The Thinker, The Thought and The Human Spirit
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- Created on Sunday, 26 June 2011 01:00
- Written by Pam Howell
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When I was a young teen, I spent a stormy summer night in a tent with my two brothers. We were on the Cape and there was an incredible storm unfolding outside the walls of our flimsy canvass shelter. As was often the case, Kevin fell asleep early, the first among us to depart from the waking world. But Brian and me? We were terrified.
I have a strange strategy when it comes to terrifying situations: I like to come up with something even more terrifying so that the original terror does not seem so bad. And that night was no different. To distract us from the awesome storm, I decided to tell my younger brother a ghost story. It was about this strange character that popped into my mind, fully formed and undeniably real to me. A vampire called…..The Siberian Albino Hitchhiker. This wild demon couldn’t wait to spring to life through my imagination.
I described this creature in detail as my brother’s eyes widened. I fleshed out his carnivorous habits while branches scraped upon the walls of the tent. It was a night not to be forgotten and neither of us slept. You would think that this memory would have stopped me from sharing this story with my own children, but it didn’t, and they would often request its telling.
Like many of us, I have had several “million-dollar” ideas in my life. I explain each one with the enthusiasm and excitement of a person who is on the edge of something, as someone who is about to save the world with an original idea. One favorite invention was what I called ‘The Illuminated Toilet’. This was a motion detector that activated a gently glowing light inside a toilet bowl. This product would be especially useful in the middle of the night.
So…why am it telling you my idea and giving away my chance at a million dollars? I am telling you not because I wish for you to be rich, but because I already confided in my co-worker, Jane Barnes three years ago. The next day she called me over to her desk to show me her sleuthing. “I’ve got bad news, she said, “it has already been invented. I found it on-line. It’s called, ‘The Johnny Light’. I was crushed.
I have also claimed inventing things I did not, like the grilled cheese sandwich. A few weeks ago, my eighteen-year-old daughter and I were joking about my proclivity for false inventions and she decided to check on this frequent claim of mine. She searched online and gleefully determined that I was, in fact, not the creator of the Grilled Cheese. Then, totally out of the blue, she asked, “Where did you get the idea for the Siberian Albino Hitchhiker?” “I made it up”, I said. “I don’t believe you”, she retorted and ….she googled it. My stomach sank. I felt vulnerable. I had not been nervous about the Grilled Cheese; we both knew I didn’t invent the Grilled Cheese, but the hitchhiker? I did invent him! I had a flashback of my defunct glowing toilet. Was that going to happen to my hitchhiker? While the hitchhiker could never make me a million dollars, this story continues to connect me to my brothers, to my children, and to my children’s friends. Suddenly, I was on the cusp of losing the creation of a character I have carried in my mind for 37 years. I waited for the results. “Wow”, she said, “not one hit. It was your idea”. I was relieved and I gained a new status: her mother had actually had ….a unique original thought. And, an original thought is hard to come by these days.
When we think about the evolution of the human species, let’s consider our changing social spheres. We started our human journey in fairly small groups, but soon realized that by amassing more people into the tribe, we could be safer, we could combine diverse skills, we could capitalize on the individual talents that lay resident within the larger community. We progressed from tribes, to towns, to cities, to countries and now….the world as one global village.
Within these former smaller communities, people were noticed for their talents: a great carpenter, a poet, a jester, an artist. Individuals were celebrated for their unique contributions to their community. This created a palpable connection between the needs of the community and the gifts of the individual. It didn’t matter that the tribe down the river had many of the same talents. What mattered was that within your tribe you had status and security in having a necessary skill. You were needed. These skills and ideas within tribes could emerge over time, taking both similar and diverse paths from nearby tribes. Looking back, anthropologists marvel at both the convergence and divergence that occurred. Even something as commonplace as the spoon took on many forms in many different cultures, yet each rendition of this ‘original’ idea was very functional for that particular culture.
So where are we now? Let’s look at the life of the current High School student. This community values good writing, intellectual acumen and originality. Many of our high school classes require detailed research on famous pieces of literature. Our teens complete their work and then submit it….not to the teacher….but instead to TurnItIn.com, an automated document analyzer designed to insure the student did not in any way plagiarize his work. Unlike tribal life, we now live in a world where everything we create can be checked against everything else that has ever been created. In case you are wondering like I was…..according to Turnitin.com, this sermon is 99% original.
Wow. What pressure our teens are under; what pressure we are all under. How can a budding writer, storyteller, inventor, math prodigy, physics doctoral candidate, any of us compete with a thought repository of billions of minds from thousands of years? Images, thoughts, and ideas have been captured and catalogued in a way that makes them immediately accessible. When our cultural organizations were smaller, it was relatively easy to have a unique idea. And, even if it wasn’t unique, who knew? But generating a unique idea these days is much more rare because it is so easy to check whether or not someone else has already documented that idea in some way. In the past, ideas had an opportunity to ferment, to multiply, to excite others and their thinking. Ideas were not immediately squelched as being too similar to someone else’s idea to be considered original. I find myself asking this question: Can an idea still be original even if another thinker has thought the thought before? Will we be saying, “Well….it was original for me….”
One of the ways we grow the human spirit is through the expression of our unique authentic voice. What does it mean to find that voice in a time when every original idea you have can be measured against every original idea anyone has ever had? Does this new power run the risk of stifling humanity’s diversity of thought by discarding ideas before they are able to reach their fullest expression? And how does this impact the way humans wrestle with the existential question of whether their lives matter in a world where there appears to be so much duplication of thought. Are we too interconnected and aware of each other to find our own voice?
When our community becomes too large, we can lose that sense of who we are as individuals and how we can make a difference. It is not that we want to be a unique individual in order to be separate, but rather to be included because of our uniqueness. We desire to be known for not just what makes us the same, but also for what makes us different.
When we consider the earlier reading from Viktor Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning, we are touched by his confident assertion that a man will never throw his life away as long as he understands how he is uniquely irreplaceable. This uniqueness allows him to understand the ‘why’ for his existence. This is our struggle: In an age where it is so difficult to be unique, we can begin to feel expendable, replaceable. How then, do we demonstrate to ourselves that we are, in fact, uniquely irreplaceable? How do you define the ‘WHY’ of your existence?
Frankl provided two examples that are essential to answering these questions. His first example was an attachment to a person or being: a child, a pet, a family member, a friend - a beloved being who understands at the deepest human level that you are unique in all the world. The second example Frankl cited was an unfinished creative work which without the creator would remain unfinished forever. Both examples demonstrate an interdependence in which we are called to show up and be present. And if we don’t, it is noticed.
Jen Lishansky’s response in the Concord Journal also found meaning in life by listening to that spark within her, that itch as she describes it. Is that not what we all hope for in ourselves and in our children? That ‘unique light’ that creates a spark within a person and fires up a deep engagement in life.
In our Religious Education program at First Parish, we strive to provide ways for our children and teens to do just that, we ask them to show up for each other and to become seekers of both inner and outer understanding. We provide paths for teens to explore their inner landscapes through programs like Coming of Age. We have paths for them to explore their outer landscapes through social justice work like trips to CityReach, Transylvania, El Salvador and New Orleans. These experiences provide our teens with the opportunity to find their unique voice and to discover that ‘spark’ within themselves that is an irreplaceable part of this faith community.
Religious Education does not end with our teens. While we may not call it that, but adults here are also on this journey of both inner and outer exploration. Who am I and what is my place in the world? Adults participate in pilgrimages to Transylvania, and work on social justice projects through urban ministries. Adults learn about themselves by teaching our children and by singing in the choir. We are on a path of self-discovery through a commitment of our presence to each other and our Unitarian Universalist faith.
Jesus said, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.” Within these words, there is no death of original thought, but rather the resurrection of inspirational thinking that is uniquely within us. Such transcendental inspiration has been happening in this place for centuries and now continues within each of us as we add our unique voice to the chorus of Unitarian Universalist voices.
Discovering the ‘Why’ of our existence is a persistent calling within the human spirit. It is what makes our lives matter. I believe this parish is that smaller community within the larger global village that gives us the opportunity to practice being the unique thinker we are meant to become. In this way, we are blessed to witness the divine unfolding within each one of us.
So….did I buy the “Johnny Light”? No, I did not. I guess, in the end, I prefer the mystery of darkness.