[Contextual foreword: this was written when I was in the throws of resigning from full-time employment from an elite educational institution, suffering from teacher burn-out, post-divorce turmoil and empty nest crisis. The prevailing buzzword at the time was "transformation", necessitating endless workshops and speeches on the subject. My gut instinct - bending to my own inner mounting stress and pressure - was to bow out and drop the job; for me, an ultimate act of deconstruction]
Much emphasis is put on construction these
days; it is the hallmark of our current society, and certainly every
institution, corporation and any-ality places premium on its “mission
statement” or “vision”.
(My wise late aunt likened institutions and
–alities to psychopathic individuals, characterised by the exact same
tendencies. Though we are horrified at the idea of psychopathic individuals, we
are inured to these traits which are now the benchmark in the very places where many
of us find employment)
Even the new “transformation” buzz is but
another form of constructing, this time a more acceptable politically-correct
image. But another projection to add to the countless others devised to promote
the business/ school product.
Surely true transformation starts with deconstruction: not a comfortable process, and necessarily involving loss of some sort? It's so much easier to cling to things as they are, piling and bolstering them up to make them look even better.......empire building?
History shows how every empire eventually
took a dramatic tumble, ending in spectacular ruins that still hold our fascination. [see https://connectsongdance.blogspot.com/2019/10/old-king-glory.html a song for children about how to weather the collapse of systems - how to dance round and round the rubble!]
A light look at deconstruction
There is a new word out –load shedding.
This is not welcome in my country because it means the lights go out as the
electricity supply is cut off. Our human systems are in collapse and cannot be
sustained as they are, and we’ll only help ourselves by practicing load
shedding in all aspects of our lives. We desperately need to learn to do more
with less. Our gross consumer habits are our very undoing, so we could practice
now getting used to less STUFF.
Load shedding is maybe exactly what we need to usher in the transformation we've all been on about.
But let me bring it back to my small-scale experience: in leaving my secure, prestigious institutional post, and no longer bearing the respectable title of a married woman, the sudden absence of labels,
identity and habits that once defined me felt very akin to mass deconstruction. Without these boxes, I’m left with only ME.
Letting go is a clue: as our own bodies feel floored, grounded, bottom fallen out, we are taken down to the ground. Losing a job or splitting with a spouse can be deeply humiliating for some - a great sense of failure. At the same time, it's the ultimate load-shedding!
We are mainly urged to hold our heads high as we brave crisis, but what relief to let go and go down; it won't be forever, and we come up the lighter for it. Though our egos and minds may abhor the idea of load shedding, loving the false
security that ticks-and-boxes afford us, our bodies respond with gratitude and relief when
allow ourselves to drop baggage (and shopping bags!). This practice could also stave off stress-induced conditions such a strokes, aneurysms, insomnia, stiff necks and nervous tics.
Watching healed animals demonstrates this perfectly: look at Rumi's open stance of complete trust: the art of letting go! (no sign of the traumatized rescue dog with tough street background)
I can learn to trust what my body tells me in crisis situations. When my known world shatters around me and there's a choice between propping up crumbling remnants or letting go... what do I choose? After all, the one certainty I have in this world is my own SELF – and
everything else is just an add on between my birth and death.
[Contextual afterword: I'm revisiting what I wrote years back, now at a time as we find ourselves living in the midst of the Covid pandemic, and here in South Africa in our second month of lockdown. This has surely brought unwelcome and unimagined deconstruction and transformation- nobody's choice- on a global scale. All of us are personally, socially and economically affected. As our systems both near and far collapse, how do we choose what is essential to keep and what can drop?]
Ode to a full time salary
.... by LC
....which
requires us to sit in a box
behaving
while we tick it off
neatly,
with obedient loyalty
and serious obsequience.
No
space for jack-in-the-box
pop- up- fun
nor
a breather.
Creativity
can’t be gift-wrapped.
So
I’ll forgo the full-time “benefits”,
toss these boxes, stack
a precarious leaning tower
or
stamp them flat;
paint them, re-arrange them
or just abandon them.
Liz Campbell is the sole writer and composer of all the published material on this blogsite, unless otherwise stated.
She has further blogsites:
