Arnica Anicca
Today’s Enneathought for my personality type: my passion is lust, an addiction to intensity. It's interesting how often that's seen as aggressive (as in how I eat melon) or worse, anger.
A friend asked me "is there a Jewish guy" in the poorly photoshopped web photo above for a CBC comedy program. I tried to listen to the guy on the right but kept getting the uncanny blowhard on the left. I finally found the right shtick, and whoa, what a throwback mix of Borscht Belt humor with a bit of curry. Yes, I was annoyed at the question. People still believe they can spot a Jew by some set of stereotypical looks, despite the offensive (to say the least) history of that notion. Who would have figured Superman to be a Jew by looking at his face? The model was an accountant named Stanley Weiss, according to an article in today’s New York Times. It’s no accident that Superman arrived in a rocket ship like baby Moses in a papyrus basket.
BTW: Perlmutar lost me at his very first joke about Halifax. Only a Canadian would laugh at that! Googling to catch the geographical confusion didn’t do it for me either. But, yes, he is a funny guy, and I’m proud he’s a member of the tribe.
More about annoyance...
The same person asked if I’ll talk at 10pm, even though, I'm usually asleep by then, maybe as a way of challenging my boundaries? At Outward Bound, one of the comments that shook me in the “Give and Take” exercise was a young person saying she wished I would be more flexible. Inflexibility, I’m afraid, seems to be an inevitable aspect of aging. Certain comforting things take on a habitual rhythm; other things, that may be vaguely uncomfortable, become downright intolerable. But maybe “growth” is all about staring down the latter, learning about both the causes of discomfort and how to apply anicca (my favorite word of 2012) when it arises.
BTW: I started 2013 with a pulled back muscle from skiing, and just as quickly as the pain hit me, after 5 days of immobility, it seems to have miraculously disappeared. I think the valium did the trick, but maybe it was the homeopathic arnica pills my wife brought me (my brother suggested arnica gel, but I guess, like so many other things, I didn’t communicate that to her properly). Arnica is from the Greek “arna”, meaning lamb, like Jesus, but for its soft hairy leaves. Anicca is from Pali, the opposite of “nicca”, meaning continuity. Whoa, what strange semiotic harmony… healing is soft impermanence, just like—you know it—breathing!
Or maybe my friend asked if I would talk at 10, fearful of an angry response to a disappointing change of plans? Or it’s just a sign of too little time for the call, just poor planning. I married a (then future) planner, and take great pride in my own planning abilities. But I'm a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde about it: relying as much if not more on gut spontaneity, loving to figure out detailed itineraries while hating to be told what to do or following them strictly, and getting "stuck" in extended periods such as this where I seem unable to plan anything at all beyond the present. (I was so immobilized by pain yesterday that I missed an Icarus Session with Seth Godin yesterday.)
When I’m busy healing, I think, I need to turn off my planning faculties entirely to create space for unplanned opportunities and to shake myself out of habitual patterns. Or is it actually just an isolationist habit. For my Type 8, the Enneagram folks call it disintegrating to Type 5. In Getting the Love you Want, Harville Hendrix says that in every relationship, one person is a fuser, the other an isolationist. I wonder whether both partners can sometimes have both instincts. That it’s more a matter of trying to create a balanced rhythm of push and pulls, experiencing the full spectrum of fusion and separation, and appreciating all of their attendant joys and sorrows.
Or, especially for types like me, learning how to appreciate the lack of intensity in between, that is, the mere push and pull of breathing.
