(This is Part 2 of a 2-part article. Go back to Part 1.)
There was a long period in my life when I was very interested in being, and appearing, "spiritual." I conceived of a spiritual person as being someone who never got irritated, never got depressed or fearful or whacked-out, and who always at every moment was calm and serene.
I no longer have any interest in that. What does interest me these days is to bring as much conscousness and compassion as I can to each moment and situation, and then let the outcome or the appearance be whatever they happen to be.
What I notice is that we human beings are bundles of contradictions. One moment we can be thoughtful, the next thoughtless. We can attend church and feel very uplifted, and two hours later want randy sex with our lover. We can be very generous at some moments and very selfish at others. We're a more or less continual mixture of contradictions.
Part of my interest these days is to embrace all of that, to really embrace my own contradictions and humanity, to really embrace the contradictions and humanity of others, and to really embrace the seeming contradictions of existence itself.
Consequently, I have no interest these days in appearing to be a teacher, guru, prophet, saint, enlightened being or anything else. Much too confining. No fun! I'm much more interested in embracing the darkness as well as the light, the defeats as well as the victories, the stumbles as well as the good judgments—I notice the Absolute has no problem about containing both, so why should I?
To that end, perhaps it will serve some purpose to continue the catalog of my own apparent frailties:
At one time or another, for example, I've smoked a lot of pot, taken a lot of psychodelic drugs, tried all kinds of crazy things. Some of them were quite helpful, actually. Others I labeled "mistakes" and put myself down.
I no longer think it's possible for anyone to make a "mistake"—in part, because nothing could ever have happened any differently than it did—but if I did believe such a notion, well then, I've certainly made my share.
But one of the things I love these days about this amazing thing we call "being human" is precisely that it carries with it these beautiful contradictions and foibles and so on. I no longer think it's possible to be human without containing such things. And I want to embrace them all, every one of them, every last bit of them.
As another example, I've also been thoughtless countless times, and I do mean countless times, and sometimes that has resulted in unintentionally hurting other people, which I regret. And when I was younger, occasionally it was even intentional too.
Have I "transcended" being thoughtless? Not at all. Just yesterday I unintentionally offended someone's feelings and found myself apologizing. So it goes. Perhaps it sounds a little crazy, but now I love this humanness of myself and others.
I've got my share of neurotic stuff as well, I'm clear about that. For instance, I'm something of a perfectionist. My shoes are all lined up in a row; it's hilarious. People come over, they say, "Jimmy, why are your shoes all lined up in a neat row?" I don't know.
The thing is, I just seem to love that I am that way; it seems kind of dear to me. And if I go over to a friend's house and their shoes are all over the place, I love that too. Okay, I'm ready for the men in the white coats now.
Naturally, this anal quality has its "good" side as well, or shall we say an interesting side-effect, like when I work on some creative project I usually don't stop until I can't think of any way at all to improve it, and I flatter myself that this tends to produce better products.
Now of course by the time the product gets reproduced I can usually think of all kinds of ways that it could be "better," but by then it's too late. However, I try to keep in mind the admirable Steve Jobs' dictum that "True artists ship," and in my comical efforts to aspire to true artistry I do actually ship products now and then.
It's clear, though, that embracing my own imperfections (and the world's) doesn't mean being a doormat or being passive or condoning hurtful acts or acting out every little impulse that comes along or anything like that.
What it does mean is embracing it all inside and outside —when I do—and then the inner guide, or whatever we want to call that mystery, acts. And there's no predicting that action—it just goes wherever it goes and looks like whatever it looks like.
Anyway, I'm about as "imperfect" as you'll ever find, and yet, fortunately or unfortunately, I can't seem to reject that "imperfection" anymore, either in myself or in you or in the world. I revere reality, however it is or wants to be.
Externally "I" may or may not act on any given impulse or request—it comes out however it does—but internally I love that it's all there inside, a full palette. I love that I'm so imperfect. I love that the world is so imperfect.
I suppose it's off the deep end, but I just can't help anymore but be in love with all that imperfection everywhere. To me imperfection has become the very definition of perfection itself.
So the anonymous person who wrote that email is right: I'm a "scumbag shyster," a "false prophet," someone who "can't deliver the happiness you promise," etc., all of it. And clearly I failed to deliver any happiness in her case, even if I had any to deliver, which I don't. So—QED.
And actually, I love the qualities of that email. Its arrow is aimed so deeply, and it has such a beautiful ferocity about it, that I can't help but admire it. It seems like a kind of beautiful poetry to me.
It reminds me of the time when I was a kid that another kid wanted to hurt me and called me "the abominable Sloman." What really stopped me in my tracks was the sheer inventiveness of the phrase; I just had to admire such fierce creativity.
It also reminds me of when Fletcher Christian (Marlon Brando) in One-Eyed Jacks calls someone a "scum-sucking pig." Wow, I always thought that was the greatest phrase. But I don't know—"scumbag shyster" just might have it beat.
Mr. Scumbag Shyster. I love that I'm so truly revealed at last. To be nailed so wonderfully feels kind of bracing, like a fresh breeze in the rain. No, it's not like being warmed by the sun, exactly, but there's something so incredibly beautiful, too, about those wet drops of rain falling upon my face.
—jim sloman, 8/24/02 for 10/13/02
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