It feels like I've been saying "get out of your own head" a lot these days.
Anxiety can be a pretty pervasive concern for a lot of folks. Many times, we can boil anxiety down to a constant litany of negative self-talk in our brains which dictates our behavior and our emotions. The daily "I'm not good at this, I'll never succeed at this, Why would someone think I'm good?, I'm going to fail, I'm not going to say the right thing, I screwed up, I'm too fat, I'm too skinny, I'm not smart enough, Why me?, etc, etc, etc. There's a lot of "I" and "Me" in those statements.
I'm reminded of a poem I once read by Thomas E. Brown:
If thou could'st empty all thyself of self
Like to a shell disinhabited,
Then might He find thee on the ocean shelf,
And say, 'This is not dead,'
And fill thee with Himself instead.
But thou art all replete with very thou
And hast such shrewd activity,
That when He comes, He says, 'This is enow,'
Unto itself - 'twere better let it be,
It is so small and full, there is no room for me.'
Now obviously, there is a strong religious intent to this poem, but if we were to take the religion out of it but keep a sense of the spirituality or interconnectedness with the world around us or even replace "He" with "Life," it can take on meaning for everyone.
If we could just empty ourselves of Self; get out of our own way, then might paths open up to us that were hitherto unseen? (Yes, all of a sudden I've developed a floweriness to my writing.) If we could get out of our own heads, who knows how much Life we could be living - in the present moment? It's those times when I've been least concerned with myself that I've felt like I'm most fully living. How often do you think you're truly living?
Sorry, unfortunately your source here, let me guess, Madeleine L'Enge perhaps, disseminated false information as to the author of this poem, which is not by Sir Thomas Browne. It's not a bad poem but too much psycho-babble in it for my taste as one can never utterly devoid oneself of self until dead. Recommend you peruse this statement to identify your poems true author !
ReplyDeletehttp://penelope.uchicago.edu/false.shtml
@Hydriotaphia: You're absolutely right, the poem appears to have been incorrectly assigned. (has now been corrected in the blog post) Sadly, it appears to be incorrectly assigned all over the web, just goes to show you can't trust everything on the internet! As far as the concept of emptying self of Self, you're also very right that noone can devoid self of Self completely, utterly, and wholly at all times. However, the hope is that by striving for such, we can take ourselves out of the equation at least some of the time and clear some of the detritus out of our heads, making more room for living in our present moment. Thanks for the correction and I hope I didn't offend by incorrectly assigning the wrong author!
ReplyDeleteSelf-absorption is a great way to slow down time ! (Steve Taylor's 'Making Time' is a great read on time and consciousness).
ReplyDeleteWell i still have faith that the web disseminates far greater a percentage of truth compared to falsehood, but it is scary how fast the net can play a game of Chinese whispers, sometimes I feel like I'm playing a game of whack-a-mole on this one, as its a part of my cultural heritage I value greatly, but absolutely no offence taken. Ms. Madeleine L'Enge is the probable source of error.
Perhaps it's as Eastern religions suggest, more the distinction of emptying the ego in order to develop the self more fully. Not a very original thought as I'm heavily biassed towards Jung on these matters.