So You Want To Change Your Life…
In the ‘normal’ run of things
life just goes on,
following its inertia,
and we are immersed in our daily cares
and rituals.
Then something happens,
an eventual Awakening,
a secular version of a miracle
(social emancipatory tumult, a traumatic love encounter…).
If we opt for fidelity to this Event,
our entire life changes;
we are engaged in the ‘work of love’
and endeavor to inscribe the Event
into our reality.
….what remains of it in its aftermath,
when its ecstatic energy is exhausted
and things return to normality
how is this normality different
from the pre-eventual one?
Excerpt The Courage of Hopelessness
By Slavoj Zizek p. 79
How do I choose, how do I appropriate, seize productive change in my life? How do I achieve liberation from being dragged along by the ‘tyranny of the immediate.’ How to be released from the oppression of mind that results from being assaulted willy-nilly by negative, violent reports….. These questions are various forms of my search for renewal, for allowing life to infuse my consciousness, the time that I have here and now.
There is a clue in these lines written by Zizek. The eventual Awakening may be something as subtle as being called by name by the barista at Starbucks. It may be as minor as noting the color of a maple leaf picked up by my grandson from the concrete surface of the sidewalk. One side of the leaf is variegated, flame-like shades of orange, and the backside is a uniform tan. My grandson noticed the difference and asked why? I did not know why.
Any number of occasions may serve as an Awakening. The question is whether I will opt for fidelity to the event, doing the work of love to incorporate it into my life.
