How we generally look along these lakeshores and see sand, or rock or water, as a conglomerate, but fail to appreciate the differences in each granule, and the beauty in the individualism.

As hard as rocks may be, they are eventually shaped into something special and different.  Yet, as fragile as we humans are, we expect that everyone will think like us, agree with us, and conform to our standards and beliefs, regardless of their backgrounds, the buffeting they took through life and their particular toughness or weakness.  We expect others to be us, but resent it when they usurp our special place in the world.

Anyone in a medium-sized family can attest to the truth that no two children – even those born as identical twins – end up precisely the same.  That is because there are nuances in the way that they experience life, the way they are treated and the information that they absorb.

Don’t believe it?  Step into your living room, and take a picture.  Now go to the other side of that room and take another one.  Upload them to your computer, and examine them.  Do you see precisely the same thing in the same way in each picture, or is everything viewed from a different perspective?

The problem with each of us is that, no matter how close we may be to another, each hears and sees the world from that specific vantage point.  An identical twin talking to her mother in the kitchen may not be heard by her sister in the next room, or the mother’s response may be missing a key inflection of the voice, or the nuanced hand gesture that went with a comment.  So now that twin has a unique experience that impacts uniquely on that person.  It is the proverbial Chinese cliché regarding the beating of a butterfly’s wings.  Everything thereafter has been altered, regardless of how miniscule the change may be.

In our own lives, realization of that impact of minor adjustments to experience is critical to finding our oasis in life.  We all need to seek out, not our neighbour’s dream, but our own.  We are special.  We are unique.  We have ideals and aspirations that we may not have fully understood, yet.  But to attempt to mirror the supposed successes of your friends is only to invite discouragement, when you discover that it is not as fulfilling for you as it seems to be for someone else.

Your co-worker has a Lexus.  So you must need one, too, to be happy.  Your doctor vacations in St Kitts.  So you must go there, too, to be a success. You read about this life of excitement living in the Far East, so off you go, only to find that you are lonely and disheartened, because your family and friends are more critical to your enjoyment than you realized.

You are nothing more than a pebble on a remote beach.  I, too, am nothing more.  But, for me, that is more than enough, because I have learned that, being a pebble, I am unique, individual, marvellous and irreplaceable.  So are you!

Of All The Most Important Things in Life, The Most Important Is Commitment To Others

Ask ten people what they consider to be the most important thing in life, and you may well generate ten different concepts of essentials.  However, explore those ten answers in more depth, revise the scenario to include the possibility of being isolated from human contact, and the critical concern that those respondents will come up with is that a specific person would be the most essential element to be included in that existence. 

Human beings are, like many beasts of the wild, wired to need social contact.  For some, that contact may be minimal, but all of us need interaction.  Does that mean that we view others as vital, or are we so completely narcissistic that we view fellow man as nothing more than a need to make our life complete? 

Regardless of why we need people with whom to interact, the stimulation that man provides for man completes a significant component of how we view ourselves. As far back as 1943, psychologist Abraham Maslow postulated that the need for belonging, love, friendship and human interaction neared the base of his hierarchy of needs, just above the need for safety.

The male of the species has been bound, it seems, to man’s best friend – the dog.  While our connection to this four-legged friend undoubtedly offers something psychologically satisfying to humans, it lacks the completeness of human to human involvement.  The connection fulfills, on the surface, the need to have someone, or something else, understand us.

Gang membership, and, in turn, gang initiation, draws on the desire to belong, and to be involved in something that sees us, individually, as something special. While, superficially, gang members appear to lose that individuality, they do view themselves, in fact, as disparate and unique from the rest of the world, or the rest of the neighbourhood.

There may be precious little difference between the desire to be a gang member and the desire to belong to an elite club, or a segment of society that has riches to flaunt.  Both say to the initiate, pledge or member, “You are part of something special and unique, and therefore, you, too, are unique.”

The idea of looking to be a part of something that someone else cannot be a part of is coloured with liberal dollops of narcissistic personality.  Yet, is it wrong?  And how is it different, for example, from seeking to find that special aspect or part of our lives that fulfills us? 

I have chosen a minimalistic way of life.  Does eschewing material acquisition make be the antithesis of narcissistic?  Hardly.  I choose this lifestyle specifically because I feel that I want to focus, not on frills, but on fewer, but more significant benefits and luxuries in my life.  To simply forfeit things for the sake of forfeit gains neither the minimalist or society at large anything.  It is akin to being a lowly carrion-eater, and choosing to ignore the carrion that it finds, in case someone else might come upon it and want it.

When I began my journey toward voluntary simplicity, and opted to focus on fewer, but more significant things in my life, I had not contemplated the philosophical dilemma of choosing specifically what the most important thing in my life would be.  I had a concept of things and experiences that would be more significant to me than others, but had not established an absolute priority.  That changed, dramatically, this week.

On Tuesday, my wife awoke, drenched in sweat, breathing shallowly, experiencing numbness on her right side, and thoroughly nauseated.  Within seconds, I had her in the car, heading toward the hospital.  Driving as quickly as I could from our isolated home toward the local hospital, I called 911, and was escorted through  the protocols as I rushed to intercept the dispatched ambulance.  When I determined that I could make it closer to the hospital, rather than park on the highway and await the emergency vehicle, I became quite belligerent with the dispatcher who wanted me to be in an identifiable location for the EMS drivers.  My anger increased as the seconds passed, and my wife’s symptoms worsened.

Ultimately, the ambulance arrived, my wife was rushed to another hospital thirty miles distant (where better diagnostics could be conducted), and her impending critical incident was averted.  I am very pleased to say that, while she was close to a severe crisis, she has recovered fully, thanks to the speedy response of the EMS team and the skills and dedication of the hospital staff.

However, what I learned was that all of the important things that I had casually itemized in recent years truly were minimal in relation to the one important thing in my life: the valued relationship and love affair that I have with Janice.  I learned many valuable lessons, but the most vital lesson learned is that the most important thing in everyone’s life should not be a thing at all, but a feeling:  the feeling that you have for someone important in your life.  For many of us, that someone may not even be human, but a pet or animal pal.  The most important “non-thing,” even for us minimalists, should be a feeling that has its basis in narcissism, but ultimately ends in completely submerging our own wants and desires in favour of the needs of another.  Call it love, or call it selflessness.  Call it what you want.  The most important thing in life is to place all things behind the commitment to another living being.