Living without cynicism and doubt
Is it possible to be an authentic individual for the greater good?
“There is no them; there is only us. As a nation, we are dialectically preoccupied. Everything is either right or wrong, red state or blue state, young or old, gay or straight, rich or poor, Palestinian or Israeli, my way or the highway. Everywhere we are trapped by these old tired, binary reactions, assumptions and certainties. There is only us there is no them and whenever someone suggests to you, whomever it may be in your life that there’s a them, run the other way.”
-Ken Burns
How did that quote make you feel? Uncomfortable? Did you feel a sense of relief that someone expressed the depths of your values? Do you think the quote is malarky?
Ken Burns is a brilliant documentary filmmaker who gave this commencement speech to the graduates at Brandeis University. When he talks about “us” it’s the lowercase “us” so as to not separate from “them” to create a divide but to realize we are all human beings with deep desires to live the truth of who we are which is love, hope, faith, light and all things good in this world. Who doesn’t want to live a peaceful life, and why, for some, is it so far from their reality? Why do we have to age to realize our deep wells of wisdom? Can we have a fire burning deep within to create and make change along with peace within?
I hope these students were shaken with optimism to their very core and realized how very dark it is right now in the world and that we need their light—not the light they think they’ve been sharing with their righteousness, feeding the palms of Marxist behaviors that also align with far-right Communist white supremacist values.
I wonder where they learned this from? (rhetorical)
The two extremes have much in common and are missing the very point of life, buried in desires that cover the shadows of lack. I see them as individuals with this fire burning in their youth, the desire to belong to something greater than themselves. This is normal self-development. Yet, it’s sadly so misguided and brainwashed to the point of the destruction of Western values. You may disagree with me, but that’s okay. Tell me why, if you have an itch.
Authenticity is a trait deeply buried beneath America's masks, expectations, and societal structure. Individualism is coveted yet leaves us longing for community and purpose. Often, when we believe we are part of a community, a shared purpose with a common goal to achieve, the community of capitalistic corporate structure abandons us and spits us out, maybe with a bow of money tied to it, if we’re lucky. After 20+ years in corporate America working in some extremely difficult environments, I was cast out numerous times, not for lack of drinking the company’s Kool-Aid but simply because of the structures eating one another for higher profits.
I noticed that whenever I was authentic and empathetic with the corporate culture as a community, it fared well 1:1, but as soon as I was part of the big picture, I didn’t quite fit. Staying in my lane didn’t work so well until I cut parts of myself off to exist. I think that’s what many people do in corporate culture, and that’s great for many people. I’m glad they exist because I could not do that anymore as I lost parts of myself with every role.
I’m so grateful for all the experiences that led me here, and they left me with deep introspection. Here I was, a mother and wife, needing a community I paid for as a service to help raise my young children, but it still left me stressed and conflicted underneath it all. It was all a choice, and it felt as if there was no other formula or answer. And I know my husband felt the same way: trapped and unable to find his true authentic self due to the layers of pressure to provide and live the Silicon Valley lifestyle for the sake of our family. Conversations between us only became dead-end arguments, and we pushed on. Our egos and masks were heavy and layered, leaving us with no room to dream of other possibilities; even when our son had his first break at 14, I had to stay in the intensity of the corporate community. After all, my husband and I needed to work to maintain the flow of funds for others to care for our son. There was no way out until the pandemic when my last corporate contract ended, and we decided I wouldn’t return. We chose us and our family at long last and uprooted out of Silicon Valley.
This formula is no longer working in America. It separates, divides, and keeps us all out of alignment. I’m not saying I don’t believe in Capitalism or Democratic values. I’m simply saying that when we all live in our true, authentic selves, we can all succeed.
IGNORANCE + ARROGANCE = CYNICISM
Cynicism is winning, and it is ugly at its lowest vibration. Cynicism is fear and dark shadows combined. This cycle is perpetuated on purpose to keep us in our place, so we need leaders to get us out of it. They tell us what “they” will do to make it better and tell us what we want to hear.
Cynicism breeds lack and self-doubt with an attitude of “You can’t be right. Therefore, I will mock you, cut you down, make you feel like an idiot.” Taking this righteous path is fear itself and only further divides.
"No matter what comes along, we’re always standing at the center of the world in the middle of sacred space, and everything that comes into that circle and exists with us there has come to teach us what we need to know.
Our life’s work is to wake up, to let the things that enter into the circle wake you up rather than put you to sleep."
— Pema Chödrön
What is the solution?
Living in alignment with one’s authenticity. The true individual is made to support the WHOLE picture. When we stop pretending to be something we are not, we will all be granted our truth, our individuality at our highest and best. The real challenge is changing our mindset and recognizing our free will as something to rise to in love, not fear.
We get to decide what is true for ourselves, and that is the reality we will experience. Even if we read the same book, listen to the same teachers, or watch the same movie, our experiences will be processed differently.
We take what works for us and leave the rest.
And we can change and take in other things later.
I have listened to the same stories and lectures from Ram Dass and Krishna Das for over 12 years, yet they get into my psyche differently each time. I hear a different part of it that resonates in a different way that helps me in that moment.
Whatever tastes best in that moment is what I digest. And while I haven’t been digesting much of my spiritual ancestry, I have a hunch I will explore more of that soon. The spiritual part didn’t resonate or, rather, wasn’t presented in a way that spoke to me the first time around.
Can we be open to hearing differently if we only truly listen to one another? Curiosity and patience are not easy qualities when we get wrapped up in being righteous.
Love is my value system.
I see how hate is disguised as cynicism and righteousness, which is unacceptable for me. This is very difficult when the pain of the world is felt. We are in a cycle of uprising from seeds that run deep. We are not powerless vibrationally or energetically; we can only make choices that align with this simple, truthful value. All the darkness is being exposed, and we can see how the heart of the system and its structures are being challenged. I only hope to my very core that we see one another as human beings not as us vs. them.
I’ll leave you with this other nugget from Mr. Burns’ commencement address:
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun. What those lines suggest is that human nature never changes or almost never changes. We continually superimpose that complex and contradictory human nature over the seemingly random chaos of events, all of our inherent strengths and weaknesses, our greed and generosity, our puritanism and our prurience, our virtue, and our venality parade before our eyes, generation after generation after generation. This often gives us the impression that history repeats itself. It does not.
“No event has ever happened twice; it just rhymes,” Mark Twain is supposed to have said. I have spent all of my professional life on the lookout for those rhymes, drawn inexorably to that power of history. I am interested in listening to the many varied voices of a true, honest, complicated past that is unafraid of controversy and tragedy, but equally drawn to those stories and moments that suggest an abiding faith in the human spirit, and particularly the unique role this remarkable and sometimes also dysfunctional republic seems to play in the positive progress of mankind.
Here’s to the possibility that by connecting with one another individually, we will have the courage to be authentic and make change.
Thank you for being here and reading to the very end. If you found value in this writing, please consider becoming a $5/month subscriber so I can continue creating a life of creativity, offerings, and discovery and hopefully begin to fund my book. Thank you.
Here is Ken Burns’ full commencement address -
Other happenings:
I got published in the June issue of 50 year old literary magazine, The Sun! You can read my piece here. Scroll down to find my essay on Uniforms.
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