It's not what you do...

Hi,

I read an interesting story in the New York Times the other day that got me thinking. It was about a hiker that went out into the wilderness on his own without telling anyone where he had gone (kind of like 'Into the Wild' for those who saw the film). From some strange twist of fate he managed to find himself trapped by a boulder. Actually an 800-pound boulder rolled onto his hand. There was no way to get his hand out from under it and there was no way anyone would find him. So he tied a tourniquet around his wrist and sawed off his own hand to get free. Pretty incredible. Now he is being paid big bucks to tell his story around the US to businesses and children, about will, survival, etc.

Reading a little bit about what he has to say about the experience is quite interesting. He came to some interesting 'conclusions' and insights while stuck under his boulder. He says he decided to live. Or rather he understood that he was going to die but decided that it would not be that day and not by that boulder (which reminds me of the great James Bond title 'Die Another Day').

I don't think we realize how strong an insight that is. An insight that connects to a film I saw the other day, Synecdoche New York, by Charlie Kaufman. The film was very dark, and very much about how we are all hurtling towards our deaths, but each one of us secretly hopes that we will be the exception...

Knowing that we are going to die, really knowing it, makes us realize that we are ephemeral and that there is nothing we can do about it. It should probably allow us to be less attached, to take things in stride, to make light of things we sometimes take seriously (like that idiot that cut you off in his car), to have a more buddhist-like approach to death, etc.

Personally I know this, I read this, I just wrote this, and yet I forget it often. But when I do remember it, it is liberating... Now if I could really just integrate it into who I am.

Which leads quite well into the second major insight our lone hiker had. A bit of background is necessary to explain the insight. The hiker in question had moved away from a big city to Colorado in order to be faithful to who he was - an outdoorsman. He decided that it was important in life to do what you love and thus he moved to a place where he could do just that. But that was not the insight, au contraire! As seductive as that may be - do what you love - his insight was quite different actually. While under his rock (his book, coming out soon, is called Under a Rock and a Hard Place - not bad), he came to an interesting insight. [Slight digression: one awful thing about having done anything more than a minimal amount of 'spiritual' reading is that you can never claim ignorance. Every insight I see or hear, I have almost certainly read somewhere already. But reading is not 'getting' and sometimes you read or hear or experience things in a different way and only then do you really 'get' it.] Anyway, while under his rock, he realized that moving to Colorado did allow him to do what he loved. BUT, he also realized that he still and always defined himself by what he does. And his insight, in my own words, was that it is all about 'how you are'. It is not what you do that defines who you are, but how you are which defines who you are.

This last insight has got me thinking. While that thinking has been going on for a few days and so it would be hard to share in its entirety, one of the areas I have been thinking about is 'what you do'. And putting together the two insights shared by our hiker, it makes me rethink the importance of choosing what you do. Apparently it is less important than what I thought. What is most important is 'how you are'. And 'how you are' implies, to me, how you are with others. And that implies relationships - very close, close, not so close - and maybe how you are in each of those is what it is all about. Hmm.