Then When?

“Desire is an ache, but it’s so much better than the numbness of wanting nothing.” – Holiday Mathis

I like to read Holiday Mathis’s horoscopes on a daily basis. She is an excellent writer and my horoscope always reads like a riddle. The above was my horoscope the other day. Even if you think astrology is hogwash, I recommend reading Holiday Mathis’ column. I always glean something from it. I usually think about what unique wisdom she has written about, throughout my days.

This quote of hers reminded me of the other night, over the Christmas break, in which my family all settled into watching Jerry Seinfeld’s latest comedy special. Jerry Seinfeld is worth 950 million dollars. As he adeptly states in the beginning of his special, he is not doing that special because he has to do it. Obviously, Jerry Seinfeld desires to do comedy stand-up routines. It’s probably one of his greatest loves in life.

Sometimes we get so caught up in the rote quality of our lives and our routines that sometimes it seems like a thick fog of numbness can set in. This pandemic, particularly in the beginning of it all, brought us all down to basic necessities of survival. I know that I personally have felt some numbness throughout this scourge. There were many days that I felt like I was just going through the motions. But at the same time, the pandemic has also helped to give us some real clarity, as to what is truly important to each of us, and also as a collective, in many regards. The pandemic has been a “pin pointer”, helping us to get real clear on what actually moves each of us, at our cores, by showing us what we like about our current lives, and what we desperately miss.

Most of us who live in Western cultures are way up the slope on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Most of us are not worrying about where our next meal is going to come from. At the very top of Maslow’s needs pyramid is “Self Actualization”. Self Actualization is described as “the desire to become the most that one can be.” According to Abram Maslow, when all of our other needs are met (food, shelter, clothing, love, esteem, recognition, health, intimacy, etc.) the only other need that is left for us, is the the need to fulfill the desire to become the most that one can be.

We were all built for different purposes. What motivates and excites you, may not interest me at all, and that’s okay. That’s what makes this world so interesting and full of variety. To become self-actualized, we have to become sleuths to find out about what’s possibly been lying dormant in our own DNA. We have to search past the fog of our own every day automated “doingness”, to get to the light and the beacon of our own deepest longings, and yearnings and inclinations and desires.

All of our flowers will look different in this Earthly garden. It’s the variety of plants in any garden, and how they grow and thrive together, that makes the garden so incredibly, breathtakingly beautiful. And every flower blooms in its own time, which interestingly makes the garden, something all together different, yet still achingly beautiful, in each of its seasons, year in and year out. If the garden is to reach its fullest potential, it is our own individual jobs, to push our own little closed buds, to be brave enough to open up and to bloom brightly, and take up our own space in the sunshine that bathes us all. We must do something with those seeds of desire which are purposefully implanted in each of us. If not now, then when?

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.