Remember the days of old when make-believe was an innocent game of mimicking adult behaviors and employment positions? This was a time when the playground was more than metals, sands, and swings. A time when clothing fashion was merely to promote your favorite cartoon characters and have fun with the whimsical nature of splattering colors in an artful fashion of fabric 'finger painting'. These times, usually causing extreme feelings of nostalgia, were marked by the ability to have a sad countenance without the fear of being told to grow up. However, like any facial expression that reveals the reality of the heart a countenance can become a curse within the blessing. After all, most people wouldn't trade in their emotions of pain and discomfort in exchange for numbing and ignorant bliss; this isn't all people, though the majority trade reality for a smile because of denial and not because of the choice to resist pessimism.
The irony of the childhood years is the mimicking of adult behaviors, especially ones children don't understand lead to a level of pain that destroys souls. The devastation of rejection can be felt from any angle and at any age, but even rejection has it's positive side. For instance, sometimes people are addicted to a feeling without realizing the connection to self-mutilation. Another example is of being part of a group that outwardly advocates peace yet inwardly devours each other for power, prestige, or possessions.
The greatest argument against growing up, the Peter Pan complex, is that growing up is a trap. Quite literally adulthood is a snare of the imagination, compassion, and adoration of the simple yet truly awesome wonders of the universe. Which isn't to say that being an adult means losing all sense of awe for the universe or having empathy, it is to suggest that most adults haven't actually grown up at all; toiling the rest of their days to find something they haven't accepted that simply was lost. Perhaps that is why Tootles lost his marbles when he left Never-land, Tootles lost the very thing he spends his adulthood trying to regain; his sanity really, but actually it is what brings him joy.
Joy and happiness are not the same thing and even a child can discern the expressions of someone as joyful from the inside or happiness on the outside.
Surely the greatest personal achievement and conversely the mark of psychosis is emotional intelligence or the lack there of. It isn't securing a dream job, clearing debts, or even being an athletic champion. All of these things are fleeting and mean nothing during times of war, famine, and disease. Is it not interesting that adults ask of children what they want to be when they grow up and either seek to make those dreams malleable to their own personal desires or concrete against the evolving desires of the child? Yet rare are the parents who foster growth of the heart and equally promote their own growth through the lifestyle choices that facilitate emotional intelligence; or as it is otherwise aptly called by professionals, empathy.
Of all the things the world has to offer, the world doesn't offer emotional intelligence on trees, in the dirt, or far out at sea. Emotional intelligence is not something that can be genetically modified to create larger yields and no amount of meditation will reveal her secrets. There is, however, a magic formula for emotional intelligence, simple and true and without the need to go into debt with student loans just to attempt to decipher the meaning of. This formula is special because it is free; the formula isn't free because of the magical wonder it brings. The formula is free because it doesn't require a profit to initiate and the formula doesn't come with strings attached to a puppeteer.
As doubtful as many are to the pervasive effects learning the formula is, knowing the formula may be the hardest thing for a person to do until the only thing to fall on are jagged rocks.
The formula is sacrifice.
In and of itself sacrifice is counter-intuitive to instincts and requires a relinquishment of profit. The ability to sacrifice without a sense of duty, which is a sense of profit, is the hallmark of a saint. Even a saint can fall victim to the folly of arrogance through pride, given that the goal is steeped with the ego to please a divine entity; however, the pleasing of the divine is not the culprit to misguided selflessness since it is better to aim to please the divine even if skewed. The importance of selflessness is because of how removed from love putting a mirror in front of someone's face is. The mirror is the deed and it is not the tool of a crime, but the mirror reflects everything about the person using it and sometimes the reflection that people feel they must see is that of some kind of good-luck charm and the picture-perfect-esque of philanthropy and wholesomeness. People want to view themselves and they want to do it in the best light possible, even though the best light is revealing and the image in the mirror is a darkened shadow compared to the personal image projected by the delusional mind.
"How are you?"
"Wish you were here!"
"I'm here for you."
The ghost has an interesting point to find all these statements beyond cliche` in a world where asking about someone's day is a formality to speak about themselves, displaying endearment to boast of ones good times is an insecurity, and giving a shoulder to lean on is a phantom offer. I thought this was a dismal way to look at things, but now it is a stark realization when that reflection in the mirror is realistic and causes a conviction to not settle with things merely being ok. Though conformity has etiquette and can be harnessed for a noble cause, often times the perversion is the proverbial elephant in the room in the sense that conformity is denial of reality itself. What greater barrier to the heart is there other than selfishness?
The greatest prophets and inspirational speakers of all time could only surmise the point of existence to be to experience all that the universe has to offer, reluctant to explain the awful truth that the world traps it's inhabitants on a ball that actually protects them from the experiences the universe offers which utterly destroy without mercy. Then people supposed that there is a rule for existing and that rule is to love unconditionally and without ceasing, even though the contingency is the personal pursuit of happiness and only begins in a setting of peaceful, agreeing exchange. Again, the mirror displays the darkened heart behind the veil.
Little did I realize the ghost had used the three statements above in reference to a personally developed three fold process of emotional intelligence.. "Clear your mind of assumptions. Open your heart to possibilities. Purify your soul with virtue."
And my answers, so quickly as they came..
"How am I? Sometimes terrible, wish I had answers, but I'll find my strength in others."
"Wish I was there? My presence will cause upset, I really don't want to be there, but it's not about me."
"You are here for me? You didn't decide to exist, you don't decide if I exist, but I trust you."
A three fold response that got three answers for each step as the truth, the situation, and the resolve. Prolonging the inevitable desire to see the light from the sun and not a bulb in a dressed up chandelier. Better that the mirror reflect a blinding brightness that burns eyes accustomed to synthetic glows in the cover of the night. At least dreams can become a refuge of hope instead of just another sinking pit where evil can manifest through the heart as though in the rightful place. Bottomless is such a thing.
Which is why at the end of each statement there is a sacrifice, which is of the self for the sake of others. Unapparent is the conclusion to the blind, but for those who have experienced that feeling of wrong and being out of place there is a meaning of absolutely relevant value for the heart. If one is to harness emotional intelligence there needs to be bravery to face what is on the other side of the mirror as well as what is in the mirror. Even masks have a vulnerability, to keep from being blind the windows to the soul must not be sealed.
Do you see?
