weakness – sethlewis.ie

Enjoying Your Own Decline

Nobody likes to talk about it, but the decline is coming. I’m not talking about economics, western culture, or common courtesy. I’m talking about us. You and me. Life is a mountain with two sides, and no matter how high you climb, you’ll still end up at the very bottom someday. Even the god-like pharaohs landed there, and the treasure in their tombs was eventually plundered. That’s how it goes. If you’re lucky, you’ll live long enough to experience the decline as a gradual downward slope. For others, it’s more like a cliff. One thing is certain: decline is coming.

It may be your strength. It may be your beauty. It may be your mind. It may be your influence, the relevance of your work, your notoriety, or your social prominence. Eventually, it will be all of the above. I guess it makes sense that we don’t like to talk about this. It sounds dire, doesn’t it? And yet I’ve witnessed people living out the years of their decline with a strange, luminous joy that refused to track with their diminishing abilities and strength—on the contrary, it actually grew stronger and brighter as they weakened and let go. How is this possible? I want to know, because I want that joy.

The (Unimpressive) Ambassadors Of Heaven

The American Embassy in Ireland is a big building, but the public (even the American ex-pat public) can only see a small part of it. That part is mostly security guards, fluorescent lights, and bulletproof glass. Somewhere inside of the building I know there’s a ballroom. If I was a Very Important Person I might get to see it, and maybe I’d even meet the ambassador herself. America’s ambassador to Ireland has a very impressive list of credentials, which is to be expected. Nations that are great and powerful (or want to be perceived that way) do their best to be represented by highly qualified individuals who are skilled in the diplomatic arts. People who can make a good impression at fancy dinners in ballrooms with VIPs. People who can move their nation’s interests forward through the ever-changing minefield of political realities.

On Losing Consciousness In Public

There was a period of years in my life when I randomly lost consciousness. The first time it happened I had just had an eye test, and I woke up on the floor with my head spinning and several blurry women in matching purple uniforms leaning over me. That was strange. Then there was the time my face went straight into my lunch, and the time I just fell over standing in the doorway of the kitchen. There was also the time I gave blood, and once again woke up with the staff leaning over me. Last, but certainly not least, there was the time my wife and I went to a traditional Irish music show. At the end of the evening they called people up from the audience to sing, and they called us, and we tried to say no but somehow we ended up on the stage anyway. We sang, and I was just starting to think we were pulling it off pretty well when I felt the blood leaving my brain. I knew that feeling like an old enemy by then, so I bent over double to encourage that blood to go back where it should have been while still trying to sing and act natural about the whole thing. I do not recommend this as a way to act natural. Thankfully, my wife caught me when I went down. When I woke up I saw sympathetic eyes glancing away from me. I guess most people don’t have a category for how to react to the guy who just collapsed publicly on stage in front of them. Fair enough.

What If I’m Not The Best At Anything?

I took a workplace assessment once to determine my strengths and weaknesses and find better ways to integrate them with the strengths and weaknesses of my teammates. When the results came back, there was one thing that stood out about my strengths, and that was that nothing stood out. There were a number of areas where I scored well enough, but nothing I was particularly good at, though I know myself there are definitely things I’m particularly bad at. The assessor hastened to reassure me that this can be an advantage. I’m a good all-arounder, passably good at a lot of things, even if I’m not excellent at any of them. That’s fine, and I see his point, but in that case I’d at least like to be an excellent all-arounder. Like the best all-arounder around, you know, if I can.

Me, Dorothy, And The Kung Fu Panda

Dorothy Gale (of the Wizard of Oz) and Master Po (the Kung Fu Panda) have something in common. As different as the two characters are, and as different as the styles and storylines of their films are, they both still end up in the same place. Master Po opens the legendary Dragon Scroll expecting power, but finds instead that it is simply a reflective surface. He learns from this that the power he needs is actually in himself, the one being reflected. Similarly, Dorothy travels the Yellow Brick Road all the way to Oz, only to discover that the famous Wizard is just a regular guy and that all along she had the power in herself to achieve her dream. Different stories, different genres, same point: if you’re looking for answers, look inside.