On Being

Yesterday I posted a note about feelings, what my friend Andrew rated a "three-finger gag reflex" note. Seems I'm not done writing about this stuff, 'cuz here I am again at the keyboard.

A trainer at a recent workshop got a good chuckle out of me when he said, "Women are human beings, men are human doers. I laughed, and I've used that line a few times with clients myself. It just kinda nails it, doesn't it?

This morning, the Little One and I were discussing art. She was heading out on a field trip to an art museum. She has received some recognition for her art work, and she has quite a grasp of all things artistic. We agreed that art wasn't all about what is pleasing to the recipient, but also about how it serves as an expression of the artist.

That's when it hit me - that's when I realized why I have such trouble reigning in my emotions and keeping them under lock and key. Deep down in my inner core, beneath the good grades and the smooth delivery and the attention to grooming, is an artist. And art is reduced to simple elements of technique without emotion.

Dance is just an exercise in kinetics without feeling. Music can be dissected into math and physics without mood. Paintings that are mere representations of objects are no better then photographs. Exclude the descriptive words from an essay and you are left with an article for a technical journal. Tell a story without emotion, and you resemble my college government professor. Boring. Sterile.

I don't want to be sterile. I don't want to be neat and clean and tidy. I don't even want to be pleasant. I want to be messy. I want to be flawed. I want to be real. If I decide I care for you, I want to reach inside of you, grab you by the gut, and shake you up.

I don't want to just go through life accomplishing tasks. I want to be a human being, not a human doer. That's what I want.